Review – Boardman Team Hybrid custom fitted with a Bafang BBS01b by Brighton eBikes
Total cost approx. £1,400
This is going to be a very long review, apologies in advance. It seems to me that there is such a huge diversity regarding what people are looking for from an eBike, that I wanted to give as much context as possible as to how I ended up with this one and what I expected of it. To help you combat the verbosity, I’ve split it into sections, so you can skip to any part you might be interested in.
Cycling background
I’m now 50, and I guess I’ve been cycling for about 10 years in a moderate-if-fair-weather kind of way. To me, there’s nothing better on a hot sunny day than a cycle round the local area – the uphills can be brutal, but the downhills of course divine. Come rain, cold or monstrous headwind however, and the fun goes fast, I’ll be honest. We have very mixed terrain near me in Kent, UK – there’s a decent amount of flat running east-west leading to moderate hills, then north-south you get the horror hills. After I’ve been riding for 2 or 3 months in the year (I don’t even think about it until the weather has begun to warm up a bit), I can make it up one of these great climbs at a dead slow pace. Usually that’s about it – at that point I’m seeking flats and downhills back to home. So my rides tend to be quite limited, and not especially long, usually between 45 and 90 mins. Typically I’m around an average of between 12-14mph depending on the route, wind and how late into the season it is – I’m faster later. Part of the cycling attraction is keeping fit, I tend to run 4-5k on alternate days with cycling if work and weather permit. In summary – well below the level of a serious club rider, but making some kind of moderate effort.
Meanwhile, we have only one car and often I only have the bike to get about. That’s fine for popping into town, but not so much for neighbouring towns. Crucially, the local cinema is a very tortuous and hilly route away. However, that is changing this summer with a new cycle route. Still hilly, but now direct and safe. It was then I had the thought…. Hmm, an Electric Bike would be perfect for that. Quick, and sweat-free so I’m able to just see a movie the Mrs isn’t interested in without me stinking the place out and suffering heart palpitations. And if I needed to pop into a different town on chores, its much more doable.
And it was then I started to wonder about it for local rides too. I quickly learned about the 15.5mph speed limit, and figured I could still pedal the flats and gentle downhills, then get help up the hills which would theoretically enable me to explore the local routes further and with much more variety.
So I started to develop a competing set of demands from my bike-to-be. On the one hand, I’d like it to be able to pull me up hills and drag me through headwinds with zero effort on my part, using it as a car replacement. On the other, I sought a regular bike on steroids (what an apt analogy that feels) enabling me to put in pretty much as much effort as I ever have on a ride, only hugely increasing my speed and range.
Tried but found wanting
My first port of call was the Eco Expedition, a converted Mountain Bike. I actually liked it very much as a bike, but it wasn’t really what I wanted, which was a road bike. I looked into changing tyres, gears etc to get some more pedal speed on the flat, but it would have cost hundreds and in the end still be a Mountain Bike at heart.
Second was the Kudos Stealth / Alamo (both of these companies are based in my home county of Kent). Loved the look of it, seemed to ride pretty well as a bike, and handled the modest hill with apparent ease (as did the Eco Expedition). It was much more of a road bike. But something didn’t feel quite right – the motor and bike didn’t quite seem so joined up, as it were, there was a lot of competing gearing / power assisting to get the hang of. Also while the frame-embedded battery looked slick, I was concerned that I might be stuck in the future with a replacement. I asked here on the forum, and most gave the same advice – buy a good regular bike, and get it converted with a crank drive. OK - what, I wondered, is a crank drive all about?
Both of the bikes I’d tried were hub drive – the motor very unobtrusive, hidden in the rear wheel. This was fine more moderate hills, but doesn’t work anything like as well on the really tough 12% and up hills I have near me. Apparently this is all about torque – it works the same way regardless of the gear you’re in, and lacks power on the hill climbs (analogous perhaps to trying to pedal up hill in a high gear). So if the hill is too steep, the bike simply can’t make it up under its own steam. The crank drive solves that problem by working with whatever gear you’re in – it’s right on your pedals (the motor hangs just beneath the frame there), so it works with your cadence and even steep hills become possible in an appropriate gear. I was always concerned about weight too (not just mine – I’m over-wanting-to-be-under 14st). I wanted as light a bike as possible for self-power on the flat. Both bikes I’d tried were relatively good at around 19-20kg. Some eBikes are nearly 30, really only designed for electric power, and I wanted to have my cake and eat it. By going down the custom conversion route, I found a combination that was closer to 18kg – still hardly a road bike, but all heading in the right direction and better than anything off the shelf, it seemed.
The Boardman Team Hybrid - unmodified
As luck would have it, this was on sale for £450 as I looked around Halfords, and it got rave reviews for value from seemingly everyone at its non-sale price. Carbon Fibre forks, 20 gears (2 x 10) and around 11kg weight. I didn’t want drop handlebars, so this was the perfect road-end-of-a-hybrid. And it was a Boardman.
Better buy a decent lock, I thought.
My old bike was an £88 27-speed rusting Chinese hybrid wonder, 10 years and counting on the clock, souped up to be as roadworthy as possible. The Boardman couldn’t go quite as low gear-wise but clearly this was a better bike in every other way. Silent to ride, I was a bit quicker up moderate hills with the lighter frame. Steep uphills though were too much for it /me (lacking that third ring), but at the other end I was keeping going at some 28mph at the foot of a short local hill, pedalling to maintain speed til a T junction spoiled the fun. It slipped gears when changing occasionally, but that would be a simple tweak for Halfords at the 6 week check in I figured.
It was actually quite tough coming to terms with the conversion, since I’d lose the 2 front rings to be replaced by the single from the Bafang - down to a mere 10 gears (hub drives by contrast can keep all gears intact). But, I reasoned, most of the point of the eBike really was helping with hills, right? So what if I lost something there manually? I really liked the idea of having some help, but working hard to bomb up even the nasty climbs at 15mph (in vain, I tried to explain this to a suspicious and better-cycling wife – “I will still exercise, honest, just FASTER!”). The ring would go from 50 teeth to 46, which means I’d loose a little maximum flat speed, but hopefully not too much. And as long as I can get up those steep hills either slowly without any effort from me when I’m done for the day - or - blisteringly fast with a lot of effort from me if I still have the legs, then that’s all that counts, right?
[REVIEW CONTINUED ON NEXT POST]
Total cost approx. £1,400
This is going to be a very long review, apologies in advance. It seems to me that there is such a huge diversity regarding what people are looking for from an eBike, that I wanted to give as much context as possible as to how I ended up with this one and what I expected of it. To help you combat the verbosity, I’ve split it into sections, so you can skip to any part you might be interested in.
Cycling background
I’m now 50, and I guess I’ve been cycling for about 10 years in a moderate-if-fair-weather kind of way. To me, there’s nothing better on a hot sunny day than a cycle round the local area – the uphills can be brutal, but the downhills of course divine. Come rain, cold or monstrous headwind however, and the fun goes fast, I’ll be honest. We have very mixed terrain near me in Kent, UK – there’s a decent amount of flat running east-west leading to moderate hills, then north-south you get the horror hills. After I’ve been riding for 2 or 3 months in the year (I don’t even think about it until the weather has begun to warm up a bit), I can make it up one of these great climbs at a dead slow pace. Usually that’s about it – at that point I’m seeking flats and downhills back to home. So my rides tend to be quite limited, and not especially long, usually between 45 and 90 mins. Typically I’m around an average of between 12-14mph depending on the route, wind and how late into the season it is – I’m faster later. Part of the cycling attraction is keeping fit, I tend to run 4-5k on alternate days with cycling if work and weather permit. In summary – well below the level of a serious club rider, but making some kind of moderate effort.
Meanwhile, we have only one car and often I only have the bike to get about. That’s fine for popping into town, but not so much for neighbouring towns. Crucially, the local cinema is a very tortuous and hilly route away. However, that is changing this summer with a new cycle route. Still hilly, but now direct and safe. It was then I had the thought…. Hmm, an Electric Bike would be perfect for that. Quick, and sweat-free so I’m able to just see a movie the Mrs isn’t interested in without me stinking the place out and suffering heart palpitations. And if I needed to pop into a different town on chores, its much more doable.
And it was then I started to wonder about it for local rides too. I quickly learned about the 15.5mph speed limit, and figured I could still pedal the flats and gentle downhills, then get help up the hills which would theoretically enable me to explore the local routes further and with much more variety.
So I started to develop a competing set of demands from my bike-to-be. On the one hand, I’d like it to be able to pull me up hills and drag me through headwinds with zero effort on my part, using it as a car replacement. On the other, I sought a regular bike on steroids (what an apt analogy that feels) enabling me to put in pretty much as much effort as I ever have on a ride, only hugely increasing my speed and range.
Tried but found wanting
My first port of call was the Eco Expedition, a converted Mountain Bike. I actually liked it very much as a bike, but it wasn’t really what I wanted, which was a road bike. I looked into changing tyres, gears etc to get some more pedal speed on the flat, but it would have cost hundreds and in the end still be a Mountain Bike at heart.
Second was the Kudos Stealth / Alamo (both of these companies are based in my home county of Kent). Loved the look of it, seemed to ride pretty well as a bike, and handled the modest hill with apparent ease (as did the Eco Expedition). It was much more of a road bike. But something didn’t feel quite right – the motor and bike didn’t quite seem so joined up, as it were, there was a lot of competing gearing / power assisting to get the hang of. Also while the frame-embedded battery looked slick, I was concerned that I might be stuck in the future with a replacement. I asked here on the forum, and most gave the same advice – buy a good regular bike, and get it converted with a crank drive. OK - what, I wondered, is a crank drive all about?
Both of the bikes I’d tried were hub drive – the motor very unobtrusive, hidden in the rear wheel. This was fine more moderate hills, but doesn’t work anything like as well on the really tough 12% and up hills I have near me. Apparently this is all about torque – it works the same way regardless of the gear you’re in, and lacks power on the hill climbs (analogous perhaps to trying to pedal up hill in a high gear). So if the hill is too steep, the bike simply can’t make it up under its own steam. The crank drive solves that problem by working with whatever gear you’re in – it’s right on your pedals (the motor hangs just beneath the frame there), so it works with your cadence and even steep hills become possible in an appropriate gear. I was always concerned about weight too (not just mine – I’m over-wanting-to-be-under 14st). I wanted as light a bike as possible for self-power on the flat. Both bikes I’d tried were relatively good at around 19-20kg. Some eBikes are nearly 30, really only designed for electric power, and I wanted to have my cake and eat it. By going down the custom conversion route, I found a combination that was closer to 18kg – still hardly a road bike, but all heading in the right direction and better than anything off the shelf, it seemed.
The Boardman Team Hybrid - unmodified
As luck would have it, this was on sale for £450 as I looked around Halfords, and it got rave reviews for value from seemingly everyone at its non-sale price. Carbon Fibre forks, 20 gears (2 x 10) and around 11kg weight. I didn’t want drop handlebars, so this was the perfect road-end-of-a-hybrid. And it was a Boardman.
Better buy a decent lock, I thought.
My old bike was an £88 27-speed rusting Chinese hybrid wonder, 10 years and counting on the clock, souped up to be as roadworthy as possible. The Boardman couldn’t go quite as low gear-wise but clearly this was a better bike in every other way. Silent to ride, I was a bit quicker up moderate hills with the lighter frame. Steep uphills though were too much for it /me (lacking that third ring), but at the other end I was keeping going at some 28mph at the foot of a short local hill, pedalling to maintain speed til a T junction spoiled the fun. It slipped gears when changing occasionally, but that would be a simple tweak for Halfords at the 6 week check in I figured.
It was actually quite tough coming to terms with the conversion, since I’d lose the 2 front rings to be replaced by the single from the Bafang - down to a mere 10 gears (hub drives by contrast can keep all gears intact). But, I reasoned, most of the point of the eBike really was helping with hills, right? So what if I lost something there manually? I really liked the idea of having some help, but working hard to bomb up even the nasty climbs at 15mph (in vain, I tried to explain this to a suspicious and better-cycling wife – “I will still exercise, honest, just FASTER!”). The ring would go from 50 teeth to 46, which means I’d loose a little maximum flat speed, but hopefully not too much. And as long as I can get up those steep hills either slowly without any effort from me when I’m done for the day - or - blisteringly fast with a lot of effort from me if I still have the legs, then that’s all that counts, right?
[REVIEW CONTINUED ON NEXT POST]
