Looking for a fast ebike primarily for commuting and possibly some trail riding

[Ziggy Doc]

So with Frey bike, it looks very attractive, but I’m not sure about sizing.

I’m 5’8” with a 30 inch inseam. I generally ride on a medium frame. Would the Frey CC one size universal frame fit me well? How do I approach answering this question of fit?

And what about the Frey EX rather than the Frey CC? However, the Frey EX base comes with a smaller battery than the CC.

 

[BBassett]

So with Frey bike, it looks very attractive, but I’m not sure about sizing.

I’m 5’8” with a 30 inch inseam. I generally ride on a medium frame. Would the Frey CC one size universal frame fit me well? How do I approach answering this question of fit?

And what about the Frey EX rather than the Frey CC? However, the Frey EX base comes with a smaller battery than the CC.

Build, don't buy unless you want to be one of the herd. Basic bike skills are all that's necessary to have a far better ebike than you can buy off-the-shelf. Hang a mid-drive motor on the bike of your choice. The only decent production ebikes available are 3 times what they should cost and with most of them you end up with a POS hub-motor. With the production mid-drive versions you are locked into the proprietary frame and motor for the life of the bike. Don't be one of the hear... do it right and you will be much better off.

 

[Rob NJ]

Well, I am part of the herd. I am an engineer by training, have taken everything apart and fixed it for my whole life and have excellent mechanical skills. I have built computers, have a full wood shop, and am not the least bit intimidated by building a bike and servicing it myself. One of the first criteria White Beard mentioned was that he was not concerned with cost. At my stage in life, I may be able to do all the servicing, but I am choosing to ride, rather than spend my time on fixing things. Some of the other bikes look great, and I concur that you might think I “paid too much” for my Allant 9.9. However, I put a lot of value in having a bike from a company like Trek/Bosch with an LBS that can ensure all is well and tune the bike. I am choosing not to spend time fixing things and tuning. When you have a bigger budget, and want to spend your time riding - not tuning or worrying about warranty issues, then you go with a Trek, Specialized, etc. Plenty of great bikes out there, and to each his own. But I choose to have a strongly supported bike as these technologies and products develop.

 

[indianajo]

When I got my bike, I did all the math to see if DIY build was actually worth it. I watched tons of YouTube videos, and browsed around on web.
I did lots of search on eBay, AliExpress, DH Gate and all the other websites selling parts for ebikes.
At that time, which is only a couple of years ago, although they had Bafang, Crystalyte and BionX kit (now discontinued?) seemed to be quite popular.
I did my spreadsheet, and wrote down what I need to do the custom build ebikes, and turned out that I won't be saving much money.

I don't get it. My electric conversion of the cargo bike left cost me $900 with a $630 17.5 ah 48 v battery from Luna. A $221 1200 W geared hub motor from ebikeling, which allows me to pedal without drag if I want to, and power up 15% hills faster than any 350 W euro wimp mid-drive if I want to. Various aluminum angle, stainless screws, 14 g wire dorman & XT60 connectors made up the rest. My battery is out front in case of fire, not between my legs and not weighing down the back where I put 60-80 lb cargo sometimes.
Cargo bikes are still going $5500-$6000, and the only ones for sale when I converted summer 2018 had bosch systems with $$$$ proprietary batteries and a motor that drags like an anchor unpowered. The bike with double leg kickstand was $1580. So I built for $2480. Savings ~$3000 and yuba still not selling the big wheel drop frame for small people electrified. Don't tell me about the Radwagon, that has 9 pages of customer problems and for 3 years the spokes have been **** grade. Radwagon has a DD hub motor that drags unpowered and kiddie grade 7 spd shimano shifter 28-14 on the back, whereas yuba is 8 spd SRAM 32-11. My service over 5000 miles, 3000 electric, has included oiling, several new tires, a pair of new brake shoes, several brake caliper adjustments, one shifter stop adjustment, retightening the seat post bimonthly, and retightening & putting loktite blue on the motor cover screws once. Who needs a dealer, who I'd have to walk home from since I don't drive a car. Only dealer closer than 165 miles is Pedego, whose stretch model is $6000. A Pedego customer told me the dealer in Louisville knows nothing about servicing bikes.
Note my 5000 miles includes no spoke torque checking or tightening, no wheel truing, When I change tires I wipe the spokes with a screwdriver to make sure they ping correctly. No problems. No chain replacement, no chain measurement even. No pedal re-torqueing.

 

[Rob NJ]

I don't get it. My electric conversion of the cargo bike left cost me $900 with a $630 17.5 ah 48 v battery from Luna. A $221 1200 W geared hub motor from ebikeling, which allows me to pedal without drag if I want to, and power up 15% hills faster than any 350 W euro wimp mid-drive if I want to. Various aluminum angle, stainless screws, 14 g wire dorman & XT60 connectors made up the rest. My battery is out front in case of fire, not between my legs and not weighing down the back where I put 60-80 lb cargo sometimes.
Cargo bikes are still going $5500-$6000, and the only ones for sale when I converted summer 2018 had bosch systems with $$$$ proprietary batteries and a motor that drags like an anchor unpowered. The bike with double leg kickstand was $1580. So I built for $2480. Savings ~$3000 and yuba still not selling the big wheel drop frame for small people electrified. Don't tell me about the Radwagon, that has 9 pages of customer problems and for 3 years the spokes have been **** grade. Radwagon has a DD hub motor that drags unpowered and kiddie grade 7 spd shimano shifter 14:28 on the back, whereas yuba is 8 spd SRAM 32-11. My service over 5000 miles, 3000 electric, has included oiling, several new tires, a pair of new brake shoes, several brake caliper adjustments, one shifter stop adjustment, retightening the seat post bimonthly, and retightening & putting loktite blue on the motor cover screws once. Who needs a dealer, who I'd have to walk home from since I don't drive a car. Only dealer closer than 165 miles is Pedego, whose stretch model is $6000. A Pedego customer told me the dealer in Louisville knows nothing about servicing bikes.

Hi Indianjo, you obviously have a different situation, and love to build/tune your bike. That is great. My Trek dealer is 4 miles away, has three stores, experienced bike mechanics (many are >40 years old and have been there for a long time, so they must pay for them), has an excellent reputation, and runs the GranFondo NJ, with over 2,000 bikers every September. I certainly can understand your point of view, and situation. I would probably do the same if I were in your situation. I was just trying to point out several of the items that the poster put in his initial post, one of which is that cost was not an issue, and he had a Trek dealer nearby that he trusts. To be honest, I also wanted an ebike that was designed to be an ebike, not only with proper brakes, shifters, and other components, but I also did not want all the parts hanging off the bike like an afterthought. I can take the example of the Watt Wagon. Lots of top grade parts and is probably a great bike for commuting, but the bike looks like it was cobbled together. Also, small company. My father had a Bionx and now the company is out of business. So, I chose what was the one of the best options for me (could have also been happy with a Turbo Vado). Not building. Totally cool that you built your own. I just don’t want to do that anymore, and like the original poster, don’t have too much of a budget constraint (Just what I can get by my wife) And I got her a SuperCommuter 8+. Regards, with lots or respect for people that build/service their own bikes.

 

[Ziggy Doc]

Back to my original question, is the
Bosch motor going to be too wimpy and underpowered to keep the speed up?

The Bafang power and speed sound quite enticing, but all I have to go on for the Frey bikes is their website and it is not well constructed. Frey doesn’t even clearly explain the different EX models clearly on their website. That is not very confidence inspiring.

I remain stuck on not knowing what to get. I did test ride a trek commuter model at an LBS while on vacation this week, but the models I am interested in were not available to test ride.

I will try to test ride a Bull bike next week.

 

[BBassett]

Honestly, I think you're on wrong forum.

When I got my bike, I did all the math to see if DIY build was actually worth it. I watched tons of YouTube videos, and browsed around on web.
I did lots of search on eBay, AliExpress, DH Gate and all the other websites selling parts for ebikes.
At that time, which is only a couple of years ago, although they had Bafang, Crystalyte and BionX kit (now discontinued?) seemed to be quite popular.
I did my spreadsheet, and wrote down what I need to do the custom build ebikes, and turned out that I won't be saving much money.

During my research, I found that https://endless-sphere.com/ is the most popular forum for DIY projects and custom build ebikes.
You will be happier with Endless Sphere than EBR, because almost everyone is into custom ebike builds and modifications.

People on EBR are generally worried about warranty issues, after support of LBS and manufacture, and many would rather purchase Stromer, Riese & Muller, Yamaha, Giant, Trek, Specialized, etc.
People on Endless Sphere love to custom build, many of them have pretty deep knowledge of programming their own speed controller, and very technical stuff. I've seen people fabricating their own frames using welders and all that, which we rarely see on EBR.

Can I just ask... the use of the word "Honestly" to preference something you are about to say... aren't you always honest? Or are you being special is this comment? I never get that, but I digress... Honestly!!!!!! Whenever people ask me about ebikes I tell them the same thing, build your own. It's nothing at all like BUILDING a bike. Let's try this... covert the best bike (for you) that you can find by adding a mid-drive motor. Better performance, dial in the cost you want to invest all at once or over time, way Way WAY better range, the ability to change and/or upgrade and/or remove the motor/battery/display anytime you want, and I could go on and on. My bike is nothing but a suspended touring bike from Tout Terrain that I hung a $600 BBSHD 1.341022 hp mid-drive on. Riese & Muller wish they had a bike that could do what mine does. I have never even seen a R&M that had front panniers hanging... but I digress. Just because you and/or others "here" don't discuss, let alone actually weld their own frames doesn't mean they can't use a torque wrench to c o n v e r t their own bicycle. Maybe the difference in EndlessSphere that you noticed was that not everything was attempted on a shoestring budget. Thanks again for telling me where I will be happier... honestly.

 

[BBassett]

I don't get it. My electric conversion of the cargo bike left cost me $900 with a $630 17.5 ah 48 v battery from Luna. A $221 1200 W geared hub motor from ebikeling, which allows me to pedal without drag if I want to, and power up 15% hills faster than any 350 W euro wimp mid-drive if I want to. Various aluminum angle, stainless screws, 14 g wire dorman & XT60 connectors made up the rest. My battery is out front in case of fire, not between my legs and not weighing down the back where I put 60-80 lb cargo sometimes.
Cargo bikes are still going $5500-$6000, and the only ones for sale when I converted summer 2018 had bosch systems with $$$$ proprietary batteries and a motor that drags like an anchor unpowered. The bike with double leg kickstand was $1580. So I built for $2480. Savings ~$3000 and yuba still not selling the big wheel drop frame for small people electrified. Don't tell me about the Radwagon, that has 9 pages of customer problems and for 3 years the spokes have been **** grade. Radwagon has a DD hub motor that drags unpowered and kiddie grade 7 spd shimano shifter 28-14 on the back, whereas yuba is 8 spd SRAM 32-11. My service over 5000 miles, 3000 electric, has included oiling, several new tires, a pair of new brake shoes, several brake caliper adjustments, one shifter stop adjustment, retightening the seat post bimonthly, and retightening & putting loktite blue on the motor cover screws once. Who needs a dealer, who I'd have to walk home from since I don't drive a car. Only dealer closer than 165 miles is Pedego, whose stretch model is $6000. A Pedego customer told me the dealer in Louisville knows nothing about servicing bikes.
Note my 5000 miles includes no spoke torque checking or tightening, no wheel truing, When I change tires I wipe the spokes with a screwdriver to make sure they ping correctly. No problems. No chain replacement, no chain measurement even. No pedal re-torqueing.

I agree. It's more about owning a much better quality bike with a conversion, rather than owning something you can buy off the shelf. A bike that was designed to be sold, and cheaply. I have over 10K miles on my bike with that same minor repairs always necessary with any bike and a couple of motor issues that were worked out with lessons learned. Screw production bikes... a conversion with a mid-drive produces a better ebike.

 

[BBassett]

okay found it!

The EX model is available with multiple component load-outs, starting with a single removable 672 Wh battery hidden inside the downtube. The entry-level EX Basic is priced at US $3,380, but the parts on this bike are anything but entry-level. It comes standard with a RockShox Yari 180 mm fork. That’s a $500 fork on its own, folks. And that’s just the start of the high-end components that come standard on the entry-level model, such as Magura MT5 hydraulic disc brakes. A pair of those will set you back almost $250, not even including rotors.
The next step up is the EX Advanced, which comes with a second battery mounted just above the first. That second battery bumps the price up to US $3,760. Lastly, the EX Pro is the top of the line EX model and upgrades to a RockShox Lyric Select 180 mm fork, which is a $700 piece of kit. The EX Pro also comes with dual batteries and is priced at US $4,010.

Source:

Frey Bike unveiled two high-power and high-speed electric bicycles

As posted on Electrek... sounds like a great deal for a high-performance ride. ;) https://electrek.co/2019/09/16/frey-bike-electric-bicycle-cc-ex-am1000/ Frey Bike unveiled two high-power and high-speed electric bicycles today, pushing the envelope for high-end e-bikes with surprisingly...

electricbikereview.com

A 1000W BBSHD (1.34 h.p.), 30Ah. @58.8V battery, display control, and Grin Satiator cost approx. $2000.00... bike not included. But of course, this opinion is coming from someone that just got back from a 45-mile ride on an ebike that has over 10K miles on it... so what do I know? lol. https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPlce4lnWOCeI7Tt30VYaEQlBQoMUp8w4c1JntA - Finish
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOjvZGOM08bvoHqgwf6nMPJAhrvkZD95pLeyg71 - Start

 

[Ziggy Doc]

So yes, you found info on the various Frey EX models. But you found that info on a third party website. And it isn’t found on Frey’s proprietary website.

As I said before, that is not inspiring my confidence in Frey’s attention to detail.

 

[Nomad]

So just my thoughts regarding "good" factory ebikes. One could consider a good foundation to start with and then upgrade it as they go as well as customize it to meet your personal needs but just slapping on more power higher components isn't going to work well they need to be intergrade to work well.

 

[Ziggy Doc]

So here is a newby question... Could I buy a Trek ebike and then upgrade from the Bosch motor to the more powerful Bafang motor? I know it would void the warranty, but the warranty isn't important to me as I would just pay for any needed repairs.

 

[BBassett]

So just my thoughts regarding "good" factory ebikes. One could consider a good foundation to start with and then upgrade it as they go as well as customize it to meet your personal needs but just slapping on more power higher components isn't going to work well they need to be intergrade to work well.

If by foundation you mean a superior bike frame, then I whole-heartedly agree. Not really sure what you mean by "higher components".

 

[BBassett]

So here is a newby question... Could I buy a Trek ebike and then upgrade from the Bosch motor to the more powerful Bafang motor? I know it would void the warranty, but the warranty isn't important to me as I would just pay for any needed repairs.

Not a chance. The whole point for ebike manufacturers is to make things proprietary so you can't mix-n-match. Once you buy into a production ebike you're stuck with it until you move on to the next. Scrap a good bike because of the motor, or scrap a good motor because of the bike. Start with "your" perfect bike and hang a BaFang mid-drive. If you change your mind later everything comes apart and can be reused as you see fit. European motors are all underpowered and most make you use their PAS systems with no choice. I like having both PAS and a throttle. It allows me to conserve power and extend my range significantly. Don't buy a production ebike.

 

[Nomad]

So here is a newby question... Could I buy a Trek ebike and then upgrade from the Bosch motor to the more powerful Bafang motor? I know it would void the warranty, but the warranty isn't important to me as I would just pay for any needed repairs.

You could upgrade the bosch it's self

 

[Nomad]

If by foundation you mean a superior bike frame, then I whole-heartedly agree. Not really sure what you mean by "higher components".

By "higher components" I mean like if you take and upgrade from lower end simano say to there xt line.

 

[DanInStPete]

I am an avid mountain biker. I typically start my day just about every day with a one hour ride at dawn on the single track with my friends. My main current rides are a carbon full suspension 29er and a Borealis carbon fat bike.

I have never before had an ebike and I don't know much about them. I am looking to purchase one with the intention of rapidly commuting to work. The plan would be to do my mountain biking, come home to shower and change, and then head to work. Work is about 3 miles away, and I want to be able to ride there fast so I can continue to have time for my early morning mountain biking. I have the option of riding to work on a rail trail that is dirt, not too technical, but there are some roots and rocks, versus on the road. Although the rail trail is more appealing without traffic, the road is likely faster. Another potentially important factor is the presence of some steep hills on the way to work.

Main criteria:
High quality ebike
Fast speed is critical to allow for a rapid commute
Prefer it be usable for both road and mountain, or at least for less technical dirt trails
Cost is not an issue as I am a highly compensated professional

One more factor, my favorite local bike shop sells Trek ebikes, and I love those guys for their amazing service. If I could support them by buying a bike through them, that would be a plus although I do need to get a bike that meets all of my needs.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

That Trek Police would be a great bike, but the Bulls E-Stream Evo AM 4 is something special (and is one of the only Class 3 mountain bikes). I've considered buying it more than once, and rode the previous version (though in a size too small for me).

I started with a Juiced CCS went to a Haibike FullNine full-suspension MB. For my 3rd bike I was trying to figure out a way to have one bike for trail and street. The problem of course is Class 1 only being allowed on most trails. I'm sure I could have bought the AM 4, self-limited myself to 20MPH on trails, ridden fast on the street with some cross-country tires, and no one would have known the difference (so long as I took the Class 3 sticker off).

The other option is putting a BikeSpeedRS on a Class 1 bike to remove the speed limiter (I did this on the Haibike and it worked fantastically). Note you probably can't do this with a 2020 Bosh motor.

However, I decided I didn't want to be worried about breaking the rules, so I ended up buying a Turbo Vado 5. Now I'm looking for a mountain bike strictly for trails. This is costing me a lot of money.

If you aren't too worried about riding what is technically a Class 3 bike on trails I think the AM 4 is a no-brainer. Certainly over the Frey (though it is cool, it's an unknown), and also it is much more capable than the Trek.

 

[BBassett]

By "higher components" I mean like if you take and upgrade from lower end simano say to there xt line.

s*it can the gear clusters and get a Rohloff Speed-hub. Why shoot for 2nd or 3rd.

 

[bob armani]

That police eBike would be a good option. However, I heard you can only get one if you are in the police force.

That is what Trek USA indicated in my last chat with them concerning a PB purchase. Correct!

 

[bob armani]

You can buy one if the dealer will work with you. The bike used to ship with the police decal unattached. Others can better answer. There's at least one other police bike owner on this forum. Not a cop!

That might be a tall order to get one new, however, I have seen a couple of used ones for sale here and there.