Hi,

I'm from Israel and i want to buy electrical bikes in the US and ship them. it will be chipper than buying it here...

I am looking for electrical bikes with these needs:
1. price: the less is better of course. 1000$ is the max
2. weight: same here - the less is better
3. my need is to drive to the train each day (4 km) so it should be charged enpugh for that and easy to put in the train (I'm a quite weak girl)
4. comfort

Do you have any recommendations for me?
BTW, do you have experience in those e-bike prices on "black friday"?

Thanks

----- I have yet to see an e-bike "Black Friday" sale, but then I haven't been looking for them either. E-bikes are kind of a specialty item and specialty items are less likely to be on sale on a national bike sale day like "Black Friday" or "Cyber Monday".

----- The main piece of information we are missing that make a decent recommendation to you is what kind of hills you need to be able to climb during the 4-km commute of yours. With e-bikes what kind of hills you need to be able to climb can be one of the most important considerations to consider before purchasing a bike. Someone that travels over flat terrain and has no hills of any significance to climb and doesn't carry much of anything besides themselves on their bike can get away with just a tiny smallest size 200-watt hub-motor where as someone that needs to climb a lot of really steep hills (like in the U.S. city of San-Francisco for example) needs a motor that is many times more powerful and would probably be better off with a mid-drive where the motor hooks up to the bikes chain and runs its power through the bikes gears so it can be geared down for hill climbing instead of just going with a hub-motor.

----- Does the bike need to be a folder to fit on that train?

Looks like you need to talk to this guy. He is from Israel too:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...cycle-the-book

Or his article in Wired Magazine:
https://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/07/diy-e-bike/

hi,

Thanks for your answer.

1. almost no hills. maybe just a small one. but most of the way is quite flat. I weight around 58 kg, including the bag on my back
2. the bike needs to be a folder

thanks

You can try something like this on the low end (I don't know about the quality of the bike but the Q100 and lithium battery are a good start)
https://www.bmsbattery.com/ebike/508-...c-bicycle.html
I know it says $500, but shipping is probably going to be a couple of hundred.


It depends a bit on how far and how fast you want to go, but it doesn't sound like you need a big expensive system.

I'm not the best guy to advise you as far as complete bikes. I build from components myself, so I can just tell you what kind of components to look for.

For your application I would suggest getting a bike with either a 200 to 350 watt (250 watt most common size) geared rear hub motor or a 500 watt direct drive rear hub motor. If you like to pedal and are used to pedaling bikes then lean towards a geared hub motor, if you don't like to pedal and/or aren't used to doing so then lean towards a direct drive hub motor.

I can't really advise you as to which folding bike frame to lean towards since I don't have very much experience with folders.

So basically the way I can help you is to let you know what kind of motor to be looking for (see above) you don't need a whole lot of power for your application since you are small/light and you don't have any hill climbing needs. So your looking for the smaller size hub motors (good for light weight both because the motor itself isn't as heavy and because you don't need a very big battery pack which is where the real weight savings can be). To my mind the main decision you will have is whether to go with a small internally geared down rear hub motor (usually 250 watt size but can be slightly more or less) or with the smallest normal size of direct drive rear hub motor (500 watts). The internally geared down hub motors are good for people who like to pedal because they don't have any drag to them when pedaling only but they have a limited service life of about 2-3 years for a person who uses them for a moderate daily commute before they wear out and need to be replaced (gears and internal freewheel wear out). A direct drive is more suited for a person who rarely going to pedal only without using the motor since if the motor is off and you are just pedaling there is a noticeable drag to them. They are also usually more powerful and thus more suited for someone who isn't going to pedal very much and add their power to the equation and they can have a very long service life because there is no internal gears or freewheel to wear out.

From what I have seen of the folder e-bike market most folding e-bikes use an internal geared hub motor (200 to 350 watts but most common is 250 watt) but I have seen a few that do use a 500-watt direct drive rear hub motors as well so you might have to look a little harder if that is the option you want to go with but they are out there. For a folder which is built for light weight with a small frame and has a hinge in the middle of the frame that already gets a lot of stress as it is I would be extremely hesitant to buy one with the hub motor in the front wheel and I personally would very strongly lean towards one with the hub motor in the rear wheel.

Oh, yes, you are going to want something with a smaller size lithium (something with "Li" in the battery chemistry designation) based battery chemistry for weight reasons. You do not want one that uses lead acid (SLA) batteries, they are really heavy and not suited for folder use much less for a small person who can't or doesn't want to lift a lot of weight. Almost any battery size with the exception of the very, very smallest ones that are shaped like a bike water bottle and fit in a water bottle rack should be sufficient for your needs so look for a small but adequate battery. A 5 to 7 amp hour (Ah) frame or rack mount battery should be more then sufficient for your needs.

If you don't want to have to pedal you do not want a bike that has a "PAS only" controller system. Some "pedal assist" (PAS) systems have an over-ride where you can turn just push a button or twist a throttle on the handle-bars some do not and the motor will only run when you are pedaling. Read the description carefully to see which kind of controller system the bike is equipped with. Some bikes use just a simple throttle control on the handlebars which works just like a motorcycle throttle or car accelerator pedal and has nothing to do with the pedals, some controllers have a PAS system with a sensor on the pedals that turns the motor on whenever you are pedaling usually with two or three different select-able levels of assistance of those some have a manual throttle over-ride and some do not. The ones that do not are "PAS only" system. Read the description carefully to figure out what kind of controller system the bike uses otherwise you could end up getting a motor control system that is not what you want.

Okay, that's my advice as far as what kind of components to look for as far as motor, battery, controller. Also as to pedal gearing, If you like to pedal your going to want a rear derailer gearing set-up (usually 6 to 8 speed). If you don't like to pedal and are mainly just going to use the motor then a single speed gearing is just fine and would probably be preferred.