I have been a cyclist all my life (life member of the Cyclists' Touring Club), but had a stroke some 4 years ago which has left me with severe nerve damage to my left leg/foot. This means weakness in that area and pain if I indulge in any activity that pressurises it, so I cannot walk far. Thus an ebike seemed my only remedy.
For my first experiment I bought a kit and converted my own Claud Butler bicycle. To date I have now owned three ebikes and I have been quite satisfied with my present Freego Eagle over two years and some 5,000 miles .
However, Freego has recently gone into administration (something to do with increased European tariffs on Chinese products, which had reduced their profit margins). So I decided to look around for a new ebike. The Raleigh Motus Tour (made in EU Hungary for Raleigh of Nottingham) is the current head of reviews for normal touring ebikes.
This bike uses a Bosch electric crank drive, which is supposedly more efficient with low-down torque for slow hill climbing. The motor is neat, integrated into the bottom bracket and controlled by a handlebar mounted computer display.
The motor works by sensing the level of pressure the rider puts into the pedals and powers the revolving cranks accordingly. There is no independent throttle. The "pedalec" law makes them illegal and since the pedals need to be exerting pressure for the motor to operate it would not be possible anyway.
I tested this latter bike at the dealer's around their industrial estate which had one small hill. Allowing for the strangeness of a new system, I felt OK with it and ordered one.(they were doing a special spring offer, knocking about £300 off the £2,000 book price, which was an additional inducement.)
It was delivered to me and on Easter Saturday I rode it for 17 miles, towards the end in great pain. Over that Easter weekend I was in subsequent agony as a result, with sleepless nights. My Freego Eagle never caused me such and analysing this I can only put it down to the way each system is activated. The Freego wheel motor will output power when the pedals turn (even without actual pressure on them). The Bosch crank drive needs pressure input to the pedals before it "wakes up".
Thank goodness I had kept that Freego! I asked if the dealer could give me a refund on the Raleigh, but they only deal in new bikes and said this was now "used". How enthusiastic they were to sell it to me and how uninterested they were in my subsequent problem.I am now advertising the bike for sale and will, no doubt incur a fair loss - that'll teach me!
10 comments:
That law on having to actually pedal before the power kicks in was obviously not made with people like you in mind. I wonder if the bike could be (perhaps illegally, but who cares) modified?
Tom S.
Yes, I think it is a ridiculous law. Hub motor ebikes can be converted (illegally). In fact my Freego had been made legal by the English importers by adding a resistance to the throttle and calling it "walk assist" (which is legal but only gives 3 mph!)). By signing a disclaimer when I bought it I had the resistor removed and the throttle acted as normal once more!
What was the point of that law?
I have not had the kind of experience that you have suffered, namely bicycle problems. It does seem to me, however, that there is a particular mindless-set that does assumes everyone thinks and acts in the same way as the pusher of items for sale. How many times have I heard the expression, "We all....." based on no evidence whatsoever. It is probably assumed that we can "all" remove the top of a toothpaste tube that requires that extra vicious twist to undo. Try doing it with rhizarthrosis of the thumbs. Or how do you remove those tops that require a hard 'push down' and a twist, with the same condition. I feel for you Avus, but I don't see any marketing types with more than two brain cells coming forward in the near future. I wish you well.
Fly in the web:
It seems a completely pointless law, probably made by a committee who think a bicycle which can travel at 16 mph (25.5 kph) unaided, becomes a "motorcycle". In Ireland you cannot even ride an ebike (throttle or not) without taxing and insuring it,, fitting it with number plates, wearing a motorcycle crash helmet, putting on learner plates and eventually taking a moped driving test!
Hell! A fit cyclist will often travel at 20 mph or more without motor assistance. Some would love to put such bicycles into a "Registered/tax" box, too!
Bureaucracy loves to put everything and everyone into little boxes.
Tom:
I agree. My wife has severe rheumatoid arthritis and cannot remove many bottle tops and caps, as you mention. Bureaucracy would probably prefer me to drive a disabled buggy, on the pavement (top speed 4 mph). This would probably cost the Health Service more dealing with my reduced physical/mental health which would result from my not riding a bicycle through the countryside in the fresh air.
Re the law, if they rescinded the pedal assist one and turned them into electric motorbikes then they would have to have number plates and insurance to match. Personally I think that all bicycle riders should have insurance because of the irresponsible ones who ride fast on pavements and collide with pedestrians. If a motorist can be send to prison for dangerous driving, causing death or injury, so should cyclists.
Tom S:
I agree about insurance for cycle riders, Tom. My membership of the CTC (now called "Cycling UK", to be fully "woke" I guess) gives me personal and third party insurance which is one of its great benefits. About 60 years ago a car hit me, writing off the bike and damaging my spine, leaving me off work for 6 months. CTC insurers got me full compensation.
For reasons which have - temporarily, I suppose - now gone away I was toying with acquiring an ebike. I read your post, skipping over most of the technicalities and dwelling on the etiquette of bargaining for your unwanted orphan, given the way you have made yourself financially vulnerable to the world. Even at one point seeming to relish the prospect of forthcoming punishment. Two things became apparent: the technicalities are at the centre of your problem, and, were I to acquire an ebike, I would do so from an adjacent source, to whom I might readily complain.
I intended to read the comments which I had previously glanced at, but I am denying myself that pleasure. I hadn't realised that ebikes were so technically complex, although this may be the result of rendering in words procedures and technology that are easily understood in real life. Imagine, for instance, describing in detail the method of opening a tin with an old-fashioned tin opener.
However, the matter of insurance is a graver concern. Obviously it seems desirable. But if one has had to give up car-driving because one has become, realistically, uninsurable might the same restriction be extended to ebikes? Have you re-checked the CTC's terms and conditions relative to old age?
RR:
Yes, simple things can look complicated when they have to be put on paper. I remember a management course I attended where one task was to write down how to boil a kettle of water for someone to understand and be able to carry out, who had never seen one or experienced electricity. I think I covered nearly a page.
There are octogenerians (and even ninety year olds) far more aged than I who are members of the CTC (a good advert for cycling?) and that organisations insurance covers all members, thank god.
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