How to Choose the Best Ebike for Your Needs – Guide

Choosing the ebike that precisely fits your requirements is not easy. Some simple tips.

Ebikes purchasing cost

Let us calculate it with good margins of approximation:

In 2023, a good quality, performant ebike with a 500 Wh battery, 250 Wh motor (the legal limit in Europe), at least 50 Nm of torque, at least 50 km range, and front suspension, costs about €2200 VAT excluded. For example, the KTM Macina Ride 591 – priced around 2200 € VAT excluded, see picture.

Equipment is paramount

Indeed even the best-selling ebike brands, such as Giant or KTM, rely on the best-selling equipment brands for their ebikes. For instance, brakes are in most cases Shimano or a few other brands like Tektron, Sram, etc.. Cassettes, derailleurs, chains and chain rings are often Shimano, and also Sram, Enviolo, Yamaha, etc. Nevertheless, each equipment brand offers a large choice. Even motors are mostly manufactured by a handful of companies, Bosch, Yamaha, Shimano, TQ and Fazua to quote the most common in Europe. Ebike manufacturers practically build almost exclusively ebike frames, sometimes batteries, even rims being often outsourced. That’s why, when choosing an ebike, you should enquire about its components, finding plenty of reviews and information on the web.

Price worthy accessories can tailor ebikes as you prefer

Let’s imagine you really desire a specific ebike, but it hasn’t got lighting, or its lighting is too weak for your needs. For only €59 you can buy an excellent, powerful pair of lights, front and rear light with brake light function, including a good battery. You can even couple it with your existing lighting, since most lights are mounted just above the mudguards, and most accessory lights can be mounted on the handlebars and on the seat post. Idem for mudguards, stems to lift handlebars,  stands, racks etc. Before deciding, it’s better to verify which accessories can better suit your ebike to your needs.

Ebike performance and price depend more on equipment than brand

We think it’s useful, in order to properly choose your ebike, to approximately calculate what you should add to those 2200 €. Let me share my estimations for each additional component already mounted on ebikes by their manufacturers:

• about €25 for each added Newton meter of torque
• about €800 for a damper or rear suspension
• about €10 for each additional millimeter of travel of a better suspension, be it front or rear
• starting from €100 for lighting, up to €500 for an awesomely bright one
• roughly 1.2 € for each added Watt of battery capacity (e.g. a 625Wh Bosch costs here 689€ 19% VAT included, versus €564 for a 500Wh one)

Choosing the frame type

Low access, or step through ebikes can be a little less stable and balanced especially on rough and bumpy terrain, but are surely very comfortable if you are to frequently jump on and off your ebike. Otherwise, men and ladies frames are the best choice.

Weight matters. A Scott Solace eRide 10 carbon frame e-MTB weighing around 11.8 kilograms with a lighter TQ 50Nm motor and battery is as performant as a 25 kg e-MTB with an 85Nm motor, since the lighter the ebike, the better your leg power and its motor perform. Idem for a Fazua equipped ebike.

Full suspension or hard tail?

Full suspension or fully ebikes are more expensive. Although they are better for trails, if it’s just a question of comfort, and not of e-mountain bike performance, you could opt to save money equipping a hard tail ebike with a suspension seat post, like this Suntour SP12/SP17-NCX.

Hub gears or derailleur?

Hub gears allow you to easily shift even when you are idle at a traffic light, being probably the best choice when frequently riding in city traffic. Automatic hub gears are very pleasant, letting you concentrate on traffic and enjoy carefree riding. Derailleurs are more robust and undoubtedly the best choice for off-road e-biking.

How much torque should you demand?

We already wrote here on the importance of torque. The higher the torque, the more you get acceleration, climbing and hauling power. Moreover, you will be able to shift gears less frequently, increasing the durability of your drive components, excepted the motor. If you frequently ride uphill, we would suggest at least 70 Nm of torque.

How much range do you need?

When a manufacturer declares its ebike range, e.g. 50 km, it intends the maximum distance it can cover before exhausting its battery, with a temperature between 15° and 25°, riding with the minimum level of assistance (usually eco-mode), on a flat terrain. Those 50 km can shrink to 15-20 km riding with temperatures below 10°, with maximum assistance mode (e.g. “turbo” by Bosch) on bumpy and/or uphill roads.

Batteries provide a range of about 120 meters per watt, i.e. 60 km for a 500Wh battery. Some ebikes offer the possibility to install an additional battery, or range extender.

Choosing the most suitable brakes

Descents consume brake pads and discs. If you live on a hill, you should avoid one piston brakes, which wear brake pads unevenly (usually those on the piston side last only a few hundreds kilometers). We suggest four piston brakes, the additional money you would spend on the brakes would be spared by longer lasting brake pads, and you would enjoy more safety and comfort. Hydraulic brakes are more powerful and easier to use than mechanical ones, especially if your hands are not very strong.

Rims

Do you ride on bumpy roads, potholes or rocky paths? Then you definitely need top-quality rims, even if they are more expensive. Consider that replacing rims takes a lot of work to mount spokes.

Wisely investing your money in an ebike

If you are to buy an ebike avoiding to purchase a car, you are going to save a lot of money, needless to say. Even if you plan to occasionally be riding an ebike instead of driving, savings are considerable. This can weigh considerably on the amount of money that you would want to invest in a an ebike.

Car mileage is quite low for short trips (from 2 to 8 km), between 10 and 5 km per liter on average, depending on temperature, frequency of stops, type of car and motor, etc. So if you instead ride an ebike for 2000 km a year in short trips, you’re going to save at least 200 L of fuel, up to more than 400 L in certain cases. Moreover, you should reckon that short strips are utmost wearing for car motors, and require much more frequent replacement of consumables as oil, brake pads, spark plugs, tires, filters and so on. In the end, that fuel consumption accounts for roughly half the cost of such driving. Not to mention increased risks of big and small damages to your car body, and car depreciation increasing every thousand km.!

The cost per kilometer of riding an ebike

Riding an ebike in the city costs peanuts: you just have to replace tires every 4000 to 8000 km (reckon around 12 to 30 € per tire, unless you prefer very special ones), and 10 to 20 € for brake pads every thousand to 2000 km, unless you often ride on steep descents. Batteries longevity should exceed 10,000 km in most cases, motors should last at least twice or thrice that distance without remarkable loss of power. Electric energy consumption of any ebike costs no more than 0.2 cents of Euro or Dollar per kilometer.