Thinking of getting a emtb

[fossyant]

Do they actually cost more to maintain?

Is it anything you can't do yourself?
Hydrolic brakes and gears i can do, i dont know anything about electric bikes though

Get one with a good g-tee. Motors etc add complexity, and failure....

 

[Gwylan]

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Thinking of getting one of these as the legs are getting tired now days?
Will be used mainly for 20-30mile day trips on roads with a little off road.

Sometimes the occasional trail. No jumps etc

Are these bikes ok? Its alot of money for me to spend, how long do the batteries last before they need to be replaced and are they costly to replace?

Based on experience, expensively bought. I'm about to get my 3rd bike.

Electric bikes in general are pretty variable. You might find yourself stuck with frog that no amount of kissing will change

Buy from an LBS. Where you have the chance of a test ride, hire one for a week if you can. LBS also gives somewhere for service and at the worst a place to serve legal papers.

Suspect the mileage claims. There does not seem to be an agreed standard, BSI ( remember them) DIN or EU.

Avoid hydraulic disk brakes. Cable disk brakes are a good compromise.

Avoid sexy apps that promise to tell you the time in Kuala Lumpur, phone your grannie on her birthday and similar.

If you can, get a belt drive, they make life a lot easier. In hub gears make life easier too.
Removable pedals help too.
A walking pace drive can be handy!

Tell your insurance company what you bought, pucker up and pay any extra premium
Spend serious money on locks - even if you're only going to the paper shop.

See if you can lift it to chest height, with the battery. Means you can do trains.

Enjoy, they are great fun and extend one's cycling career. Save on car costs too.

 

[albion]

"Avoid hydraulic disk brakes. Cable disk brakes are a good compromise"

Rather a strange recommendation. They are night and day in difference.
For trains, the battery comes off.

 

[fossyant]

Nothing wrong with hydraulic discs. You just need to know how to bleed them. Done mine once in 8 years, no issues since and that was to replace a lever piston, which was an issue with SRAM at the time. Bled MrsF's bike on purchase too. Not needed to do since.

Deore hydraulic just work.

 

[Gwylan]

"Avoid hydraulic disk brakes. Cable disk brakes are a good compromise"

Rather a strange recommendation. They are night and day in difference.
For trains, the battery comes off.

Hydraulic are a tech step too far. Unless you are racing. Any disk brake beats the alternatives.

Yes the battery comes off, but in the clamour to get on the train that slows the process considerably. And when you have to negotiate stairs you still have the battery weight.

 

[mustang1]

My LBS told me the following about e-bikes:

Ensure your cadence remains reasonably high as if you are riding a normal bike. This keeps stress on the chain low.

Wait 30 minutes before charging the battery after a ride. This gives the battery time to cool down.

Don't have the battery too low or too high and leave it like that. I take that to mean not to have it lower than 20% or higher than 80% and just leaving it. Google gives different estimates but it amounts to the same thing.

You may find that you use your e-bikes more than other bikes and that's where the extra maintenance costs come in, not that the electric system makes inherently makes the costs higher.

Keep an eye on chain wear, get yourself one of those chain wear tools (I use a simple parktool one).

Don't expect the bike to ride much faster than 25kph on the flats because the amount of effort is quite high. But I've only used Yamaha so other systems might be different.

Good luck with your choice!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Hydraulic are a tech step too far. Unless you are racing.

🤣

 

[fossyant]

Hydraulic are a tech step too far. Unless you are racing. Any disk brake beats the alternatives.

Yes the battery comes off, but in the clamour to get on the train that slows the process considerably. And when you have to negotiate stairs you still have the battery weight.

Nope. Hydraulic are miles better than cable. Cable isn't much better than well set up rim brakes. Got the lot in this house, and my 'old' SRAM Guide RS four pots are incredible. My CX bike's Canti brakes work very well to stop (including bike packing gear) , but they aren't hydraulic power and lightness in touch.

Hydraulic need less faffing than cable discs during wear as they self adjust.

Deore basic hydraulic discs are cheap and work very well.

 

[Gwylan]

Don't expect the bike to ride much faster than 25kph on the flats because the amount of effort is quite high.

Very true. On both my bikes, anyway.
An average speed over a 40 km trip of 20 kph is doing well. Mid to late teens seems to be the norm

 

[albion]

Yes the battery comes off, but in the clamour to get on the train that slows the process considerably. And when you have to negotiate stairs you still have the battery weight.

A 17.5kg like the Fiido C21 might be ideal. However these lightweight bikes have tiny batteries and guarantee more range anxiety.
Bikes with a heavier oversized batteries are thus far less problematic for both range and battery care.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Main maintenance problem I tend to have is wear and tear on 4th gear

This is the one I am generally in on normal roads and paths just below the motor cutoff speed
hence I spend most time in it and it gets all the wear

I don;t think I have ever ridden in the fastest gear

Hence the cog gets a lot of hammer - ans does the chain as it is a mid drive

as far as trains and stuff goes - when I am likely to need to do anything like that I take the battery off well before I need to lift it
In those circumstances I tend to have a back pack and the battery goes in there

 

[CXRAndy]

Me the wife and the kids today went around Rutland water on ebikes. Some are full emtb and hybrids. I used to regularly ride Rutland on a normal handrail and it was always ranked as hard cycling. I'm not very fit a the moment, the ebike made the journey around the reservoir pleasant

 

[albion]

A broomstick would have been much easier than the handrail.

 

[Jotheboat]

My bike shop man said, 'get an e-mtb, they will go anywhere. Anything else might limit where you can go and the batteries and motors are so good these days (generally) that you can ride on roads quite happily with the thick tyres.'
I took that advice and after 2 / 3 years agree with him.
If I'm doing an exclusively road ride, I pop a bit more air in the tyres - which I THINK helps.

 

[CXRAndy]

Re e-mtb/hybrid. Yes they will go anywhere comfortably. If you like a bit of touring, get a hybrid with rack mounts and get some panniers.

Mrs and I have hybrids, the kids(adults) have full carbon e-bikes.