Hi, I was wondering if anyone has bought one of the Etech Motion ebikes, I like the ecargo bike or the E1S model. I like the price of the E1S but prefer the ecargo bike. The cargo one has 250W legal motor but says it can pull 200k. Whereas the E1S 400W can pull only 150k. https://etechmotion.co.uk/Electric-Bikes-c52984021?gclid=CjwKCAjw9e6SBhB2EiwA5myr9lFHQk576SJRiAXXF7Fzmgcbym7xsLY6A8PoW9OVy0JYBjzcps_WTRoCS7oQAvD_BwE
Etech Motion ebikes
- Thread starter Deadeye
- Start date
They look similar to most cheap folding ebikes, probably alright for the money.
Bizarre looking rear suspension with four coil springs and then one further spring in the down tube.
Very heavy as well, the one you mentioned is 35kg, although they do list lighter weight models.
As a comparison my Mirider weighs 17kg
Bizarre looking rear suspension with four coil springs and then one further spring in the down tube.
Very heavy as well, the one you mentioned is 35kg, although they do list lighter weight models.
As a comparison my Mirider weighs 17kg
For about the same money (£1200), you could buy a "known-brand" Radrunner. It gets (mostly) very favourable reviews from a wide range of users. Rad has a large/loyal fan base: It's almost the default choice for a low-cost, versatile/adaptable/proven cargo e-bike... so much so, Fiido has started making a reasonably close copy of it called the T1.
The Radrunner looks good. lt's not a folding bike though, so it depends on what you want. lt's also quite heavy.
The Mirider is great (l've got one) but it's £1500. The Onebot is okay and it's half the price, uses the same frame as the Mirider....it's not as good but it's great if you only have £700 to spend.
My friend has the Onebot and we've been out together on the bikes. The Onebot will effectively do the same job and feels similar to ride. The brakes aren't as good, but they work. The range isn't as good and it's not quite as fast, but you'd only notice if your friend had a Mirider.
The controller doesn't work as well but again, it works okay. The Onebot doesn't have as much adjustment on the saddle height but as long as you are under 6ft it will adjust high enough.
Both bikes have a novel elastomer rear suspension which works great to smooth out the bumps on rougher tracks and paths. lt seems to work just as well on the Onebot, although you might want to fit a new saddle as it's much harder than the Mirider despite looking very similar.
The Mirider is great (l've got one) but it's £1500. The Onebot is okay and it's half the price, uses the same frame as the Mirider....it's not as good but it's great if you only have £700 to spend.
My friend has the Onebot and we've been out together on the bikes. The Onebot will effectively do the same job and feels similar to ride. The brakes aren't as good, but they work. The range isn't as good and it's not quite as fast, but you'd only notice if your friend had a Mirider.
The controller doesn't work as well but again, it works okay. The Onebot doesn't have as much adjustment on the saddle height but as long as you are under 6ft it will adjust high enough.
Both bikes have a novel elastomer rear suspension which works great to smooth out the bumps on rougher tracks and paths. lt seems to work just as well on the Onebot, although you might want to fit a new saddle as it's much harder than the Mirider despite looking very similar.
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I looked at Radrunner, I couldn't find a UK dealer, I would like a UK address in case of having to send it away for repair, or any problems. I looked at the Fiido cargo bike too, again I couldn't find a UK dealer. Etech are based in Birmingham, and the 1ES model is only about £800, and says it pulls 150K and is fast (when not pulling heavy weights). Thanks for your message.
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Your one looks great for commuting and light and portable and your friends one look ok too, my reasons for buying aren't really for being portable and light. I am carrying gardening tools on and pulling a trailer.
I like the Etech 1ES because it has a long range and is nippy and said to pull 150K, and has a rear rack (or whatever you call it} for putting panniers and a box on for carrying stuff. Thanks for letting me know though.
Both Rad and Fiido sell direct to consumer; no dealer in the middle should equate to more bike. Rad ship to the UK from the EU. Fiido have a UK warehouse and have a few dealers who repair and support their bikes, but mostly Fiido will send parts direct to you and have a gallery of "how-to" repair videos. It's all pretty simple if you're comfortable with basic bike maintenance.
The issue(s) with the E1S as I see it is A) it's sold out, B) with a 400w motor, throttle, and 25mph, it's not UK road legal as the 250w E1 is. The small wheels won't ride as well as a Rad or T1, and it has no gears. If hauling weight up hills, having no gears might be a problem.
The Mirider would be no use to you then!
Decathlon sell some pretty decent e-mountain bikes for around the £1,000 mark and it might be worth a look. Plus you'll have somewhere to take it back to if there's any issues with it.
Both the bikes below are around the £1,000 mark and the specification on both is very good for the money.
Decathlon sell some pretty decent e-mountain bikes for around the £1,000 mark and it might be worth a look. Plus you'll have somewhere to take it back to if there's any issues with it.
Both the bikes below are around the £1,000 mark and the specification on both is very good for the money.
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Do you know a link where I can see a T1 online in a UK dealers website please? Have looked and can't find it. I thought the T1 spec wasn't UK legal from what I read.
Sometimes you don't know what the problem is that needs fixing as with my e-scooter, which is sitting here broken for months.
The electric should kick in going up hills shouldn't it? or you use the throttle.
Both Rad and Fiido have different versions for the US and EU/UK market - the US have more powerful motors/top speed and throttles as that's legal in many States there. There are places you can day-hire Rad bikes to test them out before ordering. The T1 doesn't come to the UK until next month. I'd think dealers like Vive and BicycleLand (both London) will probably stock it.
I don't know how Rad deal with issues, but with Fiido you just send a short video of the problem: Fiido diagnose the issue, send you the parts and point you to the relevant video so you can fix the issue yourself, or else you get a warranty certificate you can take to one of their nominated shops who'll fix it for you. AFAICS it seems to work well (there's an active facebook group who confirm that and are quite helpful too).
It depends how much weight you're hauling and how steep the hill(s), but a hub motor isn't going to do all the work - it's "pedal assist", not a powered moped. I'd want gears if you're loading panniers, top-box, and towing a trailer up hills too.
The best bike for that kind of work is going to be one of the mid drive ones, such as the Bosch motor.
They have twice the torque of your average legal hub motor and also work through your gears, so you can climb hills better. They start at about £2,000
They have twice the torque of your average legal hub motor and also work through your gears, so you can climb hills better. They start at about £2,000
It doesn't sound as if the OP is too hands-on, but for my money, I'd learn from those members here already hauling cargo and do a build; that seems to offer the best bang for your buck being tailored to best suit the purpose you're going to put the bike to.
Current discussions IIRC include @guerney using a Dahon with BBS01 mid-drive to haul pumpkins in a trailer, and @Nealh building his mid-powered TSDZ2 Kona to (presumably) haul Bee-Juice?
It seems to me that the trouble with most off-the-shelf e-cargo bikes is they're built to offer wide appeal to suit a multitude of uses, so by definition you end up with a compromise. How much better to balance the weight you need to carry, the type of cargo you need to carry, the terrain you need to cover, the torque/speed/gearing you're going to need, and the budget you have to spend? A second-hand frame and a mid-drive kit will likely offer a cheaper overall solution to give the OP an e-cargo bike that's much better suited to what they specifically want to do with it... and that probably does mean mid-drive.
With the expert guidance available on this (and other) forums it seems anything is possible, even for those who don't yet know one end of a battery from the other.
My bbs01b converted bike has managed to regularly heave myself plus up to 66kg of pumpkins up hills. It felt a little sluggish but coped well. Towing 40kg cargo in a 15.54kg trailer will be lighter and easier, as I won't have a mega heavy rucksack painfully digging into my spine, or destroying pannier bags.
A dedicated cargo bike with carrying bucket is a long bike and requires good access for it, for kids it might be ideal esp at the front to keep an eye on them. For general cargo carrying and bulky errand running a trailer allows any bike to be used without having to have bespoke type of design.
If the bike is just for shopping then a long tail type bike with oversized panniers will do the job, it all depends on the users needs
A hub motor will be as good as a mid drive, one still has a range of gears and a bit more current to give if a current controller is used. For my needs 12- 14mph is more than ample speed for towing and often or not towing or cargo bikes aren't generally used over massive distances unless touring or used for transport as a day job.
As we also saw with georgehenrys bike he uses the ortlieb panniers that can extend to carry a lot of stuff.
If the bike is just for shopping then a long tail type bike with oversized panniers will do the job, it all depends on the users needs
A hub motor will be as good as a mid drive, one still has a range of gears and a bit more current to give if a current controller is used. For my needs 12- 14mph is more than ample speed for towing and often or not towing or cargo bikes aren't generally used over massive distances unless touring or used for transport as a day job.
As we also saw with georgehenrys bike he uses the ortlieb panniers that can extend to carry a lot of stuff.
The hub drive is okay but in a mid drive motor the power is transmitted through the chain, so on steep hills you can get more torque and also it's better when starting off, by using the gears.
On a hub drive, while you still have gears they only help you to put more torque through the pedals and on steep hills particularly towing a trailer the motor would struggle to provide enough assistance.
Obviously l am talking here about 250w "legal" motors, if you've got a sodding great 1,000 watt hub drive there won't be an issue with performance
On a hub drive, while you still have gears they only help you to put more torque through the pedals and on steep hills particularly towing a trailer the motor would struggle to provide enough assistance.
Obviously l am talking here about 250w "legal" motors, if you've got a sodding great 1,000 watt hub drive there won't be an issue with performance
Slightly misleading. Ranges are dependent on the rider weight,inc clothing, and luggage. The tye of weather, the terrain.
So the range is calculated using a lightweight rider wearing minimum clothing,
on very smooth,very flat ground without so much as an incline and not a breath of wind and on the lowest assistance setting.
In reality the riders is going to be average to heavier weight, the ground undulating to pot holey, probably carrying a bag, maybe a bit of shopping. and given most countries have hills, thats going to impact significantly on the range.
How can one try and compare one is a folding bike with cadence hub and the other likely a non folder with a TS drive they are chalk and cheese. If trying to compare then both bikes and systems should be as similar as possible.
I tow a heavy trailer with a front wheel hub with no issues and that is on a gravelly rough part loose surface bike trail. The hub is a tiny 250w bafang, it won't win any prizes for being the fastest or winning a race but is more then up to doing the job it is needed for, that said I can ride it unassisted at 19/20 mph without the trailer.
Anyone who doesn't realise that a motor is better driving a bicycle wheel through a gearbox wasn't listening in Physics at school.
Sure the hub drive will work. But the mid drive will work a whole lot better.
Actually both bikes are more similar than you think, after all they both have the same 250w motor power and l've got the Shimano set to "eco" which is a similar torque output to the hub drive in the Mirider
Obviously the Kona system has a torque sensor and increases power the more effort you put in, and the Mirider motor is either "on" or "off" but as l ride both bikes flat out anyway the power delivery doesn't feel that different.
l would say that the hub motor might actually be better off in the front wheel, having just spent nearly an hour removing and replacing the rear wheel to change a disc.
l hope l never get a rear puncture....l'll be walking home!
l've also noticed that the mid drive engages as soon as you start to turn the pedals, where the hub motor takes a second to engage. l am guessing this is because if it engaged instantly then the bike would tend to lurch forward as it is of course engaging with full power.
To overcome this
The Mirider has a "boost" button on the bars to provide instant thrust to get you going on hills.
Sure the hub drive will work. But the mid drive will work a whole lot better.
Actually both bikes are more similar than you think, after all they both have the same 250w motor power and l've got the Shimano set to "eco" which is a similar torque output to the hub drive in the Mirider
Obviously the Kona system has a torque sensor and increases power the more effort you put in, and the Mirider motor is either "on" or "off" but as l ride both bikes flat out anyway the power delivery doesn't feel that different.
l would say that the hub motor might actually be better off in the front wheel, having just spent nearly an hour removing and replacing the rear wheel to change a disc.
l hope l never get a rear puncture....l'll be walking home!
l've also noticed that the mid drive engages as soon as you start to turn the pedals, where the hub motor takes a second to engage. l am guessing this is because if it engaged instantly then the bike would tend to lurch forward as it is of course engaging with full power.
To overcome this
The Mirider has a "boost" button on the bars to provide instant thrust to get you going on hills.
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Yep, Mirider quote a 50 mile range, to get that you have to ride on flat ground at moderate speed in assist level 1 (from 5)
Ridden more enthusiastically l can rinse the battery in 1/4 that distance, although with a little care l can manage 16-18 miles
Kona quote "up to 60 miles" range on my E8000 equipped mountain bike but l've never got near that, even on the road, in real world mixed on/off road riding l am lucky to see half that figure.
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