Choosing FS e-bike for large rider for mixed offroad / paved trail use

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newheights

Member
Region
USA
Hello everyone, I am curious to get some insight into what e-bike might fit my use.

I plan to use this both for cruising a paved bike trail, but also for offroad use. Primarily riding gravel forest service roads, but some dedicated single track. Typically I don't ride beyond green trails on my old non-E Rockhopper, but hoping to venture into some blue trails soon.

I would like to get a full suspension bike that is comfortable to ride for these scenarios. I am a big rider (~6'4" and ~260 lbs), and plan to pull a Burley kids trailer from time to time. Ideally I would like a large battery, or option to add range extender that works smoothly (either mounting to frame and attaching with cable, or if swapping out then simple tool-less swap for trailside change). Keeping the bike weight under 60 lbs for more compatibility with hitch racks is also a consideration.

I had originally been looking into FS e-MTB like Specialized Turbo Levo, Norco Fluid VLT (900 Wh battery is appealing) and some of the Biktrix fat-tire models, though I would prefer to get something from a LBS for better support with any issues. I know there are bike shops selling Specialized, Trek, Norco, Marin, Bianchi, Transition, Scott bikes nearby, but there may be other brands within a reasonable drive as well.

As I read more threads about these, it sounds like getting a true e-MTB may not be the best/most comfortable option for my real intended use, and perhaps a crossover that may have more upright positioning might work better on graveled roads / paved trails. Still, I'd like to keep the option open to do some single track with some mild technical riding.

So summary of desired features:
- full suspension
- versatile use: paved bike trail, gravel / dirt roads with poor maintenance, some single track riding
- tubeless setup option
- large battery / option for easy addition of range extender
- comfortable ride for large rider, and able to pull trailer with kids
- bike weight 60 lbs or under for hitch carrier

Any suggestions of a good option to look into? Or am I trying to ask too much from a single bike and should really be getting two different e-bikes (not currently an option)? In that case I would prioritize riding graveled roads / poorly maintained forest service roads over true MTB single track or paved riding.

Thanks!
 
Below recent threads on SUV / MTB types

New: Specialized releases Turbo Tero X

Interesting. Full suspension Tero. https://www.specialized.com/us/en/shop/bikes/e-bikes/turbo-active/turbo-tero/c/eturbotero
electricbikereview.com electricbikereview.com

2023 STORMGUARD E+ 1

Of course doesn't appear to be available in USA . https://www.giant-bicycles.com/int/stormguard-eplus-1-2023
electricbikereview.com electricbikereview.com
 
You're a big guy....but not that big! I'm bigger than you (still, at the moment anyway) and to put it simply wouldn't worry about it. If you know how to ride a bike and properly handle your weight on a regular MTB you'll have no problems or issues with an E-MTB. Also, I weigh more than you and you'll find a good rule of thumb for a mid-drive major brand motor that 10wh per mile is a good gauge. I.E. I would expect for myself to get 70 miles out of my 700wh BH Atom bikes, which are a brose mid-drive. If I ran at full power maybe 40, but honestly most of the time it just isn't needed as long as you're pedaling!

Stick with your first intuition here and go the E-MTB route, or you'll be back looking again mid-season.

Many of the big brands are running sales at the moment. Marin had their FS bikes as low as around $4,200 I think - Spec has a few around $5K as well. If you look online you'll find better deals as well but I understand if you'd prefer an LBS, you'll just be paying more for the same bikes.
 
@newheights.
Just a word of warning: Your own weight is a kind of issue here. Let me operate in imperial units, so you are fully aware.

Most of good e-bikes have the "system weight limit" of 300 lbs. You are 260 lbs. and a typical "full-power" e-bike is, say, 60 lbs. That makes 320 lbs system weight, and it is without any cargo!

The issue are the wheels, and especially rims and spokes. You would need wheels with rims certified for 400 lbs. That calls for rims with unusually high number of spokes such as 36. Next, such a wheel would require a hub matching the 36 spokes, the hydraulic brake rotor, and freehub for chosen drivetrain. So, after having bought a good (read: standard) e-MTB, you would rather have to talk with a wheel builder, and custom wheels are not cheap.

What if you just rode a newly bought e-MTB? First of all (especially if you travelled light) nothing wrong would happen, hopefully. However, after riding trails for some time, your wheels -- and especially the rear one -- would go untrue, and eventually you might end up in a bad crash with the wheel resembling the figure of eight.

My own example: I weigh 213 lbs, my heavier e-bike is 58 pounds, and I need to carry a 18 lb pannier with a spare battery. I ride pretty rough terrain often. The system weight here is 289 lbs, and it approaches the 300 lb system weight limit of the e-bike (did I mention I wear clothes, shoes, and a backpack, too?) After 3 years of riding that e-bike, the rear wheel gave up. After being trued, it goes untrue in two weeks, and I cannot take a risk of the imminent crash. (Building a stronger rear wheel now).
 
Good advice from @Stefan Mikes above.

When I first got into e-bikes, I was similar to you in height & weight. I ride rough trails and sometimes carry cargo. I was plagued with spoke and rim issues on several of my bikes until I switched to 36 hole reinforced rims. My current bike has mag wheels which can reliably carry 450#.

I'm sure many bikes can handle weight in excess of their rating but the trick is to find them. It can be an expensive lesson to learn the hard way.

Total weight capacity should be one of your major considerations.

Welcome to the forum and good luck in your quest to find the perfect ride!
 
When I started riding e-bikes I was 6'2"/315. What I learned about being a big guy was that if you're going to have an issue, it's going to be related to spokes (most likely loose spokes). They'll eventually start failing, seemingly out of the blue. I got into it, as nobody in our area would talk to me about tuning my wheels, especially on a bike they didn't sell. So I was forced into learning on my own. I can now do a respectable, but still rookie level, total re-spoke on a wheel.

To make a long story a little shorter, regarding heavier riders, what I found is that a loose spoke will work at the 90 degree bend it makes going through the hub, and as it starts getting some miles on it, they're going to start failing - right near that 90 degree bend. The take away point is that bigger guys will need to have a focus on their spoke tension/wheel tuning. If they'll do that, I doubt seriously they'll have much trouble with their weight as far as bike structure is concerned.

Last, another lesson learned is there's no smoke and mirrors involved when talking wheel building/tuning. It IS possible to learn enough about it to keep yourself out of trouble....
 
I would heed @Stefan Mikes' and @6zfshdb's recommendations.

In looking at your requirements, @newheights, it looks like you want a go-anywhere bike, which is not a bad bike to have. I would recommend a full suspension mid-drive e-mountain bike with plus-size tires (i.e. 2.8 to 3-inch) on 36-hole reinforced rims. The wider tires will help go anywhere (except perhaps snow and loose sand), and they will have a larger contact patch for all that weight. The more upright position can be achieved by raising the handlebars with spacers and replacing the handlebars with ones that have more back sweep, such as Jones H-Bars. That is what I did with my 2016 Haibike AllMtn.

I pulled a Burley Travoy trailer with my Haibike and did not like how I had to slow way down to take a turn to prevent the trailer from overturning. You may have more experience with trailers than I, but you will want to be careful pulling kids. I eventually got rid of my Travoy.

A hard-tail front suspension mid-drive e-mountain bike with a suspension seatpost and plus-size tires on 36-hole reinforced rims would also be an option.
 
AHicks said:
When I started riding e-bikes I was 6'2"/315. What I learned about being a big guy was that if you're going to have an issue, it's going to be related to spokes (most likely loose spokes). They'll eventually start failing, seemingly out of the blue. I got into it, as nobody in our area would talk to me about tuning my wheels, especially on a bike they didn't sell. So I was forced into learning on my own. I can now do a respectable, but still rookie level, total re-spoke on a wheel.

To make a long story a little shorter, regarding heavier riders, what I found is that a loose spoke will work at the 90 degree bend it makes going through the hub, and as it starts getting some miles on it, they're going to start failing - right near that 90 degree bend. The take away point is that bigger guys will need to have a focus on their spoke tension/wheel tuning. If they'll do that, I doubt seriously they'll have much trouble with their weight as far as bike structure is concerned.

Last, another lesson learned is there's no smoke and mirrors involved when talking wheel building/tuning. It IS possible to learn enough about it to keep yourself out of trouble....
Click to expand...
As others have mentioned, a 36 hole rim would be a good suggestion.

There are plenty of high quality rims without spoke hole reinforcement like velocity USA. I have Blunt 35s on three ebikes (and two since sold) with maximum recommended spoke tension have had never had an issue. I have had issues with cheaper rims (including reinforced) with cracking around the spoke holes.

The breakage AHicks is referring to is what happens on the non dished side (disc side on rear, non disc side on front). To dish a wheel requires different spoke tensions. For example, I tension the dished side to the maximum and the non dished side is somewhere less depending on the required dishing (typically referred to as the spoke tension ratio). If the lesser tensioned spokes get too loose due to the amount of weight on the wheel, they will eventually experience fatique failure from the tension/loose cycles. 36 holes are better in this regard as the weight is distributed amongst more spoke and therefore will get less loose.

Another solution is offset rims, the offset allows for more even spoke tensions.
https://novemberbicycles.com/blogs/blog/offset-rims-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly

Im around 240ish and build all my own wheels so I can do whatever combination works. I typically like to use 36 hole rims. I have also used 32 hole offset rims.

My 2022 Turbo Levo Alloy was rated for 300# (The carbons were #275). The wheels were 28 hole which seemed insane to me. Wanting to use existing parts, I went with DT SWiss 350 hybrid front and rear 32 hole hubs with WTB HTZ I30 ebike specific offset rims. Even if the 28hole wheels would have worked, when a spoke eventually broke, I would have more of a chance of having to walk home.

Its pretty hard to find 36hole offset rims unfortunately. My 2018 Bulls Evo 3 MTB has a 36 hole offset rim in the rear and 32 hole offset in the front running 27.5x2.8 tires. Besides truing after a few rides when new, the wheels have not required any truing since and that bike has seen some heavy duty trail use (probably 6k miles)
 
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Wandering off topic a bit here, so I'll be brief. My experience, again rookie level here, is 1st, that you're going to find production e-bikes are all going to offer 36 hole rims, and 2nd, finding 36 hole replacement rims can be a pain in the butt. 32 hole used by non e-bikes, are everywhere.

Bottom line doesn't change. The heavier you are, the more attention you need to maintaining your wheels. That done, the rest of the bike should be good to go. Stuff like broken frames are something you don't hear about much.... -Al
 
If you do need stronger wheel for offroad then original can be setup with road tire for road work where loads are lighter. Need buy new cassette and disk. Cassette isn't waste as it can be rotated with offroad wheels one. Typical offroad puts more wears on lower gears while on road wheel wears high gears.

Check bike is rated to tow a trailer a lot of eMTBs are. This german site did a review of FS trekking bikes which may work for you.
ebike-mtb.com

Home

E-MOUNTAINBIKE is the leading e-mtb magazine: E-mountainbike reviews, current news, exciting travel stories and practical tips - digital & free!
ebike-mtb.com ebike-mtb.com
 
I've just dipped down to about 240 lbs but I've been as high as 275. Everything that has been said about building strong 36H wheels above, total system weight etc. is spot on. For my bikes I take it for granted I have to do a strong custom wheel build and cannot take something off the shelf, so to speak (I build my own bikes frame-up so one way or another I'm picking out specific wheels). A couple of observations:

36H rims tend to be found on Asian-manufacture, direct-to-consumer bikes, where they are to all intents and purposes ubiquitous. But only on those brands. A Trek or Specialized MTB is going to be using much higher quality Western-market parts (DT Swiss, Sapim etc.) and as a result the more-is-better method used by mainland Chinese manufacturers, which is advisable for their materials, is not generally used. You'll have a much harder time finding quality Western-market wheel parts in 36H. The DT 350 Hybrid hub is one I have used and covet, but I haven't been able to get them in maybe my last 3 or 4 projects - in any spoke count.

Since COVID turned the industry crazy, I have had to go to 32H wheels and they've been fine. The near-impossibility of finding quality 36H parts made this a necessity, but its worked out just fine for me. Go ahead and look for 36H, but if you can't get that build together, 32H is a good alternative and widely available to boot.
 
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Thanks for all the helpful info.

Regarding weight limits, is the bike's weight already factored into the total system weight, or does it need to be added?

For example, specialized user manuals are pretty clear that rider + cargo must not exceed 300 lbs for turbo levo alloy or turbo tero x. So if in my gear I'm ~270 that would leave 30 lbs of margin for water bottle/extra battery? Or am I already over the limit with the bike weighing ~50 some lbs?

The trailer weight does not factor into this correct? This is load going onto the frame/suspension/wheels?
 
newheights said:
For example, specialized user manuals are pretty clear that rider + cargo must not exceed 300 lbs for turbo levo alloy or turbo tero x
Click to expand...
You are a careful reader! The matter is rather tricky.

The "structural weight limit" is indeed for the rider and cargo. However, what is really limiting is the "total system weight" of the wheel rims, and that's for the rider + cargo + bike. Also, the number of spokes matters. Look to Tero. The recent version of this e-bike comes with 32-spoke wheels that might be adequate for you. However, the Levo Alloy comes with 28-spoke wheels. The latter are not as strong as the 32-spoke ones.

Now, you could trust the "structural weight limit" given by the manufacturer and just ride. Perhaps you would experience no issues. Perhaps the spokes would start snapping: You could use your warranty, couldn't you. The worst happened to me: The 28-spoke rear wheel on my Vado got "plasticised" after 3+ years of riding. I have never exceeded the "structural weight limit" and I weigh 212 lbs now. The outcome? I have ordered a 32-spoke wheel to match my Vado: a new hub, strong rim, spokes, labour. That would cost me some US$450.

P.S. Funnily enough the full suspension Tero X comes with 28-spoke wheels while the hardtail Tero is equipped with 32 spokes per wheel!
 
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newheights said:
Thanks for all the helpful info.

Regarding weight limits, is the bike's weight already factored into the total system weight, or does it need to be added?

For example, specialized user manuals are pretty clear that rider + cargo must not exceed 300 lbs for turbo levo alloy or turbo tero x. So if in my gear I'm ~270 that would leave 30 lbs of margin for water bottle/extra battery? Or am I already over the limit with the bike weighing ~50 some lbs?

The trailer weight does not factor into this correct? This is load going onto the frame/suspension/wheels?
Click to expand...

The issue I have found is most shocks are not designed for that much weight. To achieve the correct sag on the shocks you have to add air pressure and they all have maximum limits. Consider a hardtail with a 38mm fork like Fox38 or Zeb.

Also check out this guy on YouTube.
 
In your opinion, what are the benefits of the e-SUV over the e-MTB?

As I understand it e-SUV would apply to bikes like Turbo Tero X (compared to e-MTB Turbo Levo) or Powerfly (compared to Rail).

Other than being slightly less expensive and more likely to come with racks / fenders installed, what makes these better for all around use?

Is the geometry significantly different?

Would I be just as comfortable riding paved bike trails on one of the e-MTB with a stem riser to sit a bit more upright as I would on the e-SUV?
 
I think it is mostly about the equipment for mixed use like fenders, rack, lights etc....
They also often have a lower stand over height which is only an issue if you have small legs.

But if you dont need the road equipment, an e-MTB is equally good and likely lighter.
I would not worry too much about the geometry, unless you are an advanced MTB rider riding on very technical trails :)
 
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