Heeeeelllllllooooooooooo ... 
I've just joined the 'community' and want to introduce myself.
I'm Mel and my hubby is Chris, we live near Hull in E Yorks having both 'early retired' so are now 'free' to do what we want (well within reason!). We have 3 doggies and a camper and enjoy having trips away, both in the UK and further afield as the dogs have their own passports. We've always had bikes, and in recent years have researched/explored the world of e-bike ownership but couldn't really justify what was then a lot of money for the very little use we'd have made of them (due to both working), so kept on used our standard folding 20" ones which were comfortable, so much so that we'd been using them since 2001 and, even though we'd had some nice full-sized bikes, we'd gone back to using the folders.
However due to our fortunately not having the 'problem' of going to work plus hubby's existing knee/hip problems getting worse, by last year we had virtually stopped using our normal bikes, which therefore meant if we wanted to enjoy riding again we needed to look more closely at e-bikes to see if we could find something that would suit.
Choice was quite severely limited though due to our requirements/restrictions and below are the main criteria we needed to try to meet - the bikes had to:
The Evora is 36v with a 250w motor (not 200w as stated on the website) and 6.6ah battery, not massive, but sufficient for our needs and we may get an extra battery to keep charged up so we can simply swap it for a flat one if needed (£150 for a spare). They are a hoot to ride, however as we found on our last holiday using them for a 12 mile ride caused quite severe 'sore bum syndrome' so we have changed the saddles for some 'big bum' ones with better springing! If we still want a bit more 'rear comfort' we'll put some suspension posts on, but I doubt we'll need to.
Well, I'll shut up on this post now! I have a query which you may be able to help me with but I'll put that on a separate posting and look forward to your advice and getting to know you all.
Mel
I've just joined the 'community' and want to introduce myself.
I'm Mel and my hubby is Chris, we live near Hull in E Yorks having both 'early retired' so are now 'free' to do what we want (well within reason!). We have 3 doggies and a camper and enjoy having trips away, both in the UK and further afield as the dogs have their own passports. We've always had bikes, and in recent years have researched/explored the world of e-bike ownership but couldn't really justify what was then a lot of money for the very little use we'd have made of them (due to both working), so kept on used our standard folding 20" ones which were comfortable, so much so that we'd been using them since 2001 and, even though we'd had some nice full-sized bikes, we'd gone back to using the folders.
However due to our fortunately not having the 'problem' of going to work plus hubby's existing knee/hip problems getting worse, by last year we had virtually stopped using our normal bikes, which therefore meant if we wanted to enjoy riding again we needed to look more closely at e-bikes to see if we could find something that would suit.
Choice was quite severely limited though due to our requirements/restrictions and below are the main criteria we needed to try to meet - the bikes had to:
- be lightweight so we could put them both on our camper's bike rack which has a 35kg max limit
- have removable batteries which could be charged when not on the bikes (so chargeable on the move inside the camper via an inverter)
- ideally not look like 'obvious' electric bikes from a security/nickability point of view
- be compact so we could put them inside the camper (under the rear bed) when required
- be quick and easy to unfold/fold
- be easy to ride, ideally with a larger chain ring (50 teeth) than usual (42 teeth) so that our legs aren't frantically whirring round trying to keep up with an e-bike's power!
- have 3 power modes: throttle only, power assist and no power modes
- be relatively inexpensive
- have good height adjustment on the seat post and handle bars
- be comfortable to ride
- have a good frame size so we didn't end up riding with our knees round our ears!
The Evora is 36v with a 250w motor (not 200w as stated on the website) and 6.6ah battery, not massive, but sufficient for our needs and we may get an extra battery to keep charged up so we can simply swap it for a flat one if needed (£150 for a spare). They are a hoot to ride, however as we found on our last holiday using them for a 12 mile ride caused quite severe 'sore bum syndrome' so we have changed the saddles for some 'big bum' ones with better springing! If we still want a bit more 'rear comfort' we'll put some suspension posts on, but I doubt we'll need to.
Well, I'll shut up on this post now! I have a query which you may be able to help me with but I'll put that on a separate posting and look forward to your advice and getting to know you all.
Mel
