Thanks for the detailed answer What bike shop would you recommend? What bike do you use? I’m leaning towards the specialized tero 3.0 (if I can find one) I’d love the 5.0 but probably out of my budget. Can you shed some light on motor size And battery? M2s claims they use a 900 watt hour battery with a 750 watt 160nm torque mid motor but specialized tero 5.0 uses a 250w 80 nm torque motor with a 700 wh battery. The 3.0 is even smaller at 250/50 with a 500wh battery. I can’t see how such a powerful motor would be on a much Cheaper bike. Is that motor and battery size enough for our area? Will I get 30ish miles out of it?
I do all my own bike repair work but occasionally visit Cedar Bikes on Pittston Ave. in Scranton. They sell Trek & Specialized and have a great mechanic.
I'm a Trek fan and have several of their non electric MTB's but all Trek e-bikes are class 1 with no throttle. Due to my arthritis, I ride a throttled class 2 bike. I don't use it often but it's gotten me home a couple of times when pedaling became difficult.
My wife and I ride class 2 Pedego Platinum Interceptors with throttles. I bought a third for friends & family to ride on outings. I bought them in NJ. since that was the closest Pedego dealer at the time. The Pedego's have 500 watt rear hub motors with 52V, 780 watt hour batteries. With a moderate amount of effort using PAS 2, we get 35 to 40 miles per charge on the local trails. Riding slower, below 12 MPH in PAS 1, we've gone 50 miles on a single charge. For longer rides, we carry spare batteries.
The Trek & Specialized bikes are class 1 mid drives which, due to the gearing advantage, use smaller motors. They actually get slightly more range per watt hour and can perform better on steeper hills. In general, the larger the watt hour rating of the battery the better the range. The voltage is less important.
The advantage of a rear hub motor is it can still propel the bike if there is a problem with the chain, derailleur, chain ring, crank or pedals. Such failures are rare but due to our age & health issues we bought hubs as a form of insurance.
Another consideration for me was weight. I'm 250 and often carry 40 - 50# of gear on some of my longer rides. A spare battery alone is 10#. That pushes the weight limit of most of the Trek & Specialized bikes I liked. The Pedego's have a mag wheel option which extends the weight limit to 400#. The mags also eliminate any potential spoke problems which plagued me on some of my earlier bikes.
Since I'm a DIY'er and do all my own work, I like the fact that Pedego will deal directly with the customer for warranty, advice & spare parts without having to go through a dealer. The closest is a 3 hour drive away so for me, this is a big advantage. Keep in mind there are other manufacturers who will do the same thing but not so much with Trek & Specialized.
