Wow! My Head Hurts. Feeling discouraged.

[ElevenAD]

Ride1Up 500 is on sale for $1245 right now. Take the pledge to save an additional $40.

Ride1Up does sell higher capacity batteries that you can purchase for the Core-5 and 500, but they are an additional purchase at regular price, so the bike is always sold with the low Ahr batteries. And, there was a big $100+ price jump in their batteries lately. I went with the 700 series bike that has a 14 aH battery, which gives me amazing range since I use a lot of muscle power to boot while keeping PAS assistance on the low end.

Since my earlier post in this thread, the 700 was raised another $100, so it's selling for $200 more now than it did at the beginning of March.

looks like now is a great time to snag a 500! the 700 is really sweet but it may be more cash than the OP wants to spend?

 

[Riding High]

Both of the bikes that you referenced will get a 150 lb person up the type of hills that you are describing. For me, I would buy the one from the LBS as you will have a relationship there if you have any issues.