E-Bikes and Hills

[Lex Luthier]

@RevolverRob,

These folks in Eugene, Oregon make pretty great commute and cargo bikes and they are super helpful on the phone and via e-mail.

https://www.bikefriday.com/folding-b...ric-cargo-bike

https://www.bikefriday.com/folding-b...-city-commuter

I have test ridden several of the all-manual cargo versions, and intend to have one someday before I age out.
The owners of the local St Paul dealership routinely use an e-cargo bike year-round to get their stuff and small kids up and down the river bluffs and into south St Paul,
which are similar in grade to some of your downtown Seattle routes.

[OlongJohnson]

Yup. With it being flat and cold, you can actually get to work and be dressed for work.

And the bike lanes are integrated in a way that is designed to work with cars, rather than designed to make the roads not work as well for cars.

BTW, if @RevolverRob wants to see somewhere that's astonishingly similar to the Netherlands, get up to Skagit County next summer for the Tulip Festival. No question why the place got full of Dutch (not Deutsche) back in the 1800s.

[peterb]

Yup. With it being flat and cold, you can actually get to work and be dressed for work.

And the bike lanes are integrated in a way that is designed to work with cars, rather than designed to make the roads not work as well for cars.

BTW, if @RevolverRob wants to see somewhere that's astonishingly similar to the Netherlands, get up to Skagit County next summer for the Tulip Festival. No question why the place got full of Dutch (not Deutsche) back in the 1800s.

[taadski]

I agree with the folks above that are steering you toward more well proven designs from actual bike manufactures.

Companies like Giant, Trek, Specialized and Orbea are industry leaders who have spent huge dollars designing and developing e-motor systems that function on off-road bikes. And that tech (and the support that comes with it) carries right over to their commuter models. You can get into some of these for around $3k or a little more.

It sounds like you’ve already experienced purchasing the ebike version of a Hipoint. Most of my personal experience is with Specialized, but it’s fair to say the brands listed above are the Glocks, M&Ps and HKs of the market currently.

Another factor is that these companies use parts and equipment that are readily available in the marketplace, instead of proprietary wheel sizes, tires and other accessories that you may have difficulty finding or replacing in the long term.

Pinkbike is an online biking resource (blog, news, etc) that has a very active buy/sell department. A lot of shops across the country use it to unload new/unused stock also. There are a bunch of new Ebikes on there currently for sale, so it might be an option for actually getting something in hand before 2023, if that’s your goal.


T