Help! Which ebike will deal with hills for my commute?

Bike & Tina Turner

Just Joined
Jun 24, 2023
4
1
Ahoy. I'm a current owner of a Decathlon Oxylane Tilt 100, a single gear foldy, and poor 5'3" can't cope with the hills I'm faced on my ride home. I'd dearly love a lightweight folding ebike, but they don't seem to exist unless you're willing to fork out near enough £5k (spoilers: I am not). I'm very tempted by the Estarli E20 fold or E28 mountain style, the latter especially as it's only 16kg, but I'm not sure if it'd meet my needs for going up hills power-wise. I am very attracted to the look of an ebike that has all the "e" aspects quite well hidden, as I'd rather not advertise that I'm riding one.

I'm not entirely against converting one of my current bikes, but the Tilt only has 1 gear, and my Raleigh 90s mountain bike probably isn't the best option to convert as it's very heavy, only has rim brakes and the gears leave a lot to be desired where reliability changing to the right gear is concerned. Willing to have my mind changed though if someone thinks it's worth it.

For what it's worth I weigh about 65kg, so I don't need a heavy duty frame. Budget is ideally sub £2k, but I could be flexible for the right bike that'll last me a long time.

TL;DR:
  • Must be suitable for hills above all else
  • Likely to use for some mild offroading on grass/dirt/sand occasionally
  • Don't really mind what style frame
  • Mountain bike tyres preferred, definitely no racing tyres as they're no use where I live
  • I'm 65kg, 5'3"
  • Potentially have a fold or a mountain bike I could convert if people think it's worth the effort
  • £2k-ish budget that I'm willing to stretch if something will last me 10+ years

Any tried and tested suggestions would be appreciated. Finding bikes isn't the hard part, but finding bikes that have a good reputation and are well reviewed is really hard, moreso to try and see any in person, and given that most are £1k+ it's a lot of money to drop on something blindly. There are so many options out there and it's head spinning to know where to start. :( Thanks!
 
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soundwave

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 23, 2015
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StuartsProjects

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 9, 2021
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One thing you should be aware of is that you have directly asked for advice on an 'illegal' eBike.

Forum rules state;

"You agree to not use the Service to submit or link to any Content which is defamatory, abusive, hateful, threatening, spam or spam-like, likely to offend, contains adult or objectionable content, contains personal information of others, risks copyright infringement, encourages unlawful activity, or otherwise violates any laws."
 

Bike & Tina Turner

Just Joined
Jun 24, 2023
4
1
One thing you should be aware of is that you have directly asked for advice on an 'illegal' eBike.

Forum rules state;

"You agree to not use the Service to submit or link to any Content which is defamatory, abusive, hateful, threatening, spam or spam-like, likely to offend, contains adult or objectionable content, contains personal information of others, risks copyright infringement, encourages unlawful activity, or otherwise violates any laws."
I guess I'll amend the post! I just assumed it was fine since I saw a post a few down very explicitly asking how to mod a bike, no comments mentioned in that about legality.