What is the best affordable & reliable E-bike below a 1000$? What bike would give you the most value for the money? What bike would give you most transport uphill-power, battery-capacity & reliability for the money. I’m looking for a cheap mass market bike. A used fiat punto of ebikes you could say.
If a bargain to be made on used bikes it’s also good.
I need the bike for driving around in Swiss mountains and occational ride to and from work. I always go on asphalt or small stone roads so no special mountain bike wheels needed. The bike needs to be cheap to maintain and don’t break down often. I have no special needs. Just a bike that gets you uphill for 1-2 hours per charge.
Do you have personal experience or maybe some YouTube video that shows good e-bikes. It’s hard for me to know if the YouTube video are just adds or honest reviews.
The premium/luxury quality e-bikes like “Stromer SK2” that smide.com (e-bike rental) uses are very nice but 6000$+ is just far to much for a bike you mainly use for fun once in a while.
You can buy an old bike from a great brand that once was 5.000,- to 6.000,- but I would assume you'd need a new battery and some more repairs on such oldie.
I am one of the recently converted to EMTB. I would suggest that you review your budget, if you like biking you will love e-biking! So this can go two ways, either you use it a lot or it stays in the garage. You will have almost no hope of recovering your 1000 on an old, repaired budget bike if you sell it. At around 1800-2000 you can get a 2017/8 hardtail EMTB (aim for 29" wheels) with this you can do pretty much anything and everything. I would look for a Specialized Levo with a Brose motor as they have a number of points which put them above average quiet motor, no resistance at above 25kph, infinite tune via an app depending on the ride you are doing. Read emtbforums.com if you want to research it more.
I think you need to adjust your budget/expectations. I converted an old Trek mountain bike with Deore components for under a thousand franks because I did not want to spend four times that. A budget bike is unlikely to stand up to mountain biking. If you scan Ricardo you see that good bikes hold their value. As for 1-2 hours, it depends on how much support you are drawing from the motor.
If you find an model ,thats a bit older (like the trek conduit) , you can find it brand new for a bargain, i paid this spring 1800 sfr for it.
The only downside is the capacity of the accu, because when you drive it in high modus to climg a serious uphill, you can watch the range vanishing from 100% to 80% in around 15 mins.
Ok, hard to decide. Also heard you can get some good deals importing from Germany. Would be nice to have prober battery capacity and standart parts easy to find in case of repair needed.
I would recommend to pay at least around 2000 sfr , because the accu itself will cost around 600 sfr , if you have to replace it.
If you drive everyday (in rain, freezing......) you need somekind of quality of the components, otherwise you will pay for buying cheap (Rust, worn out bearings).
Buy cheap, buy twice, crap usually remains crap, all depends really on what your planned use is.
If it is everyday, then Chf 1k is too low, if it is for a once in a lifetime Sunday afternoon bike ride with the kids, then Chf 1k is good, look for a second hand one in this case, i guess their must be plenty about by now.
For anyone who has half a clue about bike mechanics, and an existing pedal cycle which they'd like to keep, I'd thoroughly recommend a self-fit kit like these from cyclotricity
Relatively simple fitting, although on one older bike with some even older salvaged forks I had to take an angle grinder to them for the front motor hub to fit. I've gone for front drive, rack battery for best balance and least obvious, but rear hub and cage battery could also work, just that you're then having to rejig your gears for the new hub which may add extra complications on an older bike. Not sure I'd fancy the mid-drive kits, just think they'd tend to get in the way.
Last year they had a Swiss website option, that shipped directly here at Swiss VAT rates, so even cheaper than teh quoted prices on the UK site. Sadly that seems to have gone, but I've messaged them to see if they'd still do the same deal from the UK site.
Update. They don't offer this any more, so UK VAT would be charged, postage and Swiss customs on top. So I'll have to order to my French address like I did the last time.
If you're even a little bit handy you could get a used beat up e-bike and do some repairs yourself. However, even with that I was only able to get as low as 1800 CHF total for a 45 km/h e-bike (bought a used Stromer ST1 with 10k km for 1500 and then spent about 300 on parts and tools to replace the chain, cassette, brake pads and discs, flush the brake fluid, replace lights, and get new tires).
The thing about e-bikes is that a new battery alone costs 500-1000, with rebuilds (where someone replaces the cells and keeps the battery housing) costing around 350. So even if you get a good deal you better pray the battery still has enough range.
There is/was an Austrian company selling an Add-e motor that could friction drive a regular bike. The cost was under 1000CHF. Included battery, cables, motor, etc.
Not sure if you'd consider something like that but it is an under 1000CHF option.
My conversion with a bafang middle motor and battery bought in china is still running fine though the battery is obviously losing total charge. From the comments here and other places I am looking at a front wheel conversion for my next one. Put on a second hand mountain or tour bike that should be do-able under 1000 Fr.
There are cheap bikes from china available here (Totem) for just over a 1000 though I am sceptical about the quality.
Because the batteries do not store for years, you should find old stock being reduced. Our son found a really good deal on a winora for SFR. 1400 two months ago.
750W Great on the hills; leaves most other ebikes for dead but is heavy on the battery. I think 500W is limit before you need to register it as moped and then they will want to inspect your conversion -maybe the seller can give advice about this process.
250w is, in most places, the limit for it to remain a normal bicycle. And honestly that should be plenty unless you don't plan on pedalling at all. It would hold me at around 15kph with only minimal effort all the way up the steep road over the pass from Chatel to Morgins, 20kph if I put some grunt into it. And given that it's only used on the uphill sections its effective range is around 40km.
I posted a link further up the thread to the UK supplier of simple conversion kits for less than £400 all-in, but here it is again for reference. https://www.cyclotricity.com/uk/cust...rsion-kit.html I note that their cheapest fully assembled bike starts at just £550 at the moment - quite a bargain compared to Swiss prices.