Introduction to E-Bikes – What are they? UK E-Bike Commuting

Welcome back to another video – this time all about another 2 wheeled transport – e-bikes!

I’ve had an e-bike for about 3 years now – it’s a fantastic way to get about and keeps you fit too! With all the current situation meaning people will try to avoid public transport in many countries – could e-bikes be the way forward for people who traditionally wouldn’t cycle?

Join me for a quick discussion followed by a ride along and tour of my bike. As ever please continue to support my channel by sharing, liking, commenting and of course I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one!

Stay safe, until next time.

Music used (all via epidemic sound (https://www.epidemicsound.com/):
• You Are The Solution (Instrumental Version) – Loving Caliber
• Turn It Up (COE Remix) (Instrumental Version) – Mike Parr
• Time to Wake Up (COE Remix) (Instrumental Version) – Cacti
• Between The Lines (COE Remix) (Instrumental Version) – Elijah N
• Call On Me (Instrumental Version) – Tape Machines

[Music] I welcome to another video due to the current situation it’s been a bit more difficult to get out and about and to be honest I haven’t really wanted to go out and about needlessly to film videos obviously so today’s topic talks about something a little bit different to the last few videos that I’ve been talking about but it’s still very much two-wheel based and that’s talking about electric bikes now this is something that particularly with the current situation in the UK and around the world it’s something that a lot of people have perhaps started considering or may not have even been aware that these things exist and it’s quite interesting because people aren’t going to try and avoid more likely public transport if they possibly can and that means that the smallish commutes that you could have so for example you’re four to five miles maybe even up to ten miles might be doable on a bike now I appreciate that a lot of people if you’re riding motorbikes maybe you don’t open them you push bike or if you do maybe you don’t own one that’s in good working order at the minute so it might be worth some consideration first of all are thinking about well if I cycle to work have a nice shower facilities have I got any way of getting changed getting presentable when I am at work if I arrive at work am I likely to be quite sweaty if it’s a hot day so all those things led me a couple of years ago to purchase an electric bike so first of all what is an electric bike or simply it is a bike with an electric motor I came there they come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes whether it is ones that are hub driven so there in the rear wheel some even have front wheel drive if you like and some have a mid drive where it connects to the actual cranks the pedals and they all have pros and cons and this is not the video to go into which one you should buy and why this is more just a is an electric for you really and would you consider it so the electric bike has a few main components motor as I’ve talked about obviously the battery is a big part and then it has a controller and that’s normally linked to a sensor that detects when you’re pedaling now in the UK legislation changed in between when I bought my bike and how it is now so when I bought my bike it was legal to have a throttle in other words you could just like on a motorbike or a scooter you can twist the throttle and you can accelerate away so mine has that throttle however now it has to be power assisted in other words you pedal and the bike helps you when you pedal if you don’t pedal you don’t get any assistance and the maximum speed that the motors can run up to in the UK and indeed Europe is 15 and a half miles an hour and it puts out a maximum of 250 watts for the motor and there to put that into context 250 watts is like having an athlete’s pedaling for you so that is the same as having a very very fit person helping you get up the hill that you’re trying to get up so it does really really help however in other places around the world like America then there is a I think it’s about 750 watt limit in some states and in some places around the world there are no limits so you can have 1500 2000 watt motors and obviously those are much much faster like really fast like almost motorbike fast really so a couple of things to consider in the UK you’re gonna get a 250 watt motor you’re also going to get the ability to use it when you pedal some bikes perhaps my eyes fit an aftermarket throttle but strictly speaking in the UK that is not within the regulations once you start thinking things like throttles or UD restrict your bike that then becomes effectively a scooter or a moped and it is tax it needs type testing all those sorts of things insurance helmet although we’re gonna help me anyway but obviously not I thought my cycle helmet when you’re on the push bike look a bit of a burka yes so so who are they end up well I suppose this kind of links in quite quite well with the current situation like I said they’re not necessarily aimed at people who are you know too frail to use a normal pedal cycle they are aimed at people who want to have some assistance whilst they’re peddling they’re also a really good bridging serve motor transport whilst you’re getting a fitter because you can choose how much assistance that bike provides so if you want to you can have the assistance down on nothing and you can peddle everything and that’s a real workout because the bikes are all heavier because you are carrying a big battery and a moat around with you or you can have maximum assistance or anywhere in between and that just means they’re just just how much assistance there is from that motor and that really really is the crux of it for me my commute is about 12 miles it’s doable on a normal bike and I can do it on an all bike but by the time I get to work I would be very sweaty and my workplace does not have any showers for stuff so it would be a real problem because I would then have to do a full day of work and that would not be good especially in the summer so the electric bike really helps it means that I can get there and I’m not a sweaty mess I can be warm because often particularly on the way back home I turn the assistance down to give myself a little bit more of a workout but again a lot of it depends on how far your commute is how much range your bike has all those sorts of things that’ll really help you make a decision as to which bike you’re going to go for now how much do they cost well this is very open-ended it much like many things in this world how much do you want to spend so they can start anywhere from six to seven hundred pounds what you will find is cheaper bikes will have cheaper components just like in normal bikes but they’ll also have smaller back so the motors are much of a muchness generally they’re all about the same however the the actual batteries make a big difference and to give you a bit of an idea of my bikes that I’ve got my bike is and is a what probably most people have never heard of the brand it’s a brand called oxygen and it’s the e mate and I’ll do a walk around a little bit later on in the video where we go out and I’ll try and record that a bit later on and the e mate is a hardtail bike okay so it’s got fun suspension it’s got a solid rear suspension so there’s no that there’s no moving parts at the back is a 26 inch wheel bikes it looks very much like a mountain bike it’s got mud guards the pity that have the factory pannier racks it’s really useful for carrying this stuff to and from work and it’s got a massive battery it’s got a 15 point 5 amp hour battery now if you don’t know what happens off or what hours or anything like that don’t worry ok because it’s quite confusing to start with the general gist is is that most electric bikes will use either 36 to 48 to 52 volts in terms of voltage and they will have an amp power rating on their battery now if you times that voltage by the amp hour that will give you a what our output in other words how far the battery will take you so a higher voltage with a higher amperage more results in a higher watt hour helper and obviously the higher it is the further you can go before you run out of energy so mine runs at 37 volts at 15 and a half amp hours so that is quite considerable battery it’s very heavy it’s about 4 kilos in weight so it’s you know half the ways of my racing bike my carbon fiber racing bike just on the battery so it’s really really heavy and the wheels are quite heavy on the hub motors quite heavy so altogether the bike comes in at quite a heavy about 23 kilos I think it give or take and that 15 and a half amp hour battery will get me a range of distances if I only use the throttle which I can do all mine so I have a frog fitted or I just pedal lightly and allow the bike to carry me that will get me around 30 odd miles 30 32 miles which is pretty good considering that I’m not really pedaling if I pedal quite a lot and I turn the assistance down and I Coast and that sort of stuff just like fuel-saving when you’re in a car or on bike I can get anywhere up to 70 miles and that is a long way on a push bike right that is a long way now recharging it obviously takes quite a long time if it’s flat it will take about five to six hours to charge but the thing is is most of the time it’s never flat so I do 11 miles to work and I plug the charger in when I get to work charge it up takes about two-and-a-half to three hours and then when I get home I plug it in again and those lithium batteries don’t mind that they don’t mind constantly being plugged in then rather that than being drained to empty it’s not good for them to go right down to an empty battery so like I say it’s a effectively a 250 watt motor with a 15 and a half amp hour battery pack and it’s just nice because you have that ability to use the throttle and use the power assisted pedaling if you want to mine doesn’t have regenerative braking so it doesn’t put power back in when I break so newer models some of them do have that and you probably get about 10% of your energy back into your battery from your braking but it’s it’s not worth spending a load more just together I suppose it might reduce the wear and tear on your brake pads and this and stuff like that there’s a couple of things I’ve done to the bike to make it a little bit more unique to me and that has made it a bit more useful for me I can use and stuff like that and I’ll go through those when I do a walk around do a ride-along for you but specifically it uses cable disc brakes now on all of my other bikes I have hydraulic disc brakes but one of the things that I liked about the cable this breaks on this was that they’re very very simple to work on and actually I upgraded the front disc brake from I think it was a 160 mm front disc to a 200 mil having bb7 and the stopping performance on that is phenomenal it’s it it will stop amazingly I can lock the front wheel is it’s not hard you know if I break that hard so it does really really help you do still have gears just like a normal bike so I mine it’s a relatively simple set up singles cog on the front seven speed on the back and I’ll go through that like I say I’m gonna do the walk around the front suspension helps on that the bumps I’ve got a suspension seatpost and just a few little bits and bobs that just make my life a little bit more comfortable as I’m going through so really the idea is is that you have a much more pleasant experience when you’re riding on an e-bike there are a few people that might argue that it’s cheating and that it’s you know it’s not your own power that you’re going under but the argument is is that you’re still pedaling you’re still outside getting some fresh air and if it makes cycling more accessible to people and being on two wheels in places like old railway tracks or you know multi-purpose cycle trails and stuff like that those are places that we like to do enjoy two-wheeled trouble okay and I like being on two wheels doesn’t matter whether it’s motorized or unmerged or whether it’s a scooter a motorbike or I push bike or a metric bike I don’t mind I like being on two wheels I like that feeling so there’s a few things obviously a couple of considerations are you do get a little bit if you have a smaller battery you might have that range anxiety that a lot of electric car owners feel where you think you might run out of power and you’d be worried that you get stuck somewhere if that is the case believe it or not there are actually companies that offer break them cover for ebikes now and when I set my insurance out for the bike the first year I had it he actually included roadside assistance so if I run out of charge I could actually phone them out I never run out of charge and I just made sure I topped it up and even if you carry the charger with you because it’s not huge the advantage of it is is that most places if you go somewhere and you say is it okay if I just plug this in most of the time they’re more than happy to just let you top up your battery for a couple of hours or even a half an hour whilst you having a coffee and a cake or whatever so absolutely fine and cost it does come down to cost and mine was about a thousand pounds give or take but I brought it through like a cycle to work scheme so it did make it a little bit cheaper are saved effectively the tax on it and they are expensive okay like they’re more expensive than a normal bike but you are getting more bike for you money and you are also getting some that’s had to be engineered a little bit more than a standard bike so I’m not going to dictate what you should buy I’m giving you an idea of why people buy them and why I bought one and then what we’ll do is we’ll go for a little ride along and a little walk around and hopefully this video will be useful because some people might be looking at well in the summer months I don’t always want to have to ride scooter motor bike whatever or use the car or it might be that you’re in the process of thinking well what do I use instead of the car and if your commute is really really small and they say like three to five miles an electric bike could really be the answer because you get as wet on a motorbike and you’re going probably the same speed to work on a scooter or a motorbike if you’re only doing three to five miles because by the time you’ve got it out levered up put all of your stuff on and then go on down the road you’re already five minutes down the road probably on a push bike with an electric motor and then when you get to work you just either taken inside because it’s a lot smaller and lighter or you change it up in the normal cycle stone the area and again there’s no tax and I know tax is cheaper on motorcycles and scooters anyway there’s no tax there’s no insurance that you need there’s no license regulations need to do a CBT or a thought license or an A one or anything like that so all those licensing requirements that you have they just wash away and it’s a lot cheaper to run that on a scooter or motor bike so yeah I think it’s time that we had a look around the bike and go for a little ride along just so you can see what it’s like so here we go right then so I don’t know how well you can hear me brought them this is a quick walk around of the oxygen a mate city so it’s the standard bike and I’ve not done a huge amount to it but there are a few notable differences that perhaps might be worth talking about the first of which customize bar ends on you can see those they’re adjustable I’ve also put on these travel contact Continental tires which is steady knobbly tyres they have the flat surface here other than that I’ve also added like I mentioned in the video earlier the suspension seatpost makes a big difference I’ve added a quad lock phone mounting mount onto this little riser bar so that my phone can go here with sat-nav on and other than that the only other thing is the the air sound air horn which is very loud give you an idea everything else is pretty standard had it panniers onto it the rack was already there and other than that really I’ve changed the pedals for some more substantial ones but everything else is as it was the lights come as standard they run off the cycle computer and the cycle computer itself you can see here gives you an assistance level the battery readout so I’ve Justin about I don’t know four miles maybe some heart and the battery is not even registering below one bar yet in terms of one off so it’s a really good bike some of the footage from when I rode down I’ll use later on and interspersed it may be in the video it’s really noisy because it’s really windy today so I’m not sure you’ll get much in the way of quality footage but yeah I hope that helps I’ll do some more ride alongs and stuff like that and until next time don’t forget to comment like and subscribe for me until next time bye for now you