First Ride of an Ebike

[Audio2]

I borrowed a friend's ebike today, but was very disappointed. You appeared to need to pedal to about 6 mph before assistance started & it did not appear to be very powerful. Admittedly it is a cheap bike from an EU supermarket. Rear hub motor & rear rack battery, 3 levels of assistance, but either I could not get it to change level or there was little difference. The only thing written on the frame is EBike Casual.

Does anyone have any further details about this bike or what I was doing wrong.

 

[Nealh]

Depends on the controller,battery and the motor fitted. The motor might only be a weedy 20nm one or so.
The three speed led is likely speed control so current will be the same in each PAS and only speed will vary.
It is what it is, a leisure/pootling/errand bike. Not built built/designed to compete with the SW's of this world.
For about < £100 it can be upgraded to be something better with a new electronic package that uses current control.

 

[sjpt]

Probably a rubbish bike. The battery may be almost flat. What's that thing that looks like a tyre shredder attached to the seat stays in the first few photos?

 

[Audio2]

Sorry it is not my bike, I am not sure what it is. I had better try a couple of other bikes.

 

[Tarka]

Try a decent model, you will not be disappointed.

There is a lot of cheap rubbish about, like most things in life, quality costs, buy cheap, buy twice.

 

[vfr400]

It looks quite a neat bike. You get the same power in each level on the control panel, but you get a different cut-off speed instead. Is it 24V or 36V? 24V is often a bit weedy.

The need to get up to 6mph is a bit weird. I've never heard of that before. Some motor controllers have a big delay on the pedal sensor, like 2 seconds. Is that what you experienced? Those sort of controllers were quite common 10 years ago, but they've more or less died out now. Modern ones have a much quicker response time.

 

[Chris M]

You can easily tell when you are on a proper ebike - you smile as soon as you start to pedal!
This one sounds like a right lemon.

 

[Audio2]

Thanks for the responses, no smiles on this one. VFR400 your probably right about the delay, pedalled about 30 yards before assistant.

 

[Audio2]

Assistance

 

[Nealh]

Assistance

You were probably correct in the post before .
You need an assistant in front to tow you along

 

[Leecleary89]

Hi Audio2, definitely sounds like you had a bad experience on your first ebike. I've tested several ebikes and can also confirm that you would be amazed how easy / fun they can be if you get the right one.

Maybe have a visit to halfords and take one for a free test ride, then you can be confident that the one you went on was definitely a lemon.

Best regards

Lee

 

[Audio2]

I enjoyed your comment about assistant.

 

[Wicky]

A few years back when interested I was intersted in pedelecs the only place local to try out one was a Giant dealer with a cooking model granny pedelec and to be frank it was pants from just riding up and nr by the shop. Luckily there was a dealers test day held at a specialised cycle track with a variety of different eye opening better performing models - so search for a better test ride...

 

[sjpt]

Halfords arrange 1/2 hour test rides if you ask in advance. And some their ebikes are quite good.

 

[brac]

book a 2 day trial with halfords, its free and you will know then

 

[sjpt]

Only very few Halfords offer the 2 day trail. We were lucky here (Winchester) that Halfords is on the edge of town and close to a 'typical' local hill so 1/2 hour was enough to give a good idea. My wife and I took out two different bikes and swapped half way. In our case it told us that neither was suitable for different reasons; but did give us a much better idea of what we did want. (step through and hub gears).

 

[Audio2]

Booked a 48 hour test of a Carrera Crossfire-E bike for this Wednesday. How does the power & hill climbing ability of the Suntour hub compare to Woosh's XF07 kit?

 

[sjpt]

Note that there have been lots of issues with the Crossfire; see several threads on this forum. The Crossfuse has much better reports (at a much higher price). It may be they have sorted the Crossfire, but be aware.

Not sure how it compares with the XF07. We are really pleased with our XF07. It really helps our tandem along, but it does need quite a bit of help from us on the steeper hills ... it isn't really designed to pull two people.

 

[MarcusT]

I have never seen an ebike with rim brakes, but then, I don't look at the super market brands.
Looks like a loser to me

 

[sjpt]

Several good quality ebikes had rim brakes a couple of years ago, including our Raleigh Motus. They are more than adequate for our needs.