Any experience with electric bikes?

[wincrasher]

I'm thinking about getting one of these:

http://prodecotech.com/bikes/phantom-x3-2014/

Anyone carry an electric bike? How do you like it? Did it work out as you envisioned?

[Aeronie]

I don't own one but saw them and took a test drive at Solarfest this year. The bike is pretty cool and performed better than I expected. The only issue I had was the very long recharge time for the battery pack. I think it was like 6+ hours and that only gave you 1-2 hours of use. I'll have to see if I kept the white sheet I grabbed while there.

[rtz]

This is the biggest e-bike forum I know of: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/index.php

That market is huge, fragmented, and obscure. So much product scattered all over the place.

[wincrasher]

Well, I bought this bike I was interested in the original post.

Works as advertised. Was delivered packaged extremely well. You have to install the seat, the pedals and the handlebars. Took all of 5 minutes.

Build quality appears excellent. It's built heavy and you can tell. I don't perceive any weight balance or CG issues - those may come into play for guys doing serious mountain bike riding - but for a casual rider like myself, it seems fine and I should get many years of good use out of it.

The motor is very quiet. You just glide along. I haven't tested it for distance, but in the short ride I took, hill climbing is no problem.
The battery is pretty big, but that's the price you pay to get range. It is secure in it's mount, and you can charge it without removing from the bike.