MrCaspan
Active Member
Hey everyone, Just bought my first ebike and I am so excited to use this thing to commute to work each day. We have 2 cars in the household and I really wanted to see if we could live without one of them to help cut our carbon. I was going to take the bus each day but that's 1 hour each way to and from work and that's only if you want to leave exactly when the bus leaves and it shows up exactly when you need to be there. If not it adds even more time to the trip, more like 1 hour 30 minutes. It's an option but I needed something more on demand.
My commute was about 13km so I started to look at options. I was first looking at a moped but realized if I was going to go green it would be nice to save a few dollars if I could. One less car meant no insurance, no gas, no maintenance. So by my calculations that was about $340 CDN a month savings ($90 for insurance, $100 for gas, $150 for maintenance) So if I could cut these costs that is a hug savings each month...
So I started looking at mopeds and quickly found they can be expensive and it didn't really give you a lot of options when it comes to using it outside of commuting lets say for luxury or sport. You are forced to use them in the bike lane on the road, you need proper insurance, and a full helmet. They can do a max of 40 km/h which is only 8km above what a class 2 Ebike can do.
So when I compared that to an ebike it was, no insurance, cheaper price, you can ride it just about anywhere you want legally. It was a no brainer for me and I decided to go with an ebike.
Now came the big decision, which company and what type. I went to a great bike store called CycleElectric in Waterloo, ON (Canada). The guy Mitch there answered every question I had and was not ticked off I had so many! I took out a iGo Discovery Berry and fell in love with ebikes. Now to be honest my first though was this thing is ugly. I'm so used to North American bike styles it just did not look right. I was used to that diamond frame. The looks grew on me so I spent the weekend learning as much as I can about the company that made this bike and other bikes. iGo was based in Montreal and was a Canadian company and the bike was designed in Canada. This almost wrote the cheque for me..
Now it was time to get wife approval. We were talking about this for the last few months. It was an easy decision for her as well after telling her all the info I leaned over the weekend. So I pulled the trigger on the iGo Discovery Atwater . I paid just under $3000 for it which was higher then MSRP and what I could have got it for from the manufacturers site but the fact that I am supporting a local bike shop that will be there for me for all my questions and needs it was not hard to justify the extra costs (I've made 4 calls to them already) Also its end of season and everywhere even the site is also sold out!! They have 5 ebikes left, so if I didn't get one now I would be waiting till March of 2021.
I am now a happy Ebike owner and can't wait to get up in the mornings to ride it. I figure in Canada I have about 2-3 more months of ridding before I have to put it away for the winter and take the bus as my main transportation. My work supports doing "e" anything so they have a lock up inside for my bike and will let me charge it there. On a rainy day I take the bus to and from or if it rains half way through the day I take the bus home then back to work. And if I need to get somewhere FAST that's what Uber is for. I have not calculated the cost on charging the battery yet so I can do a proper cost comparison to our car but I am hoping to quantify the hole process for others to use as an example if it will save you money and how much!
I thought I would join the forum to maybe get some help and advice.
My commute was about 13km so I started to look at options. I was first looking at a moped but realized if I was going to go green it would be nice to save a few dollars if I could. One less car meant no insurance, no gas, no maintenance. So by my calculations that was about $340 CDN a month savings ($90 for insurance, $100 for gas, $150 for maintenance) So if I could cut these costs that is a hug savings each month...
So I started looking at mopeds and quickly found they can be expensive and it didn't really give you a lot of options when it comes to using it outside of commuting lets say for luxury or sport. You are forced to use them in the bike lane on the road, you need proper insurance, and a full helmet. They can do a max of 40 km/h which is only 8km above what a class 2 Ebike can do.
So when I compared that to an ebike it was, no insurance, cheaper price, you can ride it just about anywhere you want legally. It was a no brainer for me and I decided to go with an ebike.
Now came the big decision, which company and what type. I went to a great bike store called CycleElectric in Waterloo, ON (Canada). The guy Mitch there answered every question I had and was not ticked off I had so many! I took out a iGo Discovery Berry and fell in love with ebikes. Now to be honest my first though was this thing is ugly. I'm so used to North American bike styles it just did not look right. I was used to that diamond frame. The looks grew on me so I spent the weekend learning as much as I can about the company that made this bike and other bikes. iGo was based in Montreal and was a Canadian company and the bike was designed in Canada. This almost wrote the cheque for me..
Now it was time to get wife approval. We were talking about this for the last few months. It was an easy decision for her as well after telling her all the info I leaned over the weekend. So I pulled the trigger on the iGo Discovery Atwater . I paid just under $3000 for it which was higher then MSRP and what I could have got it for from the manufacturers site but the fact that I am supporting a local bike shop that will be there for me for all my questions and needs it was not hard to justify the extra costs (I've made 4 calls to them already) Also its end of season and everywhere even the site is also sold out!! They have 5 ebikes left, so if I didn't get one now I would be waiting till March of 2021.
I am now a happy Ebike owner and can't wait to get up in the mornings to ride it. I figure in Canada I have about 2-3 more months of ridding before I have to put it away for the winter and take the bus as my main transportation. My work supports doing "e" anything so they have a lock up inside for my bike and will let me charge it there. On a rainy day I take the bus to and from or if it rains half way through the day I take the bus home then back to work. And if I need to get somewhere FAST that's what Uber is for. I have not calculated the cost on charging the battery yet so I can do a proper cost comparison to our car but I am hoping to quantify the hole process for others to use as an example if it will save you money and how much!
I thought I would join the forum to maybe get some help and advice.
Last edited:
