The Trek FX+ 2 e-bike is a jack-of-all-trades

Review: Trek's hybrid FX+ 2 e-bike puts cycling front and center.

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Too bad it's cadence sensing, not torque. That said, I'm not a fan of class 1 ebikes, having that quick throttle blip is great at starts vs waiting for the cadence sensor to kick in.

 

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With an eBike, things malfunction often, and even with an EE degree, the thing is a blackbox. I don't know if my experience is typical of eBike owners, but I have two sets of eBike parts in my garage. I've heard of many eBike owners with dead batteries from discharge over the Winter. There should be a standardized "Fairphone" model for eBike components where many eBikes use the same parts and users can trade in faulty parts to be repaired and reused.

There are, at least on the DIY low end. It's all just 2 wire connectors to the battery, batteries themselves are just a gang of 18650s (hopefully) spot welded together, and most of the interfaces are swappable between motors and controllers.

 

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But the only other model I've been considering is a Specialized Turbo Vado SL with a mid-drive motor but that is 1.5-2x the price, depending on the model. Sigh

It's hard to go wrong with something like a RadCity, tbh.

 

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I certainly wish my eBike had a throttle.

Tbh? On mine the throttle gets a quick blip here and there (starting from a stop, the rare situation where I want to go through an intersection faster, etc) but it's not something you're constantly on, unlike a moto.

 

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Bangood, while hardly in the 'high quality performance' class, is well established and unlikely to go anywhere.

Plus the bafangs are great for throwing on older bikes since they can either fit into the standard cranks (for mid drives) or are a fairly easy hub replacement.

 

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Oh, I know I'll get one (or more) eventually, but while I can still keep up with my mates on my "manual" bikes, I value the boost to my cardio fitness

"Acoustic".

 

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Except you are relying on RadPower, which is a shit company with basically no customer support anymore. I have a RadWagon 4 and am very much not a fan of the bike nor the company...

Ugh. That's a shame. Seemed like good bang for the buck for a while there.

Oh well, my everyday bike is a bike friday hauladay built locally, with some aftermarket bafang bits. Totally different genre.

 

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Disagree. I have ridden my 250w Momentum Voya e+ 3 on some STEEP Seattle hills and its more than capable of chugging up them at a reasonable pace, particularly on High assist. You do, however, have to put a bit of effort in too. If you're treating the bike more like a scooter where you're either using the throttle or sticking assist to high and ghost pedaling with a cadence sensor, then I can see how 250W might at first glance seem wildly underpowered. If your expectation is that it can maintain max speed at steep inclines without any real power input from the rider, then, yea, 250W isn't going to do that. I will say though, the 250W motor on my 40lb Voya seems more powerful than the 750w Bafang on my 90lb RadWagon 4. And lets not even broach the pedaling dynamics of a torque sensor vs a cadence sensor. The RadWagon having, IMO, an atrociously calibrated cadence sensor at that.

I run a 750w mid drive (not hub drive) and tbh it makes a difference when you're lugging around two kids up the same seattle hills.

 

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You are living my dream.

Heh I have my eCargo and eFat, then an acoustic mtb and road bike. Then there's the kid's bikes, and the wife's...

 

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Oh absolutely. for the record, I’m not saying a 250w motor will suffice on a huge cargo bike with two kids on the back. I think 750w is the bare minimum I’d want for a cargo/kid hauler. preferably a mod-drive with torque sensing. As much as a Tern was way out of my price range, I sorta wish I’d sprung for one over my Radwagon.

Bike friday haul-a-day here, with a BBS02 as a retrofit. Odo says about 5k miles on it right now. Flipping the front wheel back on it lets it fit onto a bus rack just fine, and on a train I can set it on the rear rack so it's vertical instead of horizontal so it takes up less room. Fully loaded, I can fit two grocery bags on the front basket, two panniers on the front wheels (about a grocery bag+ each), rear panniers can hold 2-3 bags on each side, and if I'm not kid hauling the hooptie is perfect size for a 20 gallon storage tote. You can haul... a LOT of stuff on a well set up cargo.