Electric bikes and tow bar cycle racks for motorho
Anybody any experience of an electric bikes and tow bar racks, recommendations for motorhomer please. Good or bad.
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we have two electric bikes that live in our MH garage....but our pals (no garage) have recently had a towball mounted unit for their ebikes.
i would go for a top branded unit, there is even a unit espesially designed to slot straight into the back of an AL-KO chassis, call a Sawiko....
just one caveat.....check your weight capacity, specially the rear axle weight....very easy to be blasé about this.....
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I think it will depend on the weight of the bikes and your ability to be able to lift them down from the bike rack, if used. Our Fiamma Pro bike rack will take a load of 60kgs so you have the make sure your electric bikes are within that weight range sans battery. The Sawiko racks mentioned above are ideal, but pretty expensive. They have the advantage that even the base model will accept 75kgs and of course they are fairly low to the ground which is much easier to get them on and off. I was seriously thinking of having one fitted but I am unsure how much longer I will be able to ride a bike because of my knee, so we will see how we get on this year before making a decision.
David
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when i mentioned weight, i didnt mean how much a rack would support, i was referring to the fact that many 3.5t vans run extremely close to their limit (if not over) and 50kg pair of bikes plus rack, slung way out back of a long rear overhang will do serious damage to any axle capacity....
some will buy a couple of bikes and a rack, get it all fitted and away they go, without a clue as to what the van actually weighed before or after its inclusion.
do not accept figures from a brochure or a salesman.....
weigh, and weigh again.....
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I'm interested in bikes too Lodge,
I'm currently looking at the aero-bike which weighs in at 17.3kg and the Gtech e-bike 16kg (getch currently are offering a spare battery free of charge) - also a late entry which has just hit the market is the Raleigh Array
The Aero bike is the cheapest at £799 but all mudguards, lights etc are extra, the GTECH is £999 with all the above extra but you do get a spare battery worth £299 and the Raleigh Array is £1000 and you do get lights, kickstand, mudguards and rack.
I'm struggling to get the weight of the Array so I've asked a dealer to contact Raleigh as they won't deal directly with the public. I'll edit when I find out.
ps: my budget is around the 1k mark hence the choices above
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Not all ebikes are heavy we have folding ebikes they weigh about 13kg each without the batteries. They are ProRider bikes around the £600 mark, if you only want to use them to extend the distance from site to shops/sights then they are perfect for the job. We have had them over 2 years now and not had any problems with them and we have have covered a fair few miles on them in that time. The company also do full sized ebikes.
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I think we have the same bikes as Tammygirl, details of the range here Unfortunately I can't comment on the range as I don't think we have ever put that fully to the test. It is also a bit of a moveable feast as it depends on what mode they are used in. They can be used as throttle only which of course would give less distance but on peddle assist they claim about 30 miles, I think. The Wayfarer is quite compact and when we put them on our Fiamma bike rack we fold the handle bars down. If you can get to their base in Northampton (Brackmills) they will let you ride them round to get a feel.
David
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Hi, thanks David for answering just caught up with this again.
With the wayfarer you have 7 gears and 3 different modes of speed, low/med/high. We have found we tend to just use the low speed for normal cycling on the flat or small hills. we tend to get about 30 - 35 miles out of every charge, this can of course vary with weight of rider or terrain. Where we live we have a fair few hills but the wayfarer tackles them no problem, you can of course use the gears and leave it in low speed this will give you a bit of an effort to pedal or you can leave the gears alone and flick it up to medium speed or even high speed to tackle a steep hill, by doing this it requires very little effort to get up a hill. What you have to bear in mind that the more you do this during your ride the less distance you will get out of the battery charge. Prior to these bikes we had full sized ebikes for 8 years and was very happy with them albeit they were much heavier, the new technology is however much better, the choice of speeds makes it so easy to cycle, for anyone who has problems with backs or little power to the legs its so easy to ride these bikes.
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Just to add to what Tammygirl has said. Pedal assist on the flat is a bit too easy for me as I like to feel some resistance and from that point of view I could do with a couple of extra gears, I often find myself coasting so that I can have a real pedal!!! On the other hand Margaret finds it just right, I think it just about what we had previously been used to when riding ordinary Mountain Bikes. With hills you soon get used to predicting what you need to do. I tend to use the bike in the highest gear but when approaching an incline I will first of all press the power button to the second setting and then adjust the gears as I go along. On really steep hills you may need to go to the highest power setting to maintain progress without too much physical effort. What I find is if you go down through the gears before selecting the correct power you tend to lose a lot of speed. They are surprisingly powerful.
David
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do I just feel like I'm pedalling on the flat?