Please help me choose (5k Budget - Vancouver, Canada)

[Stefan Mikes]

I never did consider full suspension when I bought. My daughter in law and son in law just bought Trek Powerflys and now I almost wish I'd gotten an e-MTB, or at least full suspension.

What terrain are you riding, CN?
After I bought my first (and the last) FS e-MTB, I started wondering what an urban or recreational cyclist needs the full suspension for in the first place. CN, FS is not meant for the ride comfort. It is all about the traction.

If you were about to ride this terrain type...

...or such one, the full suspension would be necessity, or you could not ride at all. Or your frame would break.

However, in urban/recreational environment, all you need is a good front suspension (or suspension stem) and suspension seat-post. Trust me: I had that all and can tell you FS is completely unnecessary outside of technical trails, especially downhill.

Notice I could ride uphill (17% ascent) with no proper suspension. All suspension I had were the suspension handlebars and Kinekt seat-post. I could not, however, descent with such equipment.

Now, my FS e-MTB is owned by my brother. Guess what? He always locks his FS while on-road, and especially before road ascents and fast road descents.

P.S. Did you consider the first effect of adding the FS is increased e-bike weight?

 

[Dallant]

You say you have legs issues, whereas I have shoulder issues. A FS is for any reason you have. Yes, it’s for traction, certainly. But I can tell you that after a full weekend of riding my Rail 5 on a wide variety of surfaces, my bum shoulder (that almost always bugs me) was really doing great. Certainly there are other ways to deal with that like stem and seat suspension, but when you are out there ascending AND decending, you need what you need. The ability to lock the sus (a preference, not a necessity) is the beauty of it when you don’t need/want it. It’s clear you didn’t like it but your brother seems to make a full sus bike work for him.
I‘m certainly not about to get rid of my Allant+7 and yeah, I know you hate that front fork. And we all have more powerful motors to help deal with weight…or we wouldn’t have ebikes at all!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I‘m certainly not about to get rid of my Allant+7 and yeah, I know you hate that front fork.

Have you already installed a suspension stem and seat-post?

 

[Dallant]

Have you already installed a suspension stem and seat-post?

No suspension stem but a barely noticeable springer seat post from Bontrager.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

What terrain are you riding, CN?

Good point. I associated it with comfort. I don't ever ride any terrain that would require FS.
The forks on my Kathmandu work well and I have the Redshift seat post.
As a motocrosser in my youth I keep thinking that that is the type of terrain I would like to ride, but it's nothing more than a pipe dream now at my age. Thanks for bringing me back to reality Stefan.
CN

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I associated it with comfort.

I have found the lowly inflated tyres bring the most of comfort to the rider. The FS is meant to dampen relatively slow vibration but it cannot act fast enough to cope with rapid vibration; it is the tyres that help. (The Redshift stem can handle the rapid vibration surprisingly well). On my last travel, I closed my eyes and deflated my Vado tyres to the allowable minimum pressure; it made miracles in rough terrain.

 

[AHicks]

Just a quick note here. Those that are enjoying the ride of lower pressure in their tires might like to check out the Schwalbe balloon tires. The 2.4" Super Moto-X is my favorite. The bigger point though, is these tires are designed to be run at low pressure (providing a great ride, almost unbelievable) and they do that well with fairly low rolling resistance. I was a big Marathon fan, but thought I would try a set of these. For my purposes, there was no change in the average distance I was getting on a battery charge with the change to balloon tires. I now have very little interest in the Marathons, and my bikes have all been converted to the Super Moto-X. FWIW, -Al