I bought a bike yesterday, the Haibike Xduro Trekking RX. After considering all your helpful counsel and experience and doing some test riding on the actual roads/hills I will be commuting over, I was able to recognize that for me, a mid-drive is quite important. First, I had to spend enough time on them to get over my complete focus on how great it felt to be on an electric bike, which was all consuming.
Riding on my hills, I conceptualize the difference between mid-drive and hub drive in the following way - the mid-drive feels like a stronger me while the hub drive feels like I am engaging someone to push me. Once I sorted that out, I found that I really liked having the dual gearing (for Haibike, instead of a front derailleur, they use an internal hub 3-speed gearing). This bike encouraged me to get the level of workout I wanted because instead of just changing the power, I could use the more natural shifting solutions to go up and down hills, which I did much more than I thought I would.
Sadly, this bike's rear wheel is quite complicated to remove (in part because of the internal hub shifting). So
I got "flat-proof" tires and one year of maintenance (parts and labor), which gives me some peace of mind. I imagine if I get a flat on the road and fail at the "patch the tube with the wheel on the bike" plan, I will hail Uber and hope their trunk is large enough to take the bike with the quick release front wheel off. We'll see.
Thanks all!
Riding on my hills, I conceptualize the difference between mid-drive and hub drive in the following way - the mid-drive feels like a stronger me while the hub drive feels like I am engaging someone to push me. Once I sorted that out, I found that I really liked having the dual gearing (for Haibike, instead of a front derailleur, they use an internal hub 3-speed gearing). This bike encouraged me to get the level of workout I wanted because instead of just changing the power, I could use the more natural shifting solutions to go up and down hills, which I did much more than I thought I would.
Sadly, this bike's rear wheel is quite complicated to remove (in part because of the internal hub shifting). So
I got "flat-proof" tires and one year of maintenance (parts and labor), which gives me some peace of mind. I imagine if I get a flat on the road and fail at the "patch the tube with the wheel on the bike" plan, I will hail Uber and hope their trunk is large enough to take the bike with the quick release front wheel off. We'll see.
Thanks all!
Congrats and keep us updated. It helps everyone to know how these ebikes perform over time and lots of miles.
