my new electric vehicle
Jun. 19th, 2019 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanarama
When we first told our friends we were building a new house, most of them said, with dismay, "But your current house is so nice!" And yeah, there's a lot I loved about it, but when I thought about it I realized there was only one thing I was going to really miss when we moved: being able to walk or bike everywhere. Living right smack downtown we were about half a mile from the big grocery store and about a mile from the natural foods coop; half a mile from the library and a mile and a half from the rec center. We put around 5000 miles a year on our pickup truck. It was not uncommon for us to not get in the truck for days, or even a week or more.
Our new house is not that far from town (technically we're still in city limits) and we're easily within cycling distance of all the places we used to walk, but the mesa-top location that gives us those awesome views also gives us a 300-foot climb to get back home. It's doable - and we've done it - but not carrying 40 pounds of groceries or after a track workout with the running club. I'd long felt I really wanted a utility bike for just riding around town; I felt kind of silly doing errands on my fancy mountain bike, and it can't take a rack so I always had to wear a backpack for grocery runs. With our planned move, it made even more sense to get an e-bike! So last fall I started researching.
I rode a friend's Gocycle, a small-wheeled folding e-bike which I didn't like at all because it didn't feel like a bike. I rode another friend's Haibike mountain bike, which was amazing (and also cost around $6000). A friend in Boulder raved about her Rad City. Googling different bikes taught Google I was interested in them, so pretty much every day my phone's Google news offered up yet another review or article about yet another e-bike.
One of the local bike shops offered test rides of the Specialized e-bikes at a recent event, so I tried those out. From that, I learned that 1) I like bikes set up like mountain or road bikes, not upright city-bikes for people who don't ride bikes, and 2) the more expensive the bike, the more I liked it (sigh). And you can spend ten grand on an e-bike!
But I realized that I didn't need to spend ten grand on an e-bike. My friend's super-light folding bike works for her, because she takes it on her sailboat, but I don't need a bike to fold. My friend with the fancy mountain bike is in his 70s; I don't need an e-bike shocks and high-end components, because if I want to ride trails, I have a (darn good) mountain bike. (Okay, maybe in another 7-10 years I won't be able to make it up the trails I ride now - and then I will consider a fancy mountain e-bike.) I researched hub drives vs mid-drives and learned that mid-drive motors are better for hilly terrain (and lighter, but more expensive), which ruled out Rad Power bikes. I would be fine with a class 1 (max assist speed 20mph) rather than a class 3 (max assist speed 28mph). I didn't need a huge range (that is, a big, heavy battery). I figured I was looking at a $3000-$5000 range for something I'd be happy with.
The reviews I had read of the Priority Embark intrigued me. Like Rad Power, Priority is a small company which sells direct-to-consumer rather than through bike stores (but see below!) which makes them less expensive than equivalent "big manufacturer" bikes. Priority's bikes - they make quite a few models, though the Embark is their only e-bike - all use a belt drive rather than a chain, which appealed to me for its low maintenance, as well as because I seem to always get chain marks on my legs! Also in the name of low maintenance, the Embark has a continuously variable transmission in the hub (rather than a derailleur for gear shifting), which I thought seemed interesting. It uses the Bosch mid-drive motor, which is well-regarded. For $4000, it seemed like a good deal, a cut above other bikes at that price, so I emailed the company with a few questions. They responded very quickly, making me feel better about buying non-local, and I was just about to buy when...
...I was still researching bikes, not so much to find others but to get an idea of the quality of the components, when I found a mention of the "Costco Priority Embark." What? Turns out, Costco Online carries the Priority Embark - for $3000! I felt terrible, like I was being one of those people who shops at their local stores but buys online - but a thousand dollars is a lot of money. I agonized out loud, and Britt pointed out that it wasn't as though I was cheating a store out of its sale since Priority is the actual manufacturer, and they'd get their cut anyway. Still, I emailed the guy who'd been answering my questions, and he made me feel much better by replying that they just wanted to get me on a Priority bike and it was fine to purchase from Costco, so I went to Costco's website, bought a membership ($60 - you can buy things without but there's a surcharge which is a percent of the price, so this was cheaper), selected my bike, and ordered!
The next day I got an email telling me my order had been canceled. I did some googling and found that Costco "is very particular" about addresses, so I made sure that the shipping address matched the Post Office-approved version of our address (DR instead of Drive), and I ordered again.
And the order was canceled again. Cue full panic. I found Costco's customer service number and called them. Naturally there would be a long wait, but they offered the option of leaving a call-back number and that's what I did. A representative called me and sure enough, the problem was with my address: since our house is new, they couldn't verify its address, and that caused my order to cancel. And unfortunately there was no way I could prove that I actually live here, the representative told me. They'd just have to wait until the Postal Service updated their system. I pleaded with the representative, who checked with a manager.
"Is there anyone else living there who we could verify instead?"
Yes! I gave them Britt's name and date of birth, and yay, they found him, and that meant they could send me my bike! Of course, this whole process basically forever. We had been planning to get the bike, and Britt would try it out too and order one if he liked it, but considering the ordeal to get it he decided he wanted to order one as well. Unfortunately the rep had already put my single order in, and so that had to be canceled - and then the rep put in an order for two small frames, and we had to cancel that one too, and she said, "Look, just go ahead and order what you want online again, it will go through." I didn't blame her - at this point we'd been on the phone for one hour and five minutes - but I made her promise it would work. :-)
And it did! The bikes arrived on Monday, and Britt and I put them together that afternoon. The Priority website has a video of assembly instructions, and it really wasn't too bad - took about an hour for each one. And then we started them up, and...mine didn't start up. Britt rode his up and down the driveway just to test while I emailed Priority. It was 6:30 here, which meant it was 8:30 back in New York where Priority is based, but amazingly Dave (who I think is the Dave who owns the company!) emailed me back immediately. He identified the problem as dead batteries in the bike computer, and asked for my address, then emailed back: Awesome. Look for a package of 15 batteries coming from Amazon to your house on Wednesday. Why 15 batteries? Because that's the world we live in and it's cheaper for us to send 15 from Amazon to you then send two from New York. Kinda crazy right? Now you'll have more than you need :). Keep us posted if for any reason this doesn't solve your issue. Know that we stand behind our bikes 100% and are always here to help!
A+ customer service, I have to say! In the meantime I can use the bike by turning on the power at the battery (the battery which powers the motor, which is fine). Britt and I went on a short ride on Tuesday morning, just to test things out, and then Tuesday evening I rode down to the high school to my running club's track workout - and then I got to see how the bike did on the big uphill home!
It's interesting, actually. Riding the e-bike is like...riding a bike. It's not a motorcycle; it doesn't have a throttle. I don't really notice the boost except for starting from a dead stop, and going up hills. And it's not like I'm not riding up the hill - it's just that the hill doesn't seem nearly as steep as it does on my other bike. Which is exactly what I want!
I'm still getting used to the continuously variable transmission, which operates by twisting a ring on the handgrip (sort of throttle-like) but I keep forgetting which direction makes it a higher gear vs a lower gear. And we need to get mirrors, I think, and I want to figure out a grocery-carrying method. But so far, so good. I am looking forward to using our new electric vehicles all summer (and hopefully sometimes in the winter, too)!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 08:08 pm (UTC)Riding the e-bike is like...riding a bike.
I always tell people it's like having bionic legs. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 09:28 pm (UTC)And I like my new bionic legs! (Sorry for the delay in answering but I just went to pick up my CSA veggies on my NEW BIKE and it was awesome.) :-)
Oh, I was wondering, did you ever come up with a solution so you don't have to haul your bike up and down the steps to your house?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 09:47 pm (UTC)YAYAY!
did you ever come up with a solution so you don't have to haul your bike up and down the steps to your house?
No, but otoh it's the only weightlifting I do, so it's probably good for my bone density? ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 09:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-19 11:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-20 11:48 pm (UTC)I saw you want to get a bike for exercise. I've had cheapo bikes and they're okay, but if you can get a better quality bike used, that's what I'd do.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-24 01:41 am (UTC)I didn't seriously consider getting an electric bike for a couple of reasons. First, the expense, of course. Second, just as important, I haven't really known where to start, how to evaluate, etc.
Your experience is encouraging!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-06-24 02:55 am (UTC)If you can spend $3k, the Priority Embark is awesome. I've ridden mine 55 miles since we assembled it on Tuesday, and it's exactly what I need. If your "hilly" isn't my sustained 300+ ft climbing (and maybe if it is, I don't really know) a less expensive hub drive might work just fine for you. My friend with the Rad loves hers, and I have a friend in Seattle who has a Volton hub drive who often uses it to commute 20 miles each way.
It's just amazing to me how it basically just flattens hills. You still have to work, but it's like flat-terrain work and not huffing up hill work. I put a rack and super-cheap panniers on it, and on Saturday I filled them up with my glass bottles for recycling, rode to the recycle plant (about 5 miles), then to the farmer's market, then to a picnic in the mountains (a climb of maybe 500 feet over 8 miles), then back down to town and up the hill to my house. Today I rode 3 miles down to the river to do my long run (11 miles) and then back home after, no problem. It's truly a car replacement for me and I'm just loving it!
I hope you can find an e-bike that suits your budget and your lifestyle. I'm really pleased with mine!
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Date: 2019-07-23 10:24 pm (UTC)Can you bring along a standard cord and plug in to a wall socket in a pinch?
Yay, spreading the word!
Date: 2019-07-24 08:15 pm (UTC)The battery needs a special charger, unfortunately (though that plugs into a regular socket). I know people with long commutes buy or make a second charger for the office, but it's not an issue for me. I suppose I could carry the charger if I went somewhere and wanted more range, but it's heavy!