TL;DR: help me, Micromobility, you’re my only hope
Long story short, I am fed up with the state of public transit in my city and feeling envious of the e-riders whooshing past. However, while trying to pick an actual model, I’ve ran into being unable to find a model that fits my needs:
- being able to drive 30+ km, with ~100 meter elevation difference between start and finish
- being able to handle 100+ kg of load (I am, unfortunately, fat)
- being able to handle rain and possibly light snow
- being foldable or otherwise transportable, because I’ll have to keep it in the apartment
The Ebike store I’ve been to suggested picrelated, Yokamura Apache, which seems to fit the requirements, but is expensive enough to give me pause. Are there better options? Am I dreaming the impossible? Please help!
Your requirements don’t seem that crazy, I think you have a good chance of finding something! I’d say maybe check Upway (if they deliver to your area) for slightly used ebikes? I’ve ordered from them once and their prices are extremely good. Also maybe see if the foldable criteria is really something you want? That form factor usually means that you’ll have a derailleur instead of a hub gear, a front or back wheel motor instead of a mid-drive and the battery life usually isn’t great on those either since they need to be reasonably light (well… like 18-25kg is considered reasonable). If you went for a regular sized bike you’d have a lot more options and way better specs at like half the price. Bike theft insurance is surprisingly cheap (I pay like 20€ a year to insure my 1k€ bike) so maybe just parking on the street could be fine?