Originally Posted by
Het Volk
Wow - what is Lemond thinking? A city commuter bike need to be above all else:
(a) functional
(b) sturdy and built to take abuse, especially the frame getting dinged and or slammed against all sorts of other metal objects,
(c) Cheap enough as to not warrant worrying about it getting stolen anywhere and everywhere. IRO to me was the gold standard for a new urban bike, but honestly, at this point, any cheap BikesDirect bike as a base frame makes the most sense to me. Hi-Ten steel, 36 spoke clincher wheels.
This is a bike that someone would carry into their workplace and secure in their office. It needs to be light enough to be relatively easily carried. A 65lbs eBike lives a different life than a 30 lbs carbon eBike. At my work place, there's a ton of cyclists. The <$500 beaters are mostly parked in the racks outside, and the >$2k bikes live in offices. One of those takes significantly more abuse.
Also, the motor+battery on an eBike is a minimum $600, so even a minimum spec bike is ~$1000. At that price there's no point in going with less than an Aluminum frame.
I like the integrated lighting. One of the most frustrating parts about eBikes is having to charge the batteries for lights. I'm sitting on 600Wh battery, it'd be really nice to use it for lighting also.