if for some terrible reason, you were unable to ride your present bike, and the way to keep riding was to ride a E bike,
what E bike would you choose ??
remembering that it is to hopefully keep you doing the riding you do now, whatever that may be.

I know very little about them Tony but did have a go on a demo Sonder. Neil from Sonder was telling me that the demo had a battery capacity that was roughly double that of most bikes. I believe he said that they may look at offering the larger battery as an option on production stuff ... that kind of thing would certainly sway me.

i would be very interested in that Stuart. let me know if you get any more info please.

Will do fella.

I could be persuaded by a Canyon Grail:ON, as most of my riding is on gravel bike friendly trails. Saw some of the Specialized ones in the Chelmsford Concept Store when I popped in there in October; they look amazing, if a touch spendy.

The Bosch and Shimano motors seem pretty sorted these days, with various levels of assist that should cover most eventualities. I'd look for one of those, attached to whatever style of bike/manufacturer takes your fancy.

Usual trade offs of more battery capacity = more weight, and more assist = less range. I know some folk carry spare batteries with them, seems like the extra weight is worth the extra range for them.

The new Orbea Rise Hydro looks good to me. If there's a motor helping you might as well have full suspension. Its battery is as big as some "full fat" eBikes, while the motor has been turned down a touch to keep it efficient/nimble and able to use standard MTB parts.

https://www.mbr.co.uk/news/orbea-rise-alloy-413698

Counter to that eBikes seem to be pretty unreliable (or at least the consequences are worse than a problem with a normal bike.) so I'd definitely want to buy from some where local which might have to be another brand!

If all goes according to plan, I'm hoping not to get an E bike for 20 years yet, by which time I expect them to weigh 10kgs, have a range of 200k and be so cool I will finally score (aged 70 ). If something goes pear shaped before then I'd get a DIY job that enabled you to do 30mph without pedaling.

That would be an interesting dilemma. I've always said that should I have to reduce the number of bikes I own, the Amazon and the fatbike would be the final two to be in the garage. If it was a choice between them then I'd really be looking long and hard at the type of riding I wanted to still be doing. Of course, I'd cheat and use a mid-mounted motor so that I could have a choice of wheels on each still. A fat frame that took both 26x5", 29x2.1" and 700x40mm tyres could, just about, be made to work

Slightly off topic but in 2019 I went to the London Bike show where a lot of brands had bikes you could test ride around a "track", fenced off oval at one end of the exhibition hall. Stopped to watch and was surprised to see that quite a few punters had arrived in full cycling gear for their 10 minute test ride and were taking the whole thing very seriously indeed. Stand up sprints, minute seat adjustments etc. An attractive young lady scooted onto the track in trainers, jeans and a tee-shirt on what turned out to be an E-roadbike! but very stealth. No sign of a battery, almost invisible motor and a on/off button in the top tube just behind the head set. She cruised up one side , round the bend, hit the button and blew past the Lycra Lads with her long hair blowing out behind her. They of course were all up out of the saddle and chasing fit to bust and gaining no ground until the bend when she hit the button again. Not sure they clocked it was a E-Bike, 1 bloke low-sided going around the bend too fast and at least 2 nearly hit the wall for the same reason. You could smell the testosterone from 40 feet away!! Best part of the whole show!

Worth a look at Danny Macaskill and what he's doing with an E-Bike, yeah not many of us have that skill level but the philosophy is true no matter what your skill level is.

https://youtu.be/ZfNdjQSw_NE

In answer to the original question would I get one? If it was the only way I could get out and ride and more importantly keep up with my mates (all younger than I am) and not slow the ride down then yes absolutely. Would choose a bike that suits the riding I do now or was doing when I finally ran out of puff.

Yes vote from me.

E bikes are a great addition to conventional cycles.
They reduce the number of cars as less able bodies are cycling.
More people are commuting on them .
I am overtaken by many on my commute to work.
Having chatted to the few riders I can momentarily keep up with, they all have said that it has helped them maintain their jobs due to poor public transport or lack of parking where they live,two of them work in ocardo warehouse and two at hospital's,all on variable shifts.
If I had an injury or illness,I would not hesitate to purchase one if it enables one to carry on cycling!

You know how great fat bikes are Tony...

Having ridden (hired) both E-FS and E-fat, I'd take the latter. They are very fun with a bit of assistance.

I like building bikes and dislike the whole off the shelf £5,000+ thing with meh components, crap reliability and constant warranty and getting stranded worries. So I'm planning on doing a conversion on my fattie as soon as the 'lightest' 1.6kg motor from Italians 'bikeebike' on indiegogo actually materialises. Spring, hopefully.

Aim is to have useful assistance over a useful distance at minimal weight using one or two smallish (2kg, c.450wh each) soft battery packs sourced from UK. It'll have loads of stuff carrying ability, like for beer and logs through the winter slop. A fat almost-cargo bike if you will.

A bloke I work with was a very keen mountain biker, but then he was seriously ill for a long time with cancer and the aggressive treatment afterwards. I'm glad to say that he's ok now, but he bought a (very expensive) Specialized full suss E Bike to help get his fitness back following his recovery. He intended to sell it and return to standard bikes, but he likes his E Bike so much he's kept it and sold his standard bikes.

I have a Tern GSD long tail cargo bike.

I used to think e-bikes were for other people. I happily rode my touring bike all over the place; for work, commuting, errands and fun. The thing is though; I also own and use a car. Anyone that uses a car will have a point on their personal spectrum of journeys when they opt for the car over the bike. That tipping point will vary from person to person, day to day, depending on distance, journey purpose, time, weather, mood, load and luggage. To use the car less and bike more you must push this threshold towards the further, heavier, wetter, faster end of the continuum. I have tendency to do this and pre lockdown I’d do about 150 miles/week of ordinary journeys by bike. But we all have our limits, and it used to bother me that I had to reach for the car more often than I’d like.

Pondering on how I could stretch that limit, it dawned on me one day that my purist attitude to cycling was actually stopping me from reducing my car mileage. That if I opened my mind to using an e-bike I could probably cycle further and leave the car at home for many journeys that I simply would not have made on the tourer. What’s more, if the e-bike was a cargo bike, I could carry bigger loads and replace yet more car journeys.

So I bought a GSD during lockdown and I absolutely love it. I only use it for ‘utility’ journeys and I use my other bikes for day rides, bikepacking and touring as well as some utility journeys when I feel like it. I do use it for early morning packraft trips where I would otherwise have driven to the other side of Gower to catch a dawn high tide.

I know that if I was faced with no riding or ebike riding I would chose the latter and just get on with enjoying it.

Did someone mention Stu on an E-Bike?

I'd definitely have an e-cargo bike for sure. Makes huge amount of sense for a utility bike that can replace shorter car journeys for load lugging and child carrying. I have a bike trailer that kinda does this already, but the assistance would be nice sometimes, and a cargo bike would be a bit less faff to get going. In utopia, i'd love to see most of the cars clogging up pavements and side roads, replaced with various forms of e-bikes and secure road parking and charging points and tiny city vehicles a bit like the Citroen Ami (coming to the UK shortly)...

Surprisingly fast, look it's blown half my hair off.

You look like you're really enjoying it too .

Were you also staying in one of those tipi's just to complete the picture of urbane man-about-campsite?

You look like you're really enjoying it too .

Well spotted, I appreciate that it's generally hard to tell

I would go for an Orbea Wild HT, essentially an e-Loki which I really enjoyed. I have always been impressed with Orbea bikes, Neil the rep is one of the nicest blokes in the trade.

This from Haibike ticks a lot of boxes. Not cheap, though not too bad by top end e-MTB standards, and you could add a set of 29er or 27.5+ wheels if you felt like it.

https://www.haibike.com/at/en/ebikes/em ... d=45188150