Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 329 posts

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#121

Post by haiku2077 »

jameshart wrote: post #117
lm411 wrote: post #106

Anecdotally, my wife's Magnum Premium 2 has held up well for 4 years of all weather use in west coast Canada. This includes pulling a cargo trailer or kids trailer year round - salty and sandy slushy snow, pouring rain, sun... For two of the years she hauled him to school everyday, in all weather, and did all of her shopping and errands with the bike. About 100km every weekday. I'll have to look at the odometer somet…

Not casting doubt on your numbers here, but to put some perspective on how much usage that implies: 100km every weekday means literally hours of use every day - we're talking about an e-bike that must average what, 20-25km/h at most? That's assuming you're not in stop-start urban traffic. So four or five hours a day? I guess if you're doing a school run that's 30 mins there and 30 mins back, morning and afternoon, pl…

My cheap ebike dies closer to 33 kph easily

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#122

Post by haiku2077 »

jseliger wrote: post #84
kibwen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard to find e-bikes with belt drives. Honestly, I think they'll take over the e-bikes market within 10 years or so (I think there are still some outstanding patents?). More expensive and slightly less efficient than a chain, but both of those are probably negligible for the context of e-bikes, and in exchange you never get grease on your pant leg, you never need to lube anything, you never need to worry abo…

Probably the most interesting, cost-effective one I know of: https://lectricebikes.com/products/lectric-one-ebike

I have a lectric and the build quality is terrible. Had to deal with:

- a bent frame out of the box - a recall due to defective brakes - lights not secured properly - loose fender after less than 100km - a derailleur that refuses to allow use of all gears- no matter how adjusted it is unable to use either the lowest or highest

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#123

Post by Rebelgecko »

secondcoming wrote: post #81
mrob wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they have higher average wind speeds, and headwinds can slow you down as much as hills.

According to ChatGPT it's not that different: > Comparison: > United Kingdom: Average wind speeds range from 13 to 19 km/h (8 to 12 mph). > Netherlands: Average wind speeds range from 15 to 20 km/h (9 to 12 mph).

Is that true?

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#124

Post by jameshart »

haiku2077 wrote: post #121
jameshart wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not casting doubt on your numbers here, but to put some perspective on how much usage that implies: 100km every weekday means literally hours of use every day - we're talking about an e-bike that must average what, 20-25km/h at most? That's assuming you're not in stop-start urban traffic. So four or five hours a day? I guess if you're doing a school run that's 30 mins there and 30 mins back, morning and afternoon, pl…

My cheap ebike dies closer to 33 kph easily

top speed != average speed

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#125

Post by Retric »

jameshart wrote: post #117
lm411 wrote: post #106

Anecdotally, my wife's Magnum Premium 2 has held up well for 4 years of all weather use in west coast Canada. This includes pulling a cargo trailer or kids trailer year round - salty and sandy slushy snow, pouring rain, sun... For two of the years she hauled him to school everyday, in all weather, and did all of her shopping and errands with the bike. About 100km every weekday. I'll have to look at the odometer somet…

Not casting doubt on your numbers here, but to put some perspective on how much usage that implies: 100km every weekday means literally hours of use every day - we're talking about an e-bike that must average what, 20-25km/h at most? That's assuming you're not in stop-start urban traffic. So four or five hours a day? I guess if you're doing a school run that's 30 mins there and 30 mins back, morning and afternoon, pl…

Top speed on a Magnum Premium 2 is 45kph. So it really depends on where you’re using it as to the kind of average speeds are reasonable.

Average 35+kph and they are under 3h per day. It doesn’t seem that unlikely especially if it’s more like 90km than 100.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#126

Post by adrianN »

dgacmu wrote: post #53
serf wrote: post #11

it's not surprising to me that the bosch mid-drives are failing, they're typically placed at an angle that catches all the run off from every tube at the lowest point on the bike (except on recumbents), and the controller is (usually) integrated. mid-drives are great, the gear advantage rocks; the bosch units suck but unfortunately they had so much industry sway that a lot of ebike frames are coming out built around…

The gear advantage of a mid-drive rocks but I was quite surprised that I chewed through a rear cassette in under a year / about 1k miles -- a 250W motor + heavy cargo bike + kid passenger + a large and pretty strong rider exert an awful lot of force. And with the assist, I almost never use the larger cogs, so all the wear gets concentrated. (This compares to many, many thousand miles on my road bike.) Still love the…

I manage to ruin chain and cassette in under a year on my acoustic bike. The trick is to ride fast in all weather and never clean the chain.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#127

Post by FpUser »

jameshart wrote: post #117
lm411 wrote: post #106

Anecdotally, my wife's Magnum Premium 2 has held up well for 4 years of all weather use in west coast Canada. This includes pulling a cargo trailer or kids trailer year round - salty and sandy slushy snow, pouring rain, sun... For two of the years she hauled him to school everyday, in all weather, and did all of her shopping and errands with the bike. About 100km every weekday. I'll have to look at the odometer somet…

Not casting doubt on your numbers here, but to put some perspective on how much usage that implies: 100km every weekday means literally hours of use every day - we're talking about an e-bike that must average what, 20-25km/h at most? That's assuming you're not in stop-start urban traffic. So four or five hours a day? I guess if you're doing a school run that's 30 mins there and 30 mins back, morning and afternoon, pl…

Bar inclement weather I used to ride my bike (regular, not e-bike) about 50 km per day. Now I alternate between cycling, fast walk and riding EUC. Add lots of swimming on top in the summer (I am 63 btw).

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#128

Post by haiku2077 »

jameshart wrote: post #124
haiku2077 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My cheap ebike dies closer to 33 kph easily

top speed != average speed

That's not the top speed. That's about how fast it goes when I casually ride it on a level bike lane.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#129

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #104
Etheryte wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're glossing over the fact that internal gear hub transmissions easily cost in the hundreds, whereas you can get a derailleur for a tenner or so. I've owned a number of bikes in my life and all of them have been cheaper than the transmission you suggest everyone should use.

There's a lot of range in internally-geared hubs though, from the crazy end with the $1500 Rohloff 14sp to the $80 Sturmey-Archer 3sp. I commute on a Shimano Alfine 11sp that's ~$200 which isn't exactly "a tenner" but if you add up the price of a derailleur, cassette, chainrings, etc. I don't think it's much different?

One of the really weird things with bikes is that entry level bikes tend to be 3x7 which means that you have a lot of extra weight and complexity (a second shifter, shift cable, and front gears) for pretty much no benefit over a 1x9 system.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#130

Post by ARandomerDude »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #29

If it's a Chinese e-bike, it's probably lying about being IPX67. OTOH, Riese & Müller $15k USD e-bikes aren't IPX anything because the Bosch components aren't. If you get it wet, just kiss that money goodbye. Absolutely bonkers.

Serious question, why would a person spend that kind of money on an ebike? An entry-level motorcycle is less than half that. What benefit does the bike get you that a motorcycle doesn't?

One example among many:

https://powersports.honda.com/motorcycle/cruiser/rebel-500

Post reply on HN