literally never bought one before; i'd like to know what kind of accessories i might need or what a good price is for a bike i'm only going to use to go grocery shopping, etc. Looking at this one from this site someone here once recommended
literally never bought one before; i'd like to know what kind of accessories i might need or what a good price is for a bike i'm only going to use to go grocery shopping, etc. Looking at this one from this site someone here once recommended
Some come limited to 20mph, some to 28mph. You may want a faster bike if you gotta cover more distance, although it's a good way to the emergency room.
Going at ebike speeds can tear up your ass, that's why you see people running ebikes with fat tires, suspension seat posts, ergonomic grips, etc. I've got a bike that can't take tires over 2" and I wish the fork was bigger for that reason.
Some come with hub drive, some come with mid drive. Hub drive will deliver power when you press a button. Mid drive will sense when you're pedaling, so pedaling is what kicks the motor on. If you want to pedal all the time, you may want mid-drive. Hub drive makes it harder to change the tire.
Hydraulic brakes are better for the forces at play, and more durable. You can actually flip your bike and eat pavement if you overuse the front hydraulic brake at speed going downhill.
The bike you linked is decent, although I prefer a faster mid-drive with bigger tires.
This isn't totally accurate, my hub drive bike has both a pedal assist and throttle for when I need a boost up a hill. It does make it harder to change the tire, but it's still totally doable, ive had to do it twice and I suck at bike repair (this is gonna be model dependent though ofc).
There are differences between the two designs so OP would definitely research and test ride both types if possible. I would no forgo the flexibility of having pedal assist + throttle available to me.
85-90% of my riding is on MUPs, residential bikeways, and "good" bike lanes. My class 2 ebike is great for all that (limited to 20mph). if I had to ride on busy roads more, or longer distances, I'd go for a class 3. I do want full suspension even I upgrade to my next ebike.
Also, make sure it has a quality bell. You're often going fast enough that you're gonna startle pedestrians when you approach from behind, and "on your left" is always a mess, even at traditional bike speeds imo. If you give people 5 seconds or so of warning as you approach, it's not as much of an issue. This does not preclude riding at a safe speed for the conditions of course, aggressive riding, especially without allowing people to your presence, is gonna give your local jurisdiction plenty of momentum to ban or restrict ebikes.
If the law requires you to have one slap one on there but tbh the typical bicycle bell is like near the least good option for what it's supposed to do before you get into it actually just being useless. High pitch, single note stuff is hard to hear and locate, getting worse with age. If you have to get a bell get like a three-tone one.
Slap a clown horn on there, I'm serious. People pay attention to the clown horn, it's two-tone, it travels well and also it's funny.
Lotta people traveling at motorcycle speeds with bicycle protection at the moment, I don't know if there's an established market for protection geared specifically for the 20-40 MPH ebike crowd but there really should be because you don't need full on ATGATT but a foam helmet definitely isn't gonna cut it.
Not that you can't just comfort the fuck out with an e-bike where weight is no longer an issue but I'd argue you should probably learn to anticipate stuff some ways, too and be able to quickly shift a bit of weight out of the saddle if only for the fact that it's a good skill to have when the enviroment decides to shift you without your consent at some point
That's true for any well serviced brake excluding dumb shit like spoon brakes, really. Depending on what riding you do and where you park it you might actually want to consider v-brakes because they're a lot harder to accidently bend when parking the thing than a disc.