Anyone Have An Ebike?

We have a couple of Sondors "Smart Step" Ebikes. Only 350 watts. Good for street cruising for a couple of Senior Citizens. Picked up at Costco, cheaper than from Sondors directly.
Best for those that are looking for the Ebike experience, you don't like it, return it to Costco. We will be taking both on a 1Up Super Duty rack on our RV

 

Will be following this one, I live on a hill, no matter which way I go when I leave the house its uphil getting home. Inexpensive Giant Roam kills my 66 year old knees getting home. Dont know whether to go relatively cheap electric or get a name brand E bike.

 

eBike porn.

eBike for my 57 yo commute.

 

Do you live close to a Costco? If you do, go in and take a look at the Sondors "Smart Step" 350W-7 Speed at $1,399. If you go online directly to Sondors that same Ebike is $1,799
The Smart Step is easy to mount and dismount. No crossbar to hang up your "package". You don't have to figure what the step over height (calculated on your inseam) is of other Ebikes you might be looking at.
Best part is, if you don't like it you can return it to Costco. We are now on our 3rd Sondors and have found this brand to be very dependable. We now have (2) of the same model and
are taking them on our Minnie Winnie when we travel.

 

I have a Specialized Ebike. Turbo Levo Comp

 

The one I have now is 500W and I don't think I'd want to go any lower as I live in a hilly area.

My plan is for this one to go to the wife and get myself a 750W or higher bike.

I've seen some of the Sondors bikes online. Good to hear they are a quality brand

That is extremely nice, but I'm not looking to spend anywhere near that amount. I'd never ride it enough to justify its cost.

 

Yeah, I ride 7 days a week so it def gets used

 

Well I ended up with a Mokwheel Basalt.

It has the torque sensor instead of cadence sensor and it is definitely an improvement.

It is a much more natural feeling riding experience.

A little pedal, a little assist. Lots of pedal, lots of assist (depending on the PAS level you have selected).

The torque sensor smoothly amplifies your input.

It has a 750 watt motor and can go up the local big hill on throttle alone, though it will drop to around 6mph.

With just a little pedal input it zooms right up it.

This thing is a blast!

Mine is identical to this one.



Edit: So my 23 year old son came by and I let him give it a try.

His comment,"Wow! That's a lot of fun to ride! Where do I get one?"

I agree. I haven't had this much fun riding a bike in forever.

 

Sorry I missed this earlier.

The Lectric XP might be a good fit for what you want and there are lots of them on the local marketplace.

I got ours for $450 with only 200 miles and many upgrades (suspension seat, better headlight, better rack)

It's still a fun bike to ride but I have to admit that my new one has spoiled me a bit now. But then it cost a lot more too so it better spoil me

The Lecxtric XP folds up really quickly and might be a fit for your use case. Here it is folded.

 

Bought earlier this summer. REI CO-OP E2.1 Class 1
All Shimano components, motor, batt... 250w
We get a 50/60 miles range and love them.

 

We have (2) Sondors Smart Step Ebikes. 2nd Sondors we got on sale at Costco for $1,100. ($300 off regular Costco price)
Best thing for many of you that might be on the fence, if you purchase at Costco and you don't like it, return it!

We have these loaded onto our Minnie Winnie and take them with us when we RV travel. About 65lbs. each with the battery installed.
Our Ebike rack is a 1Up SuperDuty double bike rack. Only rack rated for RV's. No wobble whatsoever. This most recent Sondors is the 3rd
we have owned. Battery is UL approved so we don't worry about issues like fires. Charger has Red/Green indicator light when charging.
When the light turns green, Ebike is fully charged so all you do is unplug it and you are good to go!

 

I'm a DIY kinda person and a moto rider forever so I built one, 1500W Mid drive/20AH battery. Since I live in the desert sand is everywhere, I needed something that will pull deep sand when needed and of course it's got a throttle.
I put on a wide ratio rear casette and it'll motor through deep sugar sand effortlessly, it'll climb steep enough hills to the point it'll loop out ort start spinning the wheel. I stay away from most designated mtn bike trails since an ebike is a motor vehicle still in NM.



Crusin in the desert

 

We have a couple of Aventon Levels we bought two years ago. New at that time they now each have 1700 miles on them. They're a blast and we go places we never would take an analog bike to. Where we live not only is there a huge up/down gradient, but were at a mile high in altitude. I'm just not that young anymore. Plus it ebikes allow us to ride in headwinds and in hotter weather than analog bikes.

They are heavy and with the battery they weigh 62 lbs. I purchased a Hollywood Destination-E rack since I couldn't figure out a good way to carry both in the bed and not have to remove my tonneau cover. Now I can keep stuff under the cover and tote the bikes if needed (batteries out when on the rack). Fact is, we typically just ride from the house, hit the bike paths and ride between 20-40 miles. This is our main form of exercise so we generally keep them on PAS 1. Doing so increases the mileage available from the battery. A couple of weeks ago we did 47 miles. Both are cadence sensor bikes. Torque sensors weren't available from Aventon at the time we purchased them, but I understand you may be able to get even more mileage out of a charge with torque sensors. That said, we love these bikes and are perfectly happy with cadence sensors.

If you don't have one and are thinking of purchasing, make sure there's a LBS that can service it. I'm pretty mechanical but if I need help on a major service item I know I can get it fixed locally. General maintenance is typical bike stuff, but if the electrical system has problems I'd like to know I don't have to rely on YouTube to make it operational again as they're quite an investment.

Have fun, OP!

 

I would love to have access to riding areas like that!

Love your homebrew bike too!. Do you have a build thread of it anywhere? I'd like to see the components you used.

One of the things that drew me to the Basalt was that the crank area of the frame is set up for a mid drive, but the bike is of course hub drive. I kinda expect them to release a mid drive version of it eventually.

For those looking around, the hub drive is the most common and the motor is in the hub of the wheel.

The mid drive setups have the motor with the pedals so they can take advantage of your gears. More power, more efficient, more gooder.

I've put a few miles on it and have learned a few things:

1. It will do 34 mph on flat ground which is where I run out of gear. That's as fast as I can pedal. Thinking about upgrading the chain ring to a 52T for a bit more oomph.

2. The 34 mph brought out another point. I need a good pair of biking glasses since at that speed you can't see anything due to your eyes watering.

3. I've already ordered a pair of mirrors. My initial thought was that the bike is so quiet I would hear traffic approaching. Nope. The wind is roaring in your ears at speed.

I'm excited to get this out on some of the forestry roads over the long weekend.

 

I don't have a build thread but when I decided to do this I scoured Endless Sphere, a site where there's no shortage of electric bike/vehicle information. The bike was an alum framed 27" FT bike ordered from Walmart, the Bfang 1500W mid-drive motor setup came from Luna Cycle , 52V/20AH Batt from Amazon, I added a suspension seat post and a different seat to make the ride more comfortable. The straight handle bar got replaced with a set that came off my Triumph Tiger. And I added a wide ratio 9sp rear cassette (12~50T) and heavy duty derailleur, powerful motors are hard on drivetrains as we all know, e-bikes are no different. I switched the sides on the brakes since I'm a MC rider and that's the way my brakes have been for a very long time. I'm not bicycle guy. These things can go fast, with the amount of protective gear one typically wears on a bicycle these are far sketchier then any of my 3 motorcycles. I upgraded the brakes to cable operated hydraulic ones, a step up from cable operated disks which aren't up to this bikes speeds, full hydraulic would be better but about 3x the $$. All the stuff besides the frame, and motor I ordered off Amazon and it came from China.

 

Wallke X3 Pro for me (my second) and a Lectric XP 2.0 Step-Thru for the Mrs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3oyCvyAmhs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb2ESNWUBk0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCpNvMJ1NYw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4CblS65Vuc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4BhaIZ6-C0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFjSwSX2Z_w

 

I got an e-bike recently, and I love it so far. It’s a great way to get around, especially when you don’t feel like dealing with traffic or parking. I’ve found that it’s perfect for short trips around town, and the battery life is pretty decent for longer rides, too. You can pedal if you want, but if you're feeling lazy, the motor helps. One thing I’d recommend, though, is getting insurance. It gives you peace of mind if something happens, and bikes aren’t cheap! I found https://sundaysinsurance.co.uk/ that offers coverage. It's worth checking out. Overall, if you’re considering getting one, go for it! It's fun, eco-friendly, and a great way to get fresh air without breaking too much sweat.

 

Yup, I ride mine every day and go exploring every weekend in the hills

 

I "rolled my own" a few years back. Fitted a Bafang mid motor onto my 20 year old GT steel frame, hard tail, Richter 8, mountain bike.
https://www.empoweredcycles.com/collections/complete-electric-bike-kit
I never would ride the bike because it's always up hill around my place. With the motor drive, the hills can be dialed out . The final hill up to the house is 100 foot rise, and the motor alone just barely does it. I pedal HARD on that final pull.
I ride for exercise and pleasure. The motor drive has allowed me to go places I had wanted to ride for more than 20 years, but never did. I enjoy our local back roads and abandoned roads and even log trails. When I go out on adventure, I come back tired, sweaty, and dirty.
But mostly it's one or another of five mile loops in the late afternoon (all dirt road) The elevation change is around 700 feet. I go out at PAS1 (1-6 range) and go hard till the first real climb. then PAS2-3 takes me to the high point. Downhill, 28 mph is FAST!
The other day, I took the 10 mile loop which includes pave. It seems like 17-18mph is where I end up on the flats.

I've fitted the bike with Noleen girder front suspension


and a "pogo" seat post to take the jar out of not seeing the holes. The battery just got moved to the rear rack as it tore the bottle bosses out of the down tube. A "fix it project for this winter.

I run hybrid tires, smooth center tread with knobs on the sides. I think I would like the same motor setup on a fat tire bike. but I get nearly 100 miles to a battery charge, and I would not like to give that up. (Yes, I pedal a lot). I put a wide ratio cassette on this spring. that's a good thing, as the front gear is a single due to the motor.

The cadence PAS takes some getting used to, but works fine. Just another skill set. It does tend to drive me faster all the time though. Then there is the "ghost pedal" side, where the motor drives along, and all I do is lazily keep the pedals turning. Cheating! ;-)

As I said early on, I never would ride, now I ride every day. And I'm OLD! (72)

 

This thread has popped up again recently so I thought I'd drop back in a year later with an update.

Still loving our ebikes.

These things are awesome for cruising the forestry service roads. In our area, bike paths are basically non-existent on the regular roads, so we ride the dirt back roads and parks.

My wife was a bit scared of hers at the start, but once she got confident with it she enjoys it.

She's looking to upgrade now, but the Lectric XP 2.0 has served us well.

I still really like the Basalt, but now I'm kind of eyeing the dual motor bikes.

@98 SNAKE EATER , I see that the X3 Pro you posted is available in a dual motor configuration.

I can't find on their website whether their bikes are cadence or torque sensor based. Which is yours?

Usually if it's not mentioned, it's a cadence sensor.