Phil A
Member
Our off grid living now provides us with excess power. 
We are considering one of these to utilize the power and cut down on our car usage. We are about 20km round trip to town, with a bit of gravel road.
As we have very little bike experience, let alone electric, we would appreciate some opinions/advice
Has anyone had any experiences with this style of bike?
http://www.zocoelectricbike.com.au/products-page/bikes/zoco-rossa/
thanks.
Phil
You can search a number of bike forums for information. Endless Sphere is one.
This electric bike forum is in Brisbane. There will be others in most capital cities.
http://www.brisbanecyclist.com
Basically there are low priced chinese imports around $1000, mid range better spec'd chinese imports around $1500 - $2000 and then the better quality chinese and european imports from $2500 - $3500.
I've owned ebikes in the first 2 categories for almost 4 years. The weakest link in these models is they generally have a cheap battery although this has improved in the last 2 years. You still have to expect to replace the battery every 2 years though.
I'd recommend reading the Rideon magazines recent road test as a good place to start.
http://rideons.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/e-bikes-buying-guide/
If you can afford it the Dutch Gazelle is their recommendation or the Ezee Forza as they have good support as well as good reputations. The Ezee importer has just ridden 3 of them from Perth to Sydney which gives you an idea of their performance.
Personally I have done about 8000km on mainly sealed roads with no problems other than battery life. I do have a technical background though and have repaired a few local ebikes.
My ebikes are charged from an off grid solar system.
Phil A
Member
Thanks for that. I have come across the endless sphere site. Have got some ideas from the other thread but didn't want to hijack it.
Do you have an opinion on the hub drive vs the centre drive? seems it would be good to have the gears available for hill work?
I have had no experience with the mid drive option however the best I have tried so far seems to be the front wheel drive versions.
These are effectively 2 wheel drive with the front wheel pulling while you pedal the rear wheel. It also seems to be better balanced overall.
My reservations about the mid drive are that it may be more complicated to fix however many European ebikes use mid drive so they can't be to bad. I'd be wary of low priced mid drives.
