Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

The biggest hurdles with ebikes are their high cost relative to a cheap used bike (nicer ebikes are in used car territory) and likelyhood of theft in an urban area. It would probably help a lot of commutes if people had a safe place to park their bike or ebike at a train station or business or school where it won't be stripped down for parts. Rental scooters and ebikes also suffer from this problem but it doesn't matter as much since the company already puts a shelf life of one month for these sort of vehicles and budgets for this turnover, but when its your own personal vehicle if you walk out of your home before work and its been stolen you might get fired from your job worst case scenario. A car is a much harder thing to steal but even then, catalytic converter thefts have been surging. If you get comprehensive auto insurance that crime is covered at least, but some people can only afford liability. Not sure what insurance can cover bike theft. Maybe a renters insurance policy?

I'm blown away by how expensive they are and then how many I see.

$5k-$7k for an e-bicycle?

Yes yes yes, I realize enthusiasts pay up to $10-15K for high-end frames and wheels, with full Campy gruppos[1], but eBike buyer's aren't CAT-2 qualifiers.

On a side rant, the price of bikes in general has skyrockted. With so much of the manufacturing happening in China, I would have assumed that the overall costs of bikes would go down and quality would go up since the 80's (when I was really into cycling in my 20's). But the opposite has happened: quality stayed roughly the same and prices went way, way up. (e.g., A Tom Ritchie frame went for about $1.5k in 1984, and that was hand-made.)

[1] Wowzers: today, the campy super record gruppo is $3500. https://www.merlincycles.com/en-us/campagnolo-super-record-1...

You can get decent e-bikes for under $1k. It is still a lot but not ridiculous

Got any recommendations?

I spent about $1500 on the 500 series from Ride1Up and paid $100 for a bike mechanic to assemble it: https://ride1up.com/product/city/

That's not exactly under 1k though

RadPower bikes have hit the sweet spot between price and quality.

The cheapest one is only a dollar under 1k.

In Europe you find excellent normal bikes for about €300; you can also find them used, for less.

Then you can convert those to ebikes with kits that cost €500-800 depending on power of motor and range of battery.

That's what I did; I transformed a regular Btwin Rockrider bike to an ebike 3 years ago, and have now ridden about 10k km with it. Couldn't be happier. It changed my life.

I used to drive a (big) motorbike; it's now been a year since I used it; it just doesn't make any sense to use a motorbike instead of an ebike for rides under 15 km, which are most if not all rides.

I built a second ebike for travel by train. Some trains have special "seats" for bikes but most don't, and they are in very limited supply anyway. But you can put a folding bike in the luggage compartment without a problem.

So I bought a used folding bike for €50, still in excellent condition, added a (low power) hub motor and a battery for €400, and I can go almost anywhere without worrying about finding a cab at my destination. It's exhilarating.

Renter's/homeowner's insurance covers one's property at home or away from it. One can get a rider for particularly valuable property.

"Velosurance" is also an option for many with expensive cargo ebikes.

Ebikes are a pretty new technology with very little used market so far, but that will change quickly— I already managed to dig one up for 50% off MSRP last winter.

I wonder what the batteries are going to be like in the used market. afaik this is the first part to see significant wear and also probably the most expensive part on the bike. Every few years I price out ebike kit builds to see if prices have come down and battery costs have remained pretty high. At least with a regular bike you can buy it in whatever neglected condition short of a compromised frame and pay not much at all at your local bike shop to tune it up into a great bike.

Be careful there- renters will generally cover theft with a low enough deductible to make it worth it, but homeowners deductibles can easily be near or higher than the cost of the bike.

Theft is such a massive issue. I pretty much gave up cycling because there is just no way to secure a bike that actually works. Criminals come out at night with power tools, bust their way through the walls of the apartment bike storage, and cut your locks at 2AM. They have hoodies and masks so CCTV is useless. Sure I guess I could hide an airtag on one, but then I have to actually do something when it inevitably gets stolen and moves to a dangerous location.

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