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Ah shit, I was hoping for a thread like this. I'm planning to pull the trigger on my first ebike in the next week. Just waiting on a local shop to open tomorrow so I can rent it first. Been torn between Aventon and Lectric for awhile. Aventon has local shops and repair shops. Lectric has to be shipped from out of state and deal with self-repairs and shipped warranties.
My local area is coastal cliffs. Steep hills everywhere make regular bikes impossible. Ideally I want something that can just throttle up them and bike the flats, but realistically I think all I can hope for is a good pedal assist to tackle them. I also want to try phasing out my car since my longest daily commute is just 8 miles - that means a rack for groceries and laptop. Ocean air is going to slaughter the bike like it does everything here, so I figured folding would be nice to fit indoors, but I'm not set on it.
So far, I've narrowed it down to the Aventon Level.2. That's what I'm going to rent tomorrow to make sure a 500W-sustained can do the local hills in my city and hopefully see if it can tackle the 16 mile commute out and back with all the hills between in one charge. If power is an issue, I'll have to try the 80-fucking-lbs Adventure.2. If charge is an issue, Lectric steps in with the dual-batteries of the XPedition or the XPremium. I don't have any way of trying those though, and I doubt Lectric has the "up to 14 days to return for any reason" policy my local shop does for Aventon. The last option is dual motors, which guarantees breaking $2k. Still, I believe those are guaranteed to shred even our steepest cliff roads on throttle alone, but I don't know much about their efficiency or general utility.
Any advice on an ebike for a city of endless steep hills with an option to throttle for lazy or tired days?
