I'd like to share my thoughts after my first three weeks with an electric bike.
I've been using my fathers' old bike (a pretty good hybrid bike-road frame with mtb gearing a handlebar) for a couple of years to go around the city center whenever I could. I never thought of using it for commuting, mainly because I work just out of town and riding a bike in an Italian city outside of cycling paths can be quite dangerous.
But then I realized that by choosing my route carefully and adding less than 2km to the usual 14km road to work I could get there on cycling paths for about 90% of the way.
So I decided to give it a try: I did it for a few times and I really loved it. But I soon realized that getting there on normal clothes during summer would mean arriving all sweaty, which I really don't like.
Since I really liked cycling for commuting I decided to buy an electric bike. I did some research and I decided that I wanted a mid drive motor (mainly because of the better feeling you supposedly get out of it) and a bike with at least half-decent components. After some more research I decided to get a Cube Cross Hybrid Pro Allroad 400.
I really think that Cube bikes offer the best price/quality ratio out there. I'm a little surprised that I rarely read about them.
My dealer sold it to me already de-restricted, and he swapped default tires with Shwalbe Big Ben Plus.
I immediately fell in love with it. The bike is comfortable and looks nice. The Bosch CX motor is really great. Even in Tour mode I can ride around 25km/h almost without effort. If I need to go a bit faster or if it's a really hot day I can get into Sport mode. I use Turbo mode only if I want to go really fast (>30km/h), which happens rarely and only when I ride on the road.
About derestriction: I'm really glad I did it. When riding on city cycling paths it's mostly useless, since going faster than 25km/h can rally be dangerous. But I think that being able to go faster on city roads (sometimes as fast as cars) really helps with safety. Also the last 3/4km of my commute is on an always empty open field cycling path, on which going at around 30/35kmh is perfectly safe.
Of course at high speeds the battery drains a lot quicker.
I've been using my fathers' old bike (a pretty good hybrid bike-road frame with mtb gearing a handlebar) for a couple of years to go around the city center whenever I could. I never thought of using it for commuting, mainly because I work just out of town and riding a bike in an Italian city outside of cycling paths can be quite dangerous.
But then I realized that by choosing my route carefully and adding less than 2km to the usual 14km road to work I could get there on cycling paths for about 90% of the way.
So I decided to give it a try: I did it for a few times and I really loved it. But I soon realized that getting there on normal clothes during summer would mean arriving all sweaty, which I really don't like.
Since I really liked cycling for commuting I decided to buy an electric bike. I did some research and I decided that I wanted a mid drive motor (mainly because of the better feeling you supposedly get out of it) and a bike with at least half-decent components. After some more research I decided to get a Cube Cross Hybrid Pro Allroad 400.
I really think that Cube bikes offer the best price/quality ratio out there. I'm a little surprised that I rarely read about them.
My dealer sold it to me already de-restricted, and he swapped default tires with Shwalbe Big Ben Plus.
I immediately fell in love with it. The bike is comfortable and looks nice. The Bosch CX motor is really great. Even in Tour mode I can ride around 25km/h almost without effort. If I need to go a bit faster or if it's a really hot day I can get into Sport mode. I use Turbo mode only if I want to go really fast (>30km/h), which happens rarely and only when I ride on the road.
About derestriction: I'm really glad I did it. When riding on city cycling paths it's mostly useless, since going faster than 25km/h can rally be dangerous. But I think that being able to go faster on city roads (sometimes as fast as cars) really helps with safety. Also the last 3/4km of my commute is on an always empty open field cycling path, on which going at around 30/35kmh is perfectly safe.
Of course at high speeds the battery drains a lot quicker.
