E-Bikes

Few weeks ago Costco had them. Don't recall the brand name but they usually sell good stuff. I think the price was about $1700 not sure.
I bought a mountain bike for 3 or $400 from Costco over 15 years ago and it's been solid. Very good quality. Shimano gears and still shift very smooth.
 
If you live in east Tennessee you want an e bike
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My wife and I have Specialized "E" bikes. They were off rental but still expensive. $900.00/e-bikes are junk.
 
I've been riding the crap out of my sub $900 e-bike and no complaints so far!
Dishdude-I think some major differences are the battery range on the upper end e-bikes. We can fully do 50 miles on a fully charged battery. I don't know anyone with a Chinese made bike that can do that.
 
I found a pic of the bikes we rented, Trek Verve , possibly a 2. View attachment 40987

It is my only e-bike experience but I was very impressed with the range and how seamless the drive motor was. We rode 30 miles of hilly country roads and some trails and neither of us had ridden much recently and would’ve been dead tired if we were on regular bikes. Instead it was an enjoyable time and I still had plenty of battery left at 225 lbs. Next time I’ll use more assist or if I have a great year may buy an e-mountain bike.
 
All the ones I have seen you must pedal them, and some fairly hard, to get the electric motor to work. That IMO is a really stupid feature. You may want to consider that, and look for a bike with an actual 'throttle' on it as well.

Good luck with the shopping, and keep us up to date when you buy.
 
All the ones I have seen you must pedal them, and some fairly hard, to get the electric motor to work. That IMO is a really stupid feature. You may want to consider that, and look for a bike with an actual 'throttle' on it as well.

Good luck with the shopping, and keep us up to date when you buy.

That's odd

All of mine have throttles

In fact, I have yet to see one without an independent throttle.

That being said, I rarely ever use them (only when walking them up stairs to assist or forget to downshift before stopping at an intersection and need a quick boost to get up to speed).

The whole point of getting a bike is for exercise and the "pedal assist" should be only that (you don't want the bike doing all the work).

Each bike has different levels of assist.

My Sondors Fold X has 5 ranging from a barely noticeable assist in 1 to a holy $#!t assist in 5

The Black X3 Pro has 4 levels

0 = No assist with regeneration over 12mph (adds load and recharges battery)

1= Low assist w/regen

2= Medium assist w/o regen

3= High assist w/o regen (pretty much full tilt)

For most trails, I stick with level 1 and I'm still passing anyone on a regular bike.

If I'm in a group of E-Bikes, I stick it in level 2, then click down to level 1 when going downhill so I don't have to use the brakes (it kinda acts like a Jake Brake and charges the battery)

Level 3 is only for when I wanna show off and leave everyone in the dust lol

Thing is, the pedal assist works off of a sensor on the sprocket that requires a little rotation (usually one full pedal) before it kicks in.

Most folks make the mistake of leaving it in high gear when they come to a stop, then have to start off in high, which means a long and hard first rotation before they get any assist from the motor

If you ride the bike normally and use the gears correctly, the whole experience should feel linear.

The only difference is that you're going much faster and farther than than you would on a normal bike.

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