RobF

Your Nexus hub is bomb proof reliable, bit its range is not great. Many internal gear hubs are the same, apart from the Rohloff which has a range comparable to a mountain triple. I have one and reckon it would do what you seek. Hardly a viable mod at £1,000, so you are better off with your sprocket change. As a general point, you have the wrong bike for your purpose. A sit up and beg Kalkhoff Agattu is a quality ebike, but it is not designed for barrelling along on the flat and descending like a demon.

Nice and full sus for £2k are mutually exclusive. You will need to up the budget. A quick look at the discounter Tredz produces this Giant at £3,500. There may be something a bit cheaper elsewhere, but that's the sort of money you are looking at for an entry level full sus emtb. https://www.tredz.co.uk/.Giant-Stance-E-Pro-29-2020-Electric-Mountain-Bike_218303.htm

The cheap suspension forks fitted to the bikes you are looking at add weight and very little else. You will notice the quality KTM folder linked by Croxden does not have front suspension because KTM know it's useless on that type of bike. What these bikes do have is 20" balloon tyres which, if run at the correct pressure, give you all the suspension you need. Having said that, the quality Riese and Muller Tinker semi folder does have a decent quality suspension fork, but it will add very little suspension to that provided by the balloon tyres. All folding ebikes are still heavy and unwieldy lumps. Humping one into the back of a car is doable, but you will need a reasonably big car to fit two in.

Some German light set ups have an isolation switch for the rear. It might be a tiny slider which is quite hard to see on the back of the light.

Several years ago Bosch made their millionth crank drive motor - they celebrated by producing a gold one. That is a massive number for a bicycle component. Since then, ebikes have taken off. Bosch powered bikes have become ubiquitous around the world, so goodness how many millions of Bosch motors there are now. The failures need to be viewed in the context of the huge numbers of motors in service. Bosch undertake to keep spares available for at least seven years after they stop supplying them for original equipment. Pan European warranty is two years, after that you are on your own. Sounds reasonable.

Quite stylish in a sort of retro, dare I say hipster, way. I wouldn't worry about the warranty. The bike has basic ebike technology which has the benefit of being reliable and well-proven. Ebikes are finally gaining a little bit of traction in the market, which means there are now more shops with the expertise to fix basic them. For example, it's now routine for my local bike shop to have a couple of ebikes in for repairs, do their knowledge is improving all the time.

Go grandad! Actually, I was expecting, and have seen, much worse. Decent buy for the money.

That is about the strength of it, but another thing yet to be resolved is whether the Crossfire's problems have been resolved at the factory. The bike has been around for a long time, so many of the problems you've read about will be of some age. Crossfire owners who get a reliable one, and there are plenty of those, rate their bikes highly. The Suntour hub motor is pokier than the Bosch crank drive on the Crossfuse and it rides nicely. But a Bosch bike cannot be beaten for smooth power delivery and the unobtrusive way it works - very easy and agreeable to live with. The Bosch motor has had its problems, but most of those stem from full on mountain bike use. The three I've had have been pretty much faultless on road and cycle paths over many thousands of miles. Value of both of the Halfords bikes is fair, but not spectacular, particularly for the Bosch one. Halfords are known for short term price offers, but the Crossfuse at its currently listed price of £1,900 looks a few hundred quid too dear. Less so for the Crossfire - a lot of Chinese hub bikes are now more than £1,000, and most would be bike in a box internet purchases. There's a lot to be said for buying a bike from a shop local to you which you can use for service and warranty work. Another plus for the Crossfire is it's available in three sizes. Most Chinese ebikes are 'one size fits all', which it doesn't You could do a lot worse than a Crossfire, but you could do a bit better than a Crossfuse, if you wanted to spend the extra on a Bosch bike. Cube bikes are generally better value, and there are a few Raleigh Motus Bosch bikes around on clearance/discount for between £1,300 and £2,000. The £1,300 Motus sounds a bargain, but the one I saw was only in extra small, so you'd probably end up spending closer to £2,000 - unless you are always the last person to know when it starts raining.

As said, the Stealth would be worse than useless because of its 1000w direct drive design motor. Those motors have their strengths, they are very quiet, and go well on the flat (with no wind) once wound up. But they are hopeless against even a mild gradient/headwind, and in stop/start conditions. A motor like the ones fitted to woosh bikes is a far superior solution. Such motors are available in other bikes, but there are other good reasons for buying a woosh. The ride properties of the various makes of suitable motors vary. Worth giving woosh a ring before ordering, because they will point you in the direction of the bike in their range best suited to you and your proposed use. If you just want to hammer along at an illegally assisted 25 or 30mph, buy a moped.

To me, this shows your Camino may be a little more pokey than the weakest Bosch motor, but close to about the same when compared to the most powerful Bosch motor. Which is what I as a non-technical numpty would expect. The differences are not as great so as to justify them as a reason to choose one bike over the other, so you need to look elsewhere.

My AVE has the original Bosch Classic motor. No idea how much grunt that was supposed to have, but in use it's not so different to my later Bosch motors. All of which are relatively weedy compared to others, both hub and crank. People will be attracted by bigger numbers but there is a big question mark on how each manufacturer measures the figures, and therefore a need to cautious on their use for comparison. A physics professor told me that. LOL, as we used to say on the internet.

No, it isn't important. We are talking about riding a bike, not microbiology.

Given the bikes have a similar amount of grunt, what is your point? I think you just ran over one of those split hairs.

Yes, and he might have trouble cycling over the straws one or two on here are clutching at. No worries, so long as keeps between the split hairs.

The OP's requirement was for us to compare your Camino, a Chinese hub bike, against a Motus, a European design crank drive. That is what I did. There is nothing in his other requirements that expressly rules out one bike or the other. But there are hints. One of those is carrying a relatively heavy 10kg dead weight over the rear wheel. It is plain common sense that sways towards a crank drive. The smaller battery on the Motus leans it towards the woosh, but the commute is only a maximum of 16 miles. He could do that in turbo on the Bosch bike. A bigger battery is worth having, but is not essential in this case. It might make the difference between charging every day on the Motus and charging every second day on the woosh. No point in blathering on about hills in this case because I know the Motus would cruise the specified terrain, and I would expect the woosh to do the same. All the above is largely repetitious from me. So part of the OP's requirements have I 'not looked into'? Given that I try to keep my posts on the forum relatively short, so there's no point in taking up space on stuff both bikes could do, which is most of it.

No I don't. I've suggested plenty to people who don't have the budget for a European design crank drive. In this thread I've suggested the OP should not rule out your Big Bear. My point is the two types of bike are now close to competing on price. There is no bias from me, I just call it as I see it. If Nealh is wary of bias, he would be better off carefully examining the posts from the sales agents on here of individual ebike companies. And as regards ticking me off for thread drift, Neal ought to look at the thread title and the OP. Just to be clear, this thread is about choosing between a Chinese hub bike and a European crank drive.

My view is you are correct about woosh bikes and Chinese hub bikes in general. I rarely now see the truly dreadful contraptions I used to a few years ago. However, I know more about Bosch bikes, and I'm not sure they've progressed much in the same period. The original Classic motor on my AVE is smooth, quiet, and has little pedal resistance. Fast forward 10 years, and the latest Bosch motors are being promoted as being, er, smooth, quiet, and having little pedal resistance. Motor compactness has improved, but judging by the small front ring Performance motor on my Riese and Muller, grunt has hardly advanced. Batteries have gone nowhere. The latest 500wh Bosch battery has a bigger capacity than my old 400wh one, but the newer battery also has a bigger case. Strictly, the case is a little less than proportionately bigger, so there has been marginal gains in cell density. That lack of progress applies to all batteries, not just Bosch.

Exactly, Raleigh is just a name painted on the down tube. It's the components and their specification which is important. He can speak for himself, but he had an £1,100 Oxygen. The recent availability of crank bikes for £1,500 or less has made the market position more difficult for the likes of Oxygen and your brand. A grand for a woosh and two grand plus for a crank bike wouldn't even be a question for many buyers because they don't have the higher sum to spend. An extra few hundred is a very different prospect.

What you have discovered is the difference between a budget Chinese hub bike and a European designed crank drive. [mention=11611]Warwick[/mention] on here made the same journey. To many new ebikers, the difference in use is unimportant. All they care about is the bike is easier to pedal and helps them on hills, which both types of bikes do. But if refinement is a consideration, it's crank drive every time. Bosch is the most refined and popular, but the likes of Steps, Yamaha and Brose come a close second. Your experience is also a microcosm of the reliability problems of Chinese hub bikes - typically niggly electrical. Tempting to say a Bosch charger is a rip off at £80+ when you can get a Chinese one for twenty. But one works reliably, and the other, well, you know what that does.

Agree, nothing wrong with modern computer controlled assembly, and much to commend it. The computer probably does a better job than all but the most expert wheel builders. There remains a question mark for me over the quality of components used in Chinese motor wheels. That could only be fully answered if I bought one and tested its reliability through use.

My Rose ebike had Mavic rims, DT Swiss spokes, and Shimano hubs, built by a company recognised for the quality of its wheel building. Which would you prefer, that or a Power Circle, an unrecognised brand built with unknown expertise? At least woosh carry plenty of spare spokes, as do Rose, but I suspect the difference is Rose rarely supply any.

Because extra weight is extra stress on a wheel already weakened by having a motor built into it, or more accurately, a wheel using low grade components with suspect build quality. There's a reason why every cargo bike I can think of has a crank motor and wheels from a recognised quality brand.

I didn't realise I had pointed that out - I probably did do so but lack your grasp of statistics. One thing I don't do is play favourites on here, I just call it as I see it. The guys - and gal - at woosh are sound people, but I cannot recommend their bikes if I think there are better alternatives. No secret that I like David Miall at Wisper, he's another sound guy and very fair in his business dealings. But I see his standard hybrid starts at £1,700, albeit there is a cheaper non torque sensor version. Paying more for a Chinese component hub bike compared to a European brand crank bike makes absolutely no sense. https://wisperbikes.com/product-category/e-bikes/crossbar-ebikes/

Many machine built wheels are perfectly reliable - most of will have had several. A wheel built by someone who knows what they are doing will be superior, but such people are thin on the ground. If you get a spoke breaker it will drive you nuts because there tends to be a domino effect, so you quickly reach the point where you cannot trust the bike. Annoying for a leisure rider, but hopeless for a commuter where reliability is paramount. Overall torque being the same is a fair point, but there's no doubt you routinely hear of rear hub motors breaking spokes and rarely hear of crank motors breaking spokes. That plays into overall quality. Bosch/Yamaha/Shimano Steps/Brose bikes are generally much better quality than hub bikes, which are nearly all cheap Chinese. Not so long ago, crank bikes were often twice the price of hub bikes, roughly a thousand pounds against two thousand pounds. Hub bikes are now routinely £1,100 or £1,200, but crank bikes can now routinely be had for about £1,500, sometimes less. As I said, a £1,300 Motus against an £1,100 woosh is no contest. A £2,000 Motus against the woosh is a harder decision. Those are all general points, but add in the OP's circumstances and the decision for him is clearer. At 110kg he's no lightweight, and he wants to carry 10kg of dead weight over the rear wheel. That all points squarely to a crank drive. If it has to be woosh or another hub bike, a Big Bear would suit. Front wheel spin out on front motor bikes is an over exaggerated problem, and so what if the wheel does 'jump' occasionally? The more even weight distribution would be a worthwhile benefit in this case.

The woosh bike represents good value, but a Motus is the better quality bike. As it should be for the extra money. Leaving aside quality, reliability is also likely to be superior. Rear hub bikes tend to break spokes, particularly if the wheel is a cheap Chinese one which may not have the best components or may not have been skilfully built. You are also planning to carry 10kg, which is a fair amount of dead weight over the rear wheel. Given that a Motus is available for under £1,300, it is the one to go for. The decision might not be quite so clear cut on a 2020 Motus at £2,000 or more. https://www.e-bikesdirect.co.uk/brands/raleigh/