Tips on Buying an E-Bike | What to Consider When Purchasing an Electric Bicycle

Hi, it's Jim Dodson, The Florida Bike Guy. So, what kind of e-bike should I buy? You know I've actually been debating this and looking at e-bike choices over the last few weeks, and I'll tell you every day there's a new, great e-bike that is being put out somewhere. I think it'd be, it's almost a little confusing, it's overwhelming, if you really are somebody that wants to do the research and find like the perfect bike, there's a lot of choices out there. So obviously I can't tell you what bike to buy, but if you're just sort of beginning the process and you want to find out, so what do I need to think about in terms of buying an e-bike, I have some thoughts on that that I think might be helpful.

Remember the first thing is you want to make sure you're buying a bicycle. Remember in Florida as of April of last year I think it is, Florida codified our bicycle statutes so that an electric bicycle, if it meets three criteria, is a bicycle. That's important because if you are ever in a crash, you want the uninsured motorist on your auto policy to apply, and it applies to you if you're riding a bicycle--not if you're riding an electric motorcycle or something else potentially. Bicycles don't require a driver's license. They don't require a tag or licensing for the vehicle. So, just keep that in mind. Remember there's three categories in Florida. You have pedal assisted up to 20 miles per hour or pedal or throttle only up to 20 miles per hour or pedal assisted up to 28 miles per hour. It's those category one, two or three e-bike in Florida. All are considered to be a bicycle. So keep that in mind.

The next thing is like, where do you begin look for an e-bike? I'd like, and you know, I think you have to decide, first off, how much do you, how much money do you want to spend? Just like everything else, the more money you spend, the better components, generally the lighter the weight, generally more advanced things to make the riding experience a little bit more pleasurable. There are a ton of e-bikes out there for a thousand dollars or less in that range. Some of the e-bikes, generally, the lowest price e-bikes are going to be from China and the issue with them if you're ordering some of these things online is can you get a part for it if you need it? I've mentioned once before, I had someone that I know that had a very nice, cool, Chinese e-bike got slightly hit by a vehicle, dented the rear wheel, so it was out of true and it trashed the bike because they couldn't order the part. So it was only a 70,000, excuse me, $70 part from what I understand, and it rendered the bike useless. So you don't want that to happen or you buy the inexpensive bike and you ride it until it breaks and you buy another real bikes. So, that's also an option.

So, there are a lot of choices in the thousand dollar range. Sort of the mid range of a thousand dollars is the $1,500 sweet spot, Rad Power Bikes on the West Coast probably have that market. They're most known for that market. They've got a number of great bikes, and they are really rated well. I like the people over at Electrek, E-L-E-C-T-R E-K. They do reviews on bicycles. Micah Toll, Micah Toll and, they, actually, Micah Toll, they really liked the Rad Power bike. It doesn't have high end components but overall they give it a great rating. They advertise a lot, and you have a lot of choices in the $1,500 range.

Then, you move into the $2,000 range. It used to be that under $2,000, you had an inferior product and over $2,000, you had a superior product in the e-bike world. I think that's sort of blending together these days. There are a lot of choices in the $2,000 range. When you hit $3,000, you really start getting good components, good reviews, good ride quality. You have an opportunity to reduce the weight of the bike, and then when you get above $4,000, you start having a lot of choices of high end, great riding bikes from dealers and other people who are selling these things where you can get it serviced and taken care of.

So, next is like, are you comfortable ordering an e-bike online? When it comes, if you do that, it's going to be shipped to your house, you need to know exactly what you need to do to put it together. Some e-bikes require assembly, a lot of assembly. Some come where you do virtually nothing other than maybe put the pedals on. I wrote an article about Micah Toll at Electrek who wrote about the Priority Embark, which is a $4,000 e-bike, and they actually deliver it to your house with what they call a white glove service--they bring it, set it up, what have you. That's unusual, but it's also a $4,000 bike.