Electric MTB, views please on which one I could buy !

[seadragon]

Hi All,

I am selling one of my bikes and want to use this chance with the spare money to get an electric bike, so when the weather starts warming up I can use the car less and save money on petrol, which is costing me about £100-120 a month.(not a lot I know but I could make a big saving over the year, so the bike could pay for itself in that time.

An electric MTB is what I want as I would be off-road most of the time on the way to work and back as I am in village.

I was looking at some bikes on ebay and on the net but cant tell one from another in how good or awful the batteries/motors are.

I am only looking to spend about £600-800 max.

Thanks in advance.

[rhinochopig]

You'll be highly unlikely to find an electric bike for that money which is reliable off-road. You need to spend circa 500 quid on a hard-tail MTB for something well designed and reliable.

The only ones I've seen that have decent MTB components on them (forks, brakes, etc.) start at circa 2k.

[seadragon]

Thanks for the opinion.

There are plenty of MTB's converted to electic for sale, so I am referring to one of those, not a regular road e-bike.

I already have a pretty sweet hardtail but I want something electric for commuting as I dont fancy knackering myself off-road just to get to work and back every day, I want to enjoy the commute.

My hardtail is for fun weekend riding :-)

[syko89]

Just knacker yourself on the hardtail, you will feel better for it when you get to work, if you can have a shower?...

[zebedee]

what type of off-road are you talking about (canal towpath/smooth packed gravel or muddy pothole/rock/bridleway) and what sort of distance?

Is there much climbing too as hills will take a bit dent out of your power balance and when not under battery power you are lugging a whole bunch of dead weight around with you.

[anonymous-user]

flat bar hybrid or 50cc twist and go scooter....

[zebedee]

Try a cyclo-cross - better and faster at covering longer distances than an MTB if the terrain isn't too technical.

Does anyone here own an electric bike and have positive experiences of it?

[MadDad]

I don't have one but a good friend of mine has a Storck Raddar which I have ridden. Very odd sensation, it is an electrically assisted thing, so you set the speed at which you want the motor to take over and then keep peddling - when you run out of puff and the speed drops the motor kicks in and you start to scoot along with no effort.

It made a huge difference to my friends riding efforts, he has a 25 mile trip each way to work - doing it on his old road bike was not fun and despite trying to ride in twice a week he started to find lots of excuses not to. Once he bought the Storck he was riding 3 or 4 times a week - and was even finding reasons to ride it at the weekend!

It is a bloody heavy lump though, if the battery ran out I would hate to have to ride it for more than a few miles!

[Laurel Green]

There have been a few threads on this subject on PH. Here's a couple to mull over.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=1&a...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...