Alaskan
Well-Known Member
Add to that the unique but eminently sensible design, the meticulous build quality and the mostly excellent component selection and at least some of us have adequate justification to spend an outrageous sum for a bicycle.
steve mercier
Well-Known Member
We have 4 Ebikes between my wife and I. 1, Surface 604 Yunbike C1; 2, Jetson electric mountain bike ( model with twin batteries 17ah and 500 watt hub motor). 3 ,Trek powerfly 5 ; 4, R+M Charger GT tour.
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I agree with the first sentence but I am not so sure about the second one. You can very well pay the cheap product a lot of money if you don't do the research and I guess that would be worse.
I believe you are a fan of R&M. I was not fortunate to ride one of them but they sure look very well built. However I don't like the fact that they are using a Bosch system which you see on many bikes. Don't get me wrong Bosch is good, I like my CX, however if you are a luxury brand you should be bringing a different, customized, special electric system on the table too. Designing ebike motors is not that hard and even when you are not designing them yourself you can still work with a well known manufacturer to create a custom setup.
Also for many people these prices (4K+) are too much to spend on a bicycle, even when they do, they may still fear of riding such an expensive bicycle for commuting.
I think at $1.5-2k there is a great potential and companies should really see this. I like the products of Juiced for example because they seem to be bringing a feature rich product for a reasonable amount of money.
Chancelucky2
Well-Known Member
Pedego is occupying a space very similar to IBM or Compaq in the early days of PCs. They're overbuilt, conservatively designed, and project a sense of being established and dependable. You also pay a bit of a premium to get these things. Renting a Pedego in north San Diego County and riding 30+ miles along the beach, up the big hill in Torrey Pines State Park, and into the foothills overlooking the ocean convinced me to get an e-bike of my own.
At the same time, I realized that I wanted a different sort of e-bike. I didn't like the creak of the step thru frame, the back heavy quality, or the weight. I also didn't want to spend quite that much. I decided to look for a mid drive, yet wanted to stay below 2 thousand dollars. This wasn't an easy combination. Completely by chance, I happened upon a closeout of BMW Cruise's through E-bay and noticed that seller was the BMW dealer three miles away from my house. I think the listing scared some potential buyers away because it said the top speed was limited to 25 kph. Even the dealer didn't know that they were set to 32 kph.
There's definitely a place for companies like Pedego in the e-bike firmament. The fact that their dealers rent bikes is also definitely helping to popularize e-bikes in general, though I paid Pedego more to rent an e-bike than I'd pay to rent a car. As e-bikes evolve, I hope we'll continue to see a range of manufacturers who present different takes on the value proposition at various ends of the market, just as I hope there will always be room for companies like Sondors at their end of the market.
At the same time, I realized that I wanted a different sort of e-bike. I didn't like the creak of the step thru frame, the back heavy quality, or the weight. I also didn't want to spend quite that much. I decided to look for a mid drive, yet wanted to stay below 2 thousand dollars. This wasn't an easy combination. Completely by chance, I happened upon a closeout of BMW Cruise's through E-bay and noticed that seller was the BMW dealer three miles away from my house. I think the listing scared some potential buyers away because it said the top speed was limited to 25 kph. Even the dealer didn't know that they were set to 32 kph.
There's definitely a place for companies like Pedego in the e-bike firmament. The fact that their dealers rent bikes is also definitely helping to popularize e-bikes in general, though I paid Pedego more to rent an e-bike than I'd pay to rent a car. As e-bikes evolve, I hope we'll continue to see a range of manufacturers who present different takes on the value proposition at various ends of the market, just as I hope there will always be room for companies like Sondors at their end of the market.
The pedego store we visited had rentals and of course, sales. We had planned on renting for a few hours but the salesman asked if we might be interested in buying at some point and I told him it would depend on how much we enjoyed the bikes. He happily gave us two ridgeriders and told us to go have fun, no charge. We came back after 45min. and my wife complained that she felt like she was going to tip over and couldn't put her feet on the ground. He rolled out an interceptor ( I believe ) and told her to give it a try. I just stood there and he said, "you should go with her on the ridgerider" so out we went for another 45min.. It was the most pleasant experience I've had at ANY dealership for a vehicle ever. I wasn't prepared to cough up eight thousand dollars for two bikes though. If Pedego could reduce their pricing by 25% they would own the market IMO. We ended up buying a Gazelle easy flow step through for my wife and I bought a trekking Haibike. We spent just a little more than half of what we would have spent on the Pedegos. Only time will tell if we made the right choices. The dealer we bought from offered free tune ups for life and his business is growing. He carries many different brands and does discount whereas pedego was either unable or unwilling to discount. Pedego has a great business model IMO and wealthy retirees probably won't question the pricing, for the rest of us, price matters.
steve mercier
Well-Known Member
Any bike that motivates me to get off the couch is a g00d bike.
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