I should clarify that on the bike path, I generally do stay in the 15-20 MPH range, as there are many pedestrians traveling at low speed. On the road however, staying at typical bike like speed actually feel more dangerous to me. It kind of feels like driving on the highway at 45MPH when everyone is going 75MPH and a bit nerve wracking.
Yup, the brakes is definitely the limiting factor currently, but other parts of the bike have held up surprisingly well. I didn't really know anything about bikes before starting this, so it was a cheap way to learn. I figured I can always upgrade the parts over time if needed. I had set a max budget of $1500 for the initial purchase and had to make tradeoff somewhere.
You can't easily replace the frame though. You're right that the other parts can be replaced, but you should have at least used a good frame to start with. For only a few hundred bucks more you could have gotten a substantially better bike to work with. The bike you have has a cheap aluminum frame, which will accumulate stress fractures over time from the high speed electric bicycle use exceed its design specs that it's seeing. It may eventually catastrophically fail on you.
At your given budget I would have used a better bike and a smaller motor/battery. The combination of beefy motor on an inferior quality bike could be flat-out dangerous.
It took him ten hours of work the first time. Yes, it'll take him less the second time because he's gotten better at it, but it's still by no means easy or trivial. And we haven't gotten to how much he values his time yet.
People love to go on about the value of their time, but most people cannot arbitrarily decide to work another hour and get paid for it. Most people either have their schedules set by their employers or are on a salary that doesn't change if they add an additional hour.
Don't weight ten hours of learning about bicycle assembly as though it were ten billable hours if it isn't. Compare it against the ten hours you were going to do other things in: reading, watching TV, going out for a walk, whatever.
I think I'd rather read a book than keep monkeying around with a bicycle, though. That's the value of the time I'm referring to. I know some people like endless tinkering with things, but not me; I just want them working. Mechanical repair isn't a leisure activity for me.
Two types of people and all that. OP is clearly a tinkerer. Telling them that they shouldn’t value their time this way seems silly.
If I was the OP, I would do this exact thing: after putting some more miles on the bike and saving up that gas money, get a nicer bike and swap the motor. Better yet, sell this e bike for $2k now that it’s all upgraded and use that money for a full upgrade.
I don't think he'll be able to get $2K for it. It's still built around a bad bike, and any prospective buyer will easily find that out. It's probably worth most as parts.
I got a Liberty CXD and have been using it for over a year now with only some slight modifications -- I replaced the pedals (they were trash) and added fenders, a rear rack, and lights. I chose that bike as a good compromise between performance and not breaking the bank too much if it got stolen.
Were I to do it over again I'd get a nicer model, because in practice I almost never lock up my bike outside anyway so the theft concerns aren't an important factor.
My bike is around 50 lbs. I weight about 150 lbs. I often carry a bag about 20 lbs. So all in, it's about 200 lbs or ~90KG. I think my battery pack can go about 50 miles per charge, but I never went that far on a single charge. I usually charge after 30 miles to ease strain on battery, but that should still be plenty for you to get to work and back.
I can comment on the range. I have a similar bike with a 540Wh battery. Total weight close to 20 kg, maximum practical range approx 30-40 km. Slightly less when sub zero C temp.
Edit: I would consider an extra charger and charge at work for that range, in case you want to stop by somewhere on your way to or back from work.
I get 40km out of a 400Wh battery with similar weight.
About half in cold weather with snow and studded tires. The tires seem to be the main reason for the reduced mileage. This is in sport mode with maximum assistance and going full speed.
You'd be surprised at how little extra momentum (speed or weight) you have to add before disc brakes become essential. For me, the aha moment came when I started pulling a 40 lbs bike trailer - then you really don't want soft brakes when approaching a junction with cars. I installed some Avid Juicy's on 180 mm rotors and they're awesome - even now when the bike trailer is 70 lbs.
They also don't bleed as much braking power when they heat up from repeated or long braking, which is more common at the high speeds seen in an electric bike.
Yeah, in the US, my understanding is that the regulation is much looser relative to the rest of the world. You can have a maximum of 750W with a top speed of 28 MPH without pedal assist, which in my view is plenty fast for a bike. The problem is that because US is such a small market for EBike that most are imported with European specs. In the US with straight and open roads, they just aren't fast enough
I agree that a PM who simply play the role of a telephone between design, engineering and marketing is indeed useless...though i disagree that PM in general add no value building product, even in a team of A players.
You work at google, and google is a place full of A players. It also happens to have hundreds if not thousands of product managers. Surely they are not there to just look pretty.
I can't speak for you, but from my own experience, I get into the weeds with engineers on technical tradeoff and debate over user experience with my designer on a daily basis. I run user testing, I scowl over metrics to understand what's working vs what's not. If that's not contributing to the product in a meaningful way, I don't know what is. I hope at some point, you get to work with a PM that is able to do that with you.
Most product managers, in my experience, greatly overestimate their own level of knowledge. Your whole post smacks of this too, and when you say you "get into the weeds" on technical tradeoffs, it's quite likely that you're wasting the engineers' time trying to debate things that are either utterly inconsequential or are obviously wrong to anyone with a basic grasp of the technology.
Also when you refer to engineers and designers as being "yours," this is a huge red flag. They are not your subordinates--at least not in any company that's worth working for. You would do yourself well not to think of them as such.
> when you say you "get into the weeds" on technical tradeoffs, it's quite likely that you're wasting the engineers' time trying to debate things that are either utterly inconsequential or are obviously wrong to anyone with a basic grasp of the technology.
Could you offer some additional insight on why you think that way?
