Operator7
Active Member
Hello everyone,
I am having an extremely hectic week, with work and school, but wanted to report back after visiting Bike Attack here in sunny Santa Monica on Friday. I arrived at 4:30pm due to long day at work and lovely traffic. "Martin" (pronounced Martine - not sure if I'm spelling right) came to me and we immediately began an awesome conversation where he gave me great information, and I responded with a million and one questions, and he answered each and every one with pleasure. You can tell this guy loves biking.
I'm going to give the short version here, but let me just say that I had an AWESOME experience, both at Bike Attack and riding. Now this is not to say that I wish to be a pollyanna, so please any feel free to chime in with any feedback without feeling you have to be euphoric. Having said this, Martin first advised me that the Easy Motion bikes I was considering at 3K do not go past 20mph. They have others whose pedelecs go up to 28mph, but those are $4300, versus the $3K models I was considering. He then pointed me to a few other options, and the finalist options were an integrated bike made by Ohm, which includes a Bionix kit, Stromer ST1 and ST2.
I will elaborate more on this in the near future, but I first test rode the Ohm for about 15 minutes on the bike path at Venice Beach. First, what a great place to be! THIS is where I want to ride through after work. All these people and kids enjoying themselves and leisure... this is a great stress reliever. The bike was awesome! I felt like I was 14 again, when I used to ride my dirt bike around town. I then rode the ST1, and enjoyed this one even more. I felt that the ride was better/smoother on the ST1. I also much prefer the looks of the ST1.
What was crazy to me is that I could not even get to top speed, because so much room and space is required! And I say this meaning it's a good thing, and I am blown away how fast the bike is. I got up to 28mph range on the ST1, but easily could have gotten much more. I wasn't even able to do that because the section of bike path is just not open enough at that time of day. I got to this speed in a long parking lot, but even the lot wasn't long enough.
At any rate, this is the most fun I've ever had on a bike. My thought is that this takes away all the hard parts away from bike riding, but you can still get exercise. The hard parts of biking are just starting off to get speed, and uphill, etc, and the power assist helps with all of that.
Anyways, my next step is to do an all-day rental, and I plan to ride from Venice down to Palos Verdes and back, to get a feel of riding that amount of distance. Either way, I plan to purchase an ebike, because even if I just rode for leisure in my own area, I'd be happy with how much fun these are, and how great they are for traveling around locally.
I am considering the ST1 versus the ST2, but if anyone has ANY suggestions or feedback, please feel free. My thoughts are that the ST2 is THE bike to have, but the main perk would be the battery which would enable me to travel any distance without worry. All the rest would just be icing on the cake. Still, the price difference is considerable, so an ST1 might be a much better economical choice. I think the eco-assist is still pretty good, so using that along with the display to monitor battery level, I think I could make my 33 mile trip on that battery. (wonder how hard it is to pedal if the battery is turned off? hmmmm)
Anyways, I better get back to work here at the office.
Cheers
I am having an extremely hectic week, with work and school, but wanted to report back after visiting Bike Attack here in sunny Santa Monica on Friday. I arrived at 4:30pm due to long day at work and lovely traffic. "Martin" (pronounced Martine - not sure if I'm spelling right) came to me and we immediately began an awesome conversation where he gave me great information, and I responded with a million and one questions, and he answered each and every one with pleasure. You can tell this guy loves biking.
I'm going to give the short version here, but let me just say that I had an AWESOME experience, both at Bike Attack and riding. Now this is not to say that I wish to be a pollyanna, so please any feel free to chime in with any feedback without feeling you have to be euphoric. Having said this, Martin first advised me that the Easy Motion bikes I was considering at 3K do not go past 20mph. They have others whose pedelecs go up to 28mph, but those are $4300, versus the $3K models I was considering. He then pointed me to a few other options, and the finalist options were an integrated bike made by Ohm, which includes a Bionix kit, Stromer ST1 and ST2.
I will elaborate more on this in the near future, but I first test rode the Ohm for about 15 minutes on the bike path at Venice Beach. First, what a great place to be! THIS is where I want to ride through after work. All these people and kids enjoying themselves and leisure... this is a great stress reliever. The bike was awesome! I felt like I was 14 again, when I used to ride my dirt bike around town. I then rode the ST1, and enjoyed this one even more. I felt that the ride was better/smoother on the ST1. I also much prefer the looks of the ST1.
What was crazy to me is that I could not even get to top speed, because so much room and space is required! And I say this meaning it's a good thing, and I am blown away how fast the bike is. I got up to 28mph range on the ST1, but easily could have gotten much more. I wasn't even able to do that because the section of bike path is just not open enough at that time of day. I got to this speed in a long parking lot, but even the lot wasn't long enough.
At any rate, this is the most fun I've ever had on a bike. My thought is that this takes away all the hard parts away from bike riding, but you can still get exercise. The hard parts of biking are just starting off to get speed, and uphill, etc, and the power assist helps with all of that.
Anyways, my next step is to do an all-day rental, and I plan to ride from Venice down to Palos Verdes and back, to get a feel of riding that amount of distance. Either way, I plan to purchase an ebike, because even if I just rode for leisure in my own area, I'd be happy with how much fun these are, and how great they are for traveling around locally.
I am considering the ST1 versus the ST2, but if anyone has ANY suggestions or feedback, please feel free. My thoughts are that the ST2 is THE bike to have, but the main perk would be the battery which would enable me to travel any distance without worry. All the rest would just be icing on the cake. Still, the price difference is considerable, so an ST1 might be a much better economical choice. I think the eco-assist is still pretty good, so using that along with the display to monitor battery level, I think I could make my 33 mile trip on that battery. (wonder how hard it is to pedal if the battery is turned off? hmmmm)
Anyways, I better get back to work here at the office.
Cheers
