Easy2Ride

Electric bikes — I’ve been waiting for electric bikes to be good enough. I want to use a bike for normal transport — shopping, visiting, café-​ing, etc — but live in a hilly area (Taringa) and aren’t fit enough for a normal bike to be useful. This year, electric bikes seem to be (finally) there.
Easy2Ride sell FreeGo bikes, I’ve just bought one. Got it yesterday, zoomed around, am delighted. Here’s my rule of thumb — if, on a good day, you can just do it on a normal bike, it’s easy on an electric but not effortless. From Taringa to Kurilpa St West End, under fifteen minutes, without raising a sweat.
The FreeGo bikes seem (to my inexpert eye) to be well put together using good components. Brian (of Easy2Ride) is happy to mix&match components, within reason. Contact him, and he’ll bring a couple of bikes to your home to try out. We got to try out the bikes on the hills we’ll be using them on, in traffic we know.
Like I said, I’ve only just got the bike, so can’t speak for it’s maintenance and reliability. But, it looks well made.
Two weeks later:
It was jumping out of first, which was very annoying. Especially up Miskin St — thanks for that challenge, Paul!
I took it into a bike shop. They changed the derailer and the gear cable, and gave it a tighten up all round. It seems the components are mostly good, but the assembly a bit loose. Two hundred dollars later, it stays in first.
Still happy.
One year later:
Still happy about ebiking. Not happy about build quality. Just had a couple of spokes go twang on the back wheel. As has a friend of mine who bought at the same time.
Also replaced brakes with hydraulic on recommendation of bike mechanic — the original brakes were needing very frequent adjustment. Minor issue: the new brakes don’t have the engine shut-​off, which is a nuisance when you’re approaching am intersection and changing down through the gears.