Originally Posted by
Broctoon
We wanted at least 26" wheels, and preferably 700c. So all the small wheel e-bikes are out.
She needs a really low step frame. No conventional double diamonds or even mid-step.
We also wanted mid drive, not a hub motor.
I'm curious, why write-off the smaller wheel ebikes? have you or your wife tried different wheel sized ebikes for decent amount in comparison?
Similarly mid vs hub motor, have you or your wife tried either to give decent comparison?
My wife is 4'11", we've been cycling together since 2006, we ride together about 1k to 2k miles annually since.
I've built her a few acoustic bicycles including road, MTB, commuter, recumbents, tandem & ebikes;
some of them are folding versions for when we used to travel with our bikes prior to COVID.
Most of the bikes I built for wife are less expensive (under $2k), find the smallest quality frame and build with components that I can find for the best fitting of her needs.
Her road bike has 650c wheels, her MTB has 24" wheels, her recumbent has 26" & 20" wheels, so does the tandem we ride together.
I ride a 20" folding bike in my daily commute in NYC, my commuting cargo ebike has 20x4" hub motor wheels, but they ride more like 24" wheels with much suspension travel in the wide tires.
We are not strangers to smaller wheeled bikes and for the advantage of more durable wheels, more compact sizing that take up less room when they are not ridden, easier to transport, those are all valid reasons to have smaller wheels.
On ebikes, wife & I have been riding together mostly on rails-to-trail paths, no single track trails yet.
Longest distance on a single ride was about 34 miles, out & back kinda ride.
Wife feels that riding an ebike is cheating, but welcomes it when the hills are present.
She's kept it on PAS mode most of the time, not used to using the throttle on a 16" or 14" wheeled ebike.
Wife does enjoy the small compact size of the micro ebikes, low standover height, small stature allow he to be instantly comfortable with maneuvering the ebike without need of instructions. She plays with the ebike controls on her own, I just ride behind or next to her to answer questions.
Now she feel that she can ride faster on her acoustic bikes since she can keep a higher pace on her ebike (20+mph) easily.
If a sub $1K compact hub driven ebike the gets delivered to my driveway allows the wife to have a safe & comfortable first experience with ebike and suits her needs, that's
a win for me, no need to spend more time & money trying to convert an acoustic bike that may or may not be designed for the extra stress of a motor/battery can exert on the acoustic frame.