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The OH cant keep up with me, especially up hills, so, I said I’d look into getting an E-MTB for the basic trails she does.
Blues and greens at trail centres, and similar off road tracks is all she’ll do, so it’ll be a HT. I’ve seen some Treks (Marlin 6+,Powerfly 4) at roughly £2.5k, a Specialized Turbo Tero at £2k. The Specialized is just about in budget, the Trek could be afforded when she sells a couple of other bikes (she will sell her existing MTB and a CX bike).
Has anyone got any pointers to something suitable, and, has anyone tried the £1k offerings from no-name makes (which I suspect are rubbish, but need to ask!).
Thanks a lot.
I don't own one, but the e-mtb FB pages have regular posts from ppl with lower end bikes that are broken and no one knows how to, or even wants to repair. It's a false economy IMO.. buy cheap buy twice.
I'd avoid them like the plague and go for a known brand, as they will (well should) support the kit, even after the warranty has expired.
Has you OH tried one? (rental or borrowed) Everyone I've know who bought an e-bike is more likely to ride overall, than they would a manual bike, so having a decent base to upgrade* from, would be my advise
*I don't see the need to upgrade mid range e-bike, like I would have did my off the shelf (manual) bikes, as weight is not really a issue, but lower end (of the range) bikes always need something upgrading
PS: I have a friend who bought two well spec'd E-mtb over the last few month for £2K/£2.5K respectively (Merida 160/Focus something) both had seen little use and were complete bargains, if your happy taking the gamble
Try and find a used Spesh Levo SL v1, should be plenty cheap now, especially as Spesh slashed the new price clearing out old stock.
In terms of budget over longer term (post warranty) I’d be going brose motor (levo) or Bosch gen 2 as i think they’re the most repairable at this point in time.
To counter towzer definitely not Gen 2 Bosch , I had a Kona with that on , 4 motors in 3 years, eventually I was advised directly by Bosch to not ride the bike on the wet as " the motors don't like it " 🤔
My mates bike has the Gen 4 motor 3 years original motor .
I’d be going brose motor (levo) or Bosch gen 2 as i think they’re the most repairable
Surely you mean bosch gen 4?
My wife got a Lapierre Overvolt 5.4 last year. Yamaha motor and 400 wh battery. It has been superb for her. No radical off road stuff but forest tracks on Eco setting and she keeps up with me fine. It does c 65 miles and 5k feet of climbing per charge (with some left in the battery) They seem to have moved over to bosch now. (My wifes isn't the step thru version)
Fit a TSDZ2 kit to her current bike, they are pretty good, there's a long thread on here somewhere
Fit a TSDZ2 kit to her current bike
That's what I'm going to do.
From
https://www.emtbforums.com/threads/need-help-deciding-on-a-reliable-motor.34159/page-2/blockquote >
hmmm, ok, whilst the gen 2 might be more repairable than the gen 4 (i'll defer to bearing man on that seeing as he repairs them for a day job) , i think the gen 2 is substantially more unreliable/not as robust in the first place compared to the gen 4, so is going to need repairing more often. Coupled with the fact that the gen 4 is lighter, more powerful, more efficient, smaller, has better controls etc, I think its a hard sell to recommend the gen 2 over the gen 4.
Probably worth giving him a call re gen 4, things move on., im interested in his opinion/knowledge of the new sx motor, anyway just FYI (and I’m often wrong) I ••think•• that a concern with the gen 4 is that the circuit board is at the bottom of the engine and I ••think•• that only Yamaha actually sell circuit boards.