How much does a good electric bike cost?
I think the most important thing to understand here is what we mean by ‘good’.
So we’re going to get my opinion on what is good, but hopefully it’s got some grounding behind it.
Firstly, if I’m looking for a good electric bike, the most important thing for me is it’s got to have a mid-drive motor in it, so that really discounts an awful lot of the low end cheap bikes that are out there. So if anything is looking sort of sub £1000 it’s highly likely you’re going to have a hub motor, and this type of motor is either placed in the front wheel or in the rear wheel.
These motors are great if you just want a cheap electric bike. But we’re looking for a good electric bike. My main issue with hub motors is they’re not going to really pull you up the hills. So you’ll find that as the bike starts to slow, the power starts to drop. So when you need it, most of the power isn’t there. So for that reason I’m discounting generally anything with a hub motor.
So that really then moves on to anything with a crank motor. Now there still are low priced bikes with crank motors in them, but I would really tend to move towards anything that’s a mainstream brand that we already know. So that’s going to be manufacturers like Brose, Shimano or my own personal favorite is the Bosch system that’s out there.
Bosch currently own the majority of the market when it comes to e-bikes and they’re an absolutely fantastic brand to work with. So for me a good bike then means the prices are probably starting around about maybe the £1,500 to £2,000 mark.
For that sort of price you’re going to get a basic e-bike. So you need to take into account what’s going to be important for you to make your bike good. In my eyes, any bike that’s going to be good, it’s going to need mud-guards. It’s probably going to need a carrier rack. Definitely going to want front and rear lights on it and a few other nice pieces like good quality gears, hydraulic disc brakes and generally a good geometry, comfortable saddle and decent handlebars and grips.
That starts to push the price up again, so then we’re starting to look anything from around the £2,500 up to £3,000 mark. From there on upwards the bikes just get better and better. My personal preference as to where I would start if I had a open-ended wallet and I could just go and buy any bike I want, I definitely want to be buying a bike that is at least £3,000 and probably sitting in between sort of £3,000 to £5,000 mark.
Once you start to go above the £5,000 mark, the bikes definitely get an awful lot better, but at the same time the price is starting to get quite significant as well. Having said that, there are bikes out there like the Riese & Müller Superdelite’s, Delite’s that are out there, that once you get up above that £5,000 mark, you are then looking at the benefit of things like full suspension on your bike, Rohloff hubs with belt drives, electronic shifters, main beam lights, brake lights, all sorts of things that you wouldn’t see on a lower end bike.
So in answer to the question as to how much does a good electric bike cost? I would say realistically, anything from £3,000 up to £5,000.
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