E-Bike for 25 mile each way commute.

mercia_man

My wife bought an e-bike through the cycle to work scheme some years ago for her 15 miles each way commute to work. With the savings on fuel and parking, she was in profit after 18 months.

There is a big difference in torque and range between something like the Orbea Gain with small battery and hub motor and a European-style electric commuter bike with a big battery and powerful mid motor. Road e-bikes are designed for the sort of person who wants the look of a sporting bike and needs an occasional boost to get up hills. Use boost too often and they run out of juice mid-ride. They feel feeble compared with, for example, a mid Bosch drive machine, which is much more exciting to ride under power.

I would have thought the best bike for a 50-mile round trip commute would be a European-style e-bike with a range of 100 miles or so, mudguards, racks, virtually impenetrable tyres, built-in lights and hydraulic discs or Magura rim brakes. Hub gears and belt drive are also great for low maintenance and keeping everything clean. This is the sort of bike my wife has. Range anxiety is non-existent, she can ride comfortably up the steepest mountain pass and has no trouble leaving roadies gasping in her wake (me included) as soon as the road goes uphill. Her bike is road legal with its power assistance cutting out over 15.5 mph. There is currently a campaign in the UK to increase the limit to 20mph like they generally have in the USA, depending on state.

A potential problem is that if image is important to you, a European-style commuter e-bike doesn’t look like a racing road bike. And they tend to come with flat or riser bars.

I suggest having a look at an e-bike specialist such as 50 Cycles. I can recommend them.

https://www.50cycles.com/

The Rookie

Given he asked 6 months back, probably sorted now?

shimanobottombracket

The Rookie said:

Given he asked 6 months back, probably sorted now?

He's still alive tho, he was last active yesterday. I've sent him a PM asking him to respond here for an update.

wolfsbane2k

Sorry, Yep, i'm still alive
I took a few rides out on 2 different e-bikes, 1 carrera ecrosfire on 48 hour loan, and a , friends mid motored bike (can't remember what it was) but decided that the quality of driving on the roads for that distance just wasn't worth putting my life at risk that much, so didn't progress.

cjcp

Just seen this:

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/cyclist-accused-of-causing-first-e-bike-death-was-10mph-over-speed-limit-court-hears-450245/amp?__twitter_impression=true

fenix

I think that's the one that had video of the incident up just after it happened. Idiot on the bloke but the pedestrian didn't look before running into the road.

wolfsbane2k

Yeah, that's the one. In a surprise result, he's been cleared of causing death by dangerous driving.

slowbike

wolfsbane2k said:

Yeah, that's the one. In a surprise result, he's been cleared of causing death by dangerous driving.

It'll be interesting to see the reasoning for this ...

30mph isn't impossible for a cyclist - ebike or not - just because the bike was de-restricted doesn't mean it was powered at the time (although it probably was - it has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt) - Is it dangerous driving when someone walks out into the road in front of you without looking?
Tricky case to get right - and how the defendant should be charged - it's probably accepted that the collision is the primary cause of the death, but is there anything the defendant should have reasonably done which would've avoided the collision? As it's legal for a cyclist to be doing 30mph it's a bit tricky

kingstongraham

Heard a report on the radio. The rationale behind the acquittal was that the speed was not a contributing factor.

I'm not sure if there were any lesser offences prosecuted - driving without insurance, speeding, riding a motorbike without a motorbike helmet etc that would apply to someone on a motorcycle. I haven't heard anything about those if there were.

thistle_

kingstongraham said:

Heard a report on the radio. The rationale behind the acquittal was that the speed was not a contributing factor.

I'm not sure if there were any lesser offences prosecuted - driving without insurance, speeding, riding a motorbike without a motorbike helmet etc that would apply to someone on a motorcycle. I haven't heard anything about those if there were.

Does that mean that had he been doing 20 mph, he would've still hit and killed the pedestrian?
I saw something mentioned somewhere that when they looked at the CCTV, he reacted much faster than the average person so maybe he braked hard and was doing less than 20 mph when the actual collision occurred.

kingstongraham

"Did you try and apply the brakes at all?”

Mr Hanlon replied: “I did but it was just way too late. She just went out into the road. I tried to pull both brakes, no time to swerve or nothing, she didn’t even look at me.”

Asked how well the brakes worked, he replied: “Good as gold. I changed the front brakes to a hydraulic brake which is in now.”

bartimaeus

On the subject of e-bikes for commuting...

I got my wife a Vitus e-Sentier MTB to ride 10 miles to work including a big hill at the end... We chose an e-MTB so she can take an off-road route, and also so she can MTB with me on longer rides as well. Her road route is quite rough and completely unlit so the e-MTB has proved a godsend through the winter when it's hard to see and avoid potholes especially when they are filled with water. As for range, we've done 40 miles on the SDW from Winchester to QE and then home, with battery to spare, using ECO for most of the way and TRAIL/BOOST for the big climbs. I did get a second set of wheels with slicks, but so far she's been using the MTB tyres!