Electric Bike Deals & Offers

The very cheap direct drive motors can be modified to enable this feature but the risk is you fully charge your battery and then go on a ride where you go straight down a hill over-charging a battery so it's normally left for direct drive hub motors with more sophisticated controllers and displays who can enable and disable it more safely or automatically I think. This bike has a geared hub motor anyway so wouldn't have that feature, it has planetary gears that increases torque and also freewheels when the motor is off. It's a lighter weight and lighter duty option compared to a direct drive hub motor which are typically much heavier. I personally can't see much to justify the price here, it's a basic 7 speed freewheel drivechain, the battery isn't huge capacity. I would say this is fairly normal spec for the price and there are better options for similar money or even less. I prefer this one. https://www.parkersofbolton.co.uk/collections/electric-bikes/products/viking-freedom-gents-3sp-36v-250w-electric-bike-700c-wheel

Ladies bike, not for me.

"Basket is not included" Which basket are they referring to? The one holding the battery in pack?

I'll get my coat!......... 😞

I like bikes me 😳..........

Yes joking aside.....its a really good bike...a friend got one and he's delighted with it... (y)

Yeah I picked up the vulcan 10 days ago got an ex display model of this exact bike, really happy with it

Go for the vulcan.... Its logical. :)

I'm not sure whether to go for this or last year's vulcan model at £999, anyone know which one is better?

Aye! Your about 7 days to late :p maxmix

Comes with the higher bar too https://www.rutlandcycling.com/bikes/electric-bikes/gazelle-cityzen-t10-hmb-s10-2018-electric-hybrid-bike-grey_478815

The motor on a Bosch driven ebike is the most important thing. Worry about the brakes and the cogs if you like but if buying an ebike you want to know what generation the Bosch motor is.

Got to keep it under a certain price? Better to save on the consumables as you can gradually upgrade as they wear out. From Deore upwards it's really about weight saving and "going up to 11" (or 12). Probably not a concern for someone with 250w of extra oomph. I'd rather it be like this rather than the old days where all sorts of corners were cut but there was an XT rear mech to catch your eye! XD

Had a look at the Gazelle site and had this interesting text come up 'winkel in de buurt' displayed which translates as 'store nearby'. Part of Pon holdings who own Derby cycles which owns many famous brands including Focus and Kalkhoff. Seems with Accell also being dutch which owns many brands too a lot of the bike industry in Europe is owned by dutch companies.

Yeh so why skimp at the last stage on components that are familiar to so many people. Maybe they are actually just suited to the bike for some reason, sturdier than the more expensive ones or something.

Codes work on clearance stuff and anything else that does not have a discount like £150 off £1000 spend, I notice Halfords have increased prices and done away with the money off promotions

Will this still work

Is this model worth it or is the newer model more reliable (less cut outs)?

Depends which scheme your work is signed up to. Old work didn't do halfords new work do.

Def can. I did

I think this bike would be great for people who want to buy this bike. Moderate that!

i know that the scooter is becoming more popular as it used to be a children's toy but now i see men and women dressed in suits using them to go to work! it looks really strange when you see an adult using the scooter, especially someone dressed for work. the article below sort of explain why they are not allowed in the UK. unlike the bicycle, scooters have never been an accepted safe mode of transport, and they have not been manufactured with all the road safety features in place like a bicycle. before these become accepted on the roads, they will need to satisfy the authorities that they are safe for the road, both for the rider and the other road users. i have never used one, either push or electric but they looked pretty cool, especially those ones with the two wheels in the front. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48106617

True I guess but the ones being sold at most proper UK retailers are generally locked to 15.5mph.

electric scooters can get up to 40mph whereas e-bikes can only get up to 30mph and most will only achieve 20mph. so they are considered safer than the scooters i guess. also they are no different to the pedal bike and so you couldn't ban them.

Too bad there's nowhere to ride it without potholes.

I liked your comment but needed to let you know that your comment has literally changed my life (lol) . Got badass on my ebike and have not stopped smiling. Ebikes need deristricing imho (y) .

17mph average is a good lick - sounds like you dont need an ebike

i personally would love a 20mph limit as i usually average around 17mph on my 12 mile daily commute ...i think any faster would be dangerous , ie cars misjudging your speed and pulling out in front of you

A bit of googling suggests that the EU epac regulations have a 10% allowance for error on the maximum speed. If that is indeed the case, then if you buy a bike with a controller that can be tweaked, and adjust it accurately to 17mph, it still should be road legal. Still too slow for me to want one, although it would be handy going up hills, the extra weight of the electrics would slow me down on the flat.

You can have the opinion that you'd like more motor speed and you can have the opinion that the current legislation is wrong and cut of speed should be higher. But that doesn't change the fact that the cut off speed was set because of average bicycle speeds. Legally 15.5 mph is all you can have currently. If you dont like that, you can either ride illegally, with the risks that entails. Or you can actively try to get the law changed.... and good luck with that.

+1. Heat from me

Good bit of kit for the £££. Be interesting to ride a bike with different size wheels in front & back. Good spec/quality components. Wait for the no pedals comments (annoyed)

After owning several ebikes, hubs are superior, I’ve never had one fail, but I have had two Bosch kid drives fail.... thankfully Bosch Warranty replaces them.

We have the Raleigh motus with the Bosch drive, it's great , powerful and quiet. Went out with some road bike lads and left them for dead on the hills! ;)

I take your point about battery cells but I personally would see that more a difference between doing your own e-bike conversion and buying a off the shelf e-bike from a UK or EU supplier. Even budget e-bikes are using good quality cells like LG, Samsung, Panasonic etc because complete e-bikes have a lot of EU certification to pass and that certification has to state which batteries are being used with possibly 1 or 2 alternative cell manufacturers as an option for a bike manufacturer. I think that is in the list of critical components and alternative suppliers. The Decathlon e-bike also on hotukdeals currently for £799 has high quality LG cells and a capacity of 420Wh slightly more than this bike. As for hub vs mid-mount motor reliability I don't think I'm stating anything out of the ordinary there, you only have to look at the internals to see how simple a direct drive brushless hub motor is, a geared hub motor is a little more complicated with its planetary gear system but still very simple but a mid-mount motor is super complex and often has to fit into a pretty small area. The previous generation of Bosch mid-mount motors had a huge amount of issues with plastic cogs and bearings issues. In contrast I've seen threads where people have used direct drive hub motors for many, many thousands of miles without issues. Direct drive hub motors have no moving parts except for the bearings of the axle and geared hub motors only have the 3 planetary gears assembly in the middle. This is the internal parts of a Bosch motor with a huge amount of components that wear out or fail including plastic cogs, a smaller motor, seals, bearings etc plus circuitry that has been known to fail either because of over-heating/over current or water ingress. I've heard of such motors failing within the first hour of use with heavier riders or people who have taken their bikes off-road. I don't think there is any surprise looking at those internals that long term the unit is destined to fail and with Bosch restricting supply of spares to official repair shops only plus charging huge amounts for those spares it can be extremely expensive to keep such motors working. I realise the Shimano steps system probably has more heavy duty and noisier metal cogs and spares are likely more reasonably priced anyway but still likely to have more problems than hub motors. You don't hear of so many problems with Shimano steps motors but that could be due to lower sales of such units. Not forgetting as well that many people with mid-mount motors get through a huge number of chains because of the extra power of the motor is delivered with the riders own power through the same chain so chains, cassettes, chainrings etc all wear out much faster even if you are lucky enough to get a mid-mount motor that does work long term without issues. The older Bosch motor had a small chainring that meant excessive chain wear and a short life but assume the chainring was user replaceable and obtainable although not sure about this. I realise the newer Bosch motors are improved in this regard.

So my experience has been the polar opposite of this: mid mount motor no issues (bosch), cheap and nasty hub motor = sad times. I can totally see the logic that replacing a hub motor is much easier than replacing a mid drive, which is integrated with the frame. 400wh is also a respectable battery size for last year's bikes from a reputable manufacturer (eg shimano, yamaha, bosch etc) at the sub £2k price point as they use good quality cells and proper battery management software. Mine has 400wh and I get ~100km per charge. A cheap battery is a false economy, if cell charge and discharge is not properly managed the life of the unit as a whole will be very poor. Different cells charge and discharge at slightly different rates and this needs to be damaged or the cells will die one by one if they get flat or overcharged because the management system is looking at the charge state of the unit as a whole not each individual cell. I also wouldn't have a 400wh+ no-brand battery in my house simply because of the fire risk. Something I'm going to use on a bike, with all the vibration and knocks that entails, plus the outside water, and then take it in my house and charge it? From a random factory in China, with no QA, no reputation on the line and no way to hold to account if it does pop? NOPE! I'm aware many people do use cheaper battery units but it's a personal cost/risk choice that for me and my family doesn't add up.

This is why I went with the Oxygen e bike in the end, I love the Bosch hubs but could see a problem rearing it’s head in a few years, plus they were a pain to de restrict, where the oxygen is a simple software lock

Bham sold out

Is that a bike for lazy sods like me??

On way to check it out...anyone brought..ride done a real road test etc. Pedals with it ?

Do u have a link

I’m that lazy but also slightly vain so it’s a no from me.

Looks poor for the money and I'm not sure how convenient it would be to have the battery in the frame, how easy is it to remove for charging and seems to be very low capacity. I'm guessing non-removable which could be annoying. Front shocks look rubbish too. Seems to be a low spec bike with the novelty of a battery built into the frame. You can get much better e-bike for far less money like the Carrera Subway e-bike at Halfords.

Ouch - 6.8ah battery, V-Brakes. Plenty of better e-bikes out there for this sort of money. It may be the cheapest for this particular bike, but poor value for money. If on a budget, try: http://wooshbikes.co.uk/?faro A better specced bike for less money.

google it

Single spedd - beware!

Improved battery - R&D department must have got together and decided let's put a massive battery on the back mudguard. I am just kidding it's a cheap electric bike and am aware they probably mean capacity.

I noticed something on the advert it doesn't state the motor wattage which normally is often stated as 250W the legal maximum for the road but that isn't stated so this is likely less than 250W. They have written Shengei motor but I think its likely Shengyi who are a huge manufacturer of EU certified hub motors. Possibly this model in 180W form as suitable for small 20" wheels. http://www.syimotor.com/productDe_84.html Nothing wrong with the motor though, its's a geared hub motor with planetary gears which are normally plastic nylon so may need replacing after a few years (aliexpress typically). On the advert it says LCD display but this just has a series of LED lights to indicate mode etc. Not a bad thing as when water gets into LCD displays they look awful which I've seen on one or two cheap e-bikes.

Fair point if you were comparing a normal spec e-bike but this bike only has 1 gear and a 24V battery. This likely creates more sweat when you come to a hill etc. If you are comparing it to a single speed bike without a motor then yes this might be an improvement. To get this e-bike up a hill even with full power on you are likely going to have to work really hard on the pedals.

Not all have the physical ability, or local flat terrain, to be comfortable on a pedal cycle. Also, more pratically, not everyone likes to get to work awash with perspiration (except Prince Andrew). Not an e-biker personally, but the value of these things in reducing the amount of short car journeys, and thereby congestion, pollution, parking etc, can't be underestimated. Glad they're getting so affordable. Heat

Thanks I will. Have a lovely Christmas....... In your Audi (lol)

Erm... Makes perfect sense and what would the year have to do with it making sense??? (lol) Sorry that I can afford nice things and can justify why I spend money on quality. You stick with your Uber and I'll stick with my Audi! :p

Mate go and take a nap or something, your analogy doesn't make any sense in 2019.

I guess to you then, having the cheapest thing possible that gets you from A to B is the way you view it? For example, say I drive a £30k Audi... What's the point when I can by a cheap Fiesta for £1k and still do the same thing? Why be a £2k TV when I can get a TV for £200? Why buy £50 jeans when I can by a pair from Primark for £7??? Get my point?

Nope. I get an Uber 🤑

Vegan friendly?

Another option here with shaft drive and a nexus hub so a very low maintenance bike and very easy to store but smaller wheels so make sure you miss every pothole. https://bicycles4u.com/products/eschara

Better e-bike here for only £450 but only 1 left. Massively superior to this e-bike but still entry level I would say worth considering if you don't mind a step through frame. https://www.parkersofbolton.co.uk/collections/electric-bikes/products/viking-arriba-folding-36-volt-250w-electric-bike-up-to-45-km-range

Buy a secondhand Kalkhoff!

Single gear limits speed unassisted (remember small wheels mean the bike will be low geared anyway) and motor cuts off at 15.5mph so don't expect to ever go fast. Speed wise you will be somewhere between a mobility chair and a normal bicycle. You need to spend more to get a decent e-bike this is far too minimalist and low cost in spec. I guess if you found that the gearing was too limited you could upgrade to gears but 20" wheels are not ideal for derailleurs as they get drenched in water and mud from the road and this frame won't have a gear hanger option but something like a 3 speed hub is an option, Nexus etc. I notice the weight limit for the rider is 120kg and yet I wonder what sort of performance can be achieved with a single speed bike and such a low power hub motor and battery at that weight. Also this looks to be a geared hub motor to give more torque and they typically have 3 nylon wheels/cog inside which can wear out. A single speed drivetrain means the rider will add less assistance and therefore this motor will be under much more strain. Just feels like a bike destined to fail for heavy riders and will keep cutting out due to excessive current drain and the motor over-heating especially on hills. If you keep taking the motor to the extreme where it will keep cutting out it will not last long and excessive current drain on the battery will shorten its life too. This e-bike is so crap Halfords didn't even want to put their Apollo brand on it and their Apollo brand is their entry level brand normally. https://www.taylor-wheels.com/bike-wheels/20-inch-bike-wheel/20-inch-rear-wheels/20inch-bike-rear-wheel-nexus-inter-3-coaster-silver

Yep good for info but we would need a time machine . What I would like to know is how it was compared with what is available now to come to the £449 price. As when I hit that old link it is £479.

posted back in july if u need more info £382 back then https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/assist-crossbar-hybrid-electric-bicycle-3256522

Hey I didn't put a next best price on this. But I would like to know where the mod who edited it found it for 449.00 from (confused)

i really like the way that the newer e-bikes have the battery designed into the frame, it makes them look much better than carrying a battery pack around on the bike.

Shame the woman’s same bike doesn’t accept the extra 10% off

https://fazua.com/en/support/tips-tricks/ just buy a bosch there is nothing about Watt as well

Seriously tempted at this price. Heated.

At 6’4”, their website says i’m too tall for this bike. :(

Smallest cog on a freewheel is typically 14 teeth but a freehub and cassette can be 11 teeth so for the same cadence you can be getting on 30% faster on a freehub equipped bike compared to freewheel plus it will shift more reliably and be stronger and lets not forget the motor only assists up to 15mph so above that high gearing is pretty important. Freewheels are light duty components with small pawls in the mechanism. Cheap low grade components basically and the 8 and 9 speed freewheels are even worse than the Shimano models which only go to 7 speed. You don't need to go off-road to benefit from extra grip we get rain and ice in the UK on the roads. Punctures can still happen with slime filled tubes but their frequency is reduced and having both electrical cables and gearing to deal with for rear punctures makes it more time consuming, a front hub motor means a puncture on the front means you are spending similar time on a front or rear puncture rather than a short time at the front but a very long time with a rear puncture. As a heavy rider I tend to get more punctures to the rear with few issues on the front wheel. Lots of e-bikes have additional drag from the motor when unpowered. This is common on mid mount motors and non-geared hub motors but if you are using a geared hub motor without battery for long rides do you really want to cycle around that extra weight and wear out the internals of the motor hub. A quick conversion to a non e-bike makes a lot of sense temporarily but also when you have worn out the e-bike components, the battery is no longer holding much charge and the hub motor gearing is worn out (they don't last anywhere as long as a direct drive hub motor) then you can easily convert the bike back to a normal bike rather than scrap it. Another advantage I've just thought of is if you want to use hub gears on the rear then you have to use a front hub motor. Many want all weather hub gears on the rear for a commuting bike with a perfect chainline for low maintenance and can even have a chain cover so you'd have to use a front hub motor for such bikes. Like the Brompton below. I think on the Brompton it can help calm the slightly twitchy handling as the front wheel movement is made slightly heavier so in this instance actually improves handling but that is likely a rare advantage that only applies to small wheels like the 16" wheels on the Brompton which normally has incredibly light steering due to the tiny weight of the 16" wheels.

Gearing in these ranges are not an issue for average joe, Changing tyres isn't any different for the rear wheel motor driven apart from the motor wire and the the servo brake wire. Punctures are not an issue if you fill sith tyre slime. Never had an issue with grip as you wouldn't be using an electric bike to go off road. Electric bikes are made to be used without using the electrics so no need to change the wheels. I worked for an electric bike co and would say anyone looking to buy one to test ride a couple in the shop to see what suits them

Can you recommend one for about this price ! I still fancy one to have a mess about with on my day off.... Thanks maxmix

Advantages I can think of; a) you can have a higher quality stronger freehub based rear wheel with wider gearing compared to many entry level rear motor hubs that only take low quality freewheels with poor high gearing. Also freewheels wobble so the gearing needs more frequent adjustment and doesn't shift as well. Some e-bikes use 8 or 9 speed freewheels which are notoriously unreliable on the rear hub. b) Evens tyre wear between front an back as the bike is effectively all wheel drive so can improve drive on poor surfaces, even when one wheel is slipping the other is powered and pushing forward. Same effect as a 4 wheel drive car compared to 2 wheel drive. c) Makes punctures easier to deal with as when you have to deal with gearing and electric cables on the rear wheel it can make changing inner tubes more difficult and time consuming. d) You can remove the front wheel and battery easily and fit a standard front wheel if you want to use the bike as a normal bike temporarily, maybe touring or when cycling longer distances beyond the range of the batteries. e) they tend to be more reliable on the front, more of the rider weight is at the back so less weight on the bearings and axle of the hub etc which are more difficult to service on motor hubs. f) geared hubs like this are relatively light and actually lighter than some front suspension forks which can be as much as 3.5kg so no worse than having front suspension however if you combine front suspension and a geared hub that is probably too much weight and I personally would never do that as steering would be too heavy especially for weaker people. However you have to look at the actual bikes you are considering to make a comparison it really depends on specific components fitted to the bike but front motor hubs make a huge amount of sense for a lot of people and can mean a much more reliable stronger bike.

Sorry type 250w motor. There is no advantage in having the motor on the front wheel, The disadvantage is the weight when turning and lifing the front up when going up kerbs etc when needed as well as if you remove the front wheel to transport the bike you have to keep unplugging the motor and the conections always fail after a while due to the thin pins.

That is some serious battery power for a battery that you can't see. Amazing.

It's nearly £1700 and looking at the photos they can't even be arsed to supply the pedals for when the battery dies ;)

I like the look of this as although the components and forks aren't great they are easier to upgrade than the electrics and are consumables. The specialized motor gubbins are well integrated/hidden and the associated app provides smart features that other ebikes don't have. I like the fact you can set a riding time or distance and it will meter the battery power to last that long. You can also adjust the low/med/high to be your desired percentage of the motor power. Saying that you can make a DIY bike for less money is missing the point a little, these look slick and well engineered. Any DIY effort is going to look clunky in comparison.

Fantastic bike. For me, it was between this and the Haibike. At the time I went Haibike, and whilst I don’t regret it, this price would have swayed me to specialised.

30 miles if you give it a hard time off-roading. You should get 35+ from lighter use (which is what it's really for). That's plenty for most commuters or leisure cyclists.

There is also the issue of the type of motor, direct drive hub motors tend to be very reliable but heavy, then you get geared hub motors which are lighter but have more moving parts so tend to be less reliable then you have mid-mount motors which have a lot more moving parts often in a quite a small overall package. Bearings often go on Bosch motors and I assume its a bike shop fix only and fair wear and tear not really a fault. Sounds like the new Bosch motors are improved in many ways though. Bafang make a lot of oem parts for e-bike motor manufacturers including whole motors to the design of their customers so there are a lot of Chinese parts in many e-bike motors you buy don't assume motors from Countries other than China don't actually have a lot of Chinese parts in them. Like German cars there is a premium to buying them and maintaining same as with e-bike motors but when you use them performance can be a little bit better. By restricting the supply of parts and who can maintain them it becomes a non-competitive environment where profits can be maximised at the expense of the end user. I don't like this arrangement and actually think the engineering is better in the Japanese units Shimano and Yamaha. When I say better I mean more durable with lower maintenance costs rather than performance. There was one Shimano motor I think that was criticised for being more noisy and it was but that was because it had metal gearing so created more whine noise but in the similar Bosch unit it was plastic/nylon gearing which was more silent. In my opinion stronger internals and lower maintenance costs are worth a bit of extra noise. You only have to look at the difference in reliability of Japanese and German cars to see how they differ in engineering priorities with Japan always at the top and German stuff mostly at the bottom. Unless you have a huge disposable income buying Japanese generally makes more sense. However it gets a bit more confusing with e-bikes as the Chinese actually dominate e-bike manufacturing of components even if e-bike assembly is more spread out around the world. https://www.reliabilityindex.com/manufacturer

I cannot believe the drivel i am reading on this how many have ridden an bike? i have a FS specialised E-Bike,certainly would not look down my nose like most of the ill informed comments 15 mph fine going up hill but on tarmac you want a bit more, as for the price of this don't expect to be launching this all over the place but a great way to get into E-biking. 1.Easy charging taking the battery of and take it inside mine is integrated into the front tube. 2. lighter than a FS 3. the weight is central making a better ride 4.Boch , brose or Shimano motors Don't worry take it back to the shop and they will fix it. 5. enjoy going up hills that are sooo easy i've done loops that i do on my road bike and with the e-it's so relaxing not bursting your baas.

I have seen some people do 70 miles on a Bosch with a mix of pedalling and battery. 25 miles would not be a problem. You can de-restrict the Bosch motors. But from now on the new motors manufactured will have a kill switch that will turn them off for 30 minutes if they go over the limit. If it does it 2 or 3 times the motor cuts out completely until a Bosch engineer turns it back on. Might be a b*gger if it happens by accident halfway up Brecon. I have at people riding towards me at 15mph on cycle paths on ebikes and it is scary how fast they come at you. I am more interested in helping me up the 3 big hills to get me home than speed.

Don't worry about ranting this is some great info that's saved me about a week's worth of research probably. Now say you got a Bosch, would you be happy with the 15mph limit or could you derestrict it? I normally travel at 15mph on 12kg MTB and seeing this one is 21.5kg if the battery runs out that is some weight to pedal. Seems this one in real use will do about 20/25miles. Sometimes I do 30/40mile trips but then again I suppose I would have a lot more energy left in my legs to manage the rest of the trip. Would you of had this if you could put pans in it?

The 2 main things that appear to go wrong with these motors are plastic gear wheels or circuit boards breaking inside the motors. They all use plastic gears. Now, with the self-build motors the spare parts are available and there are countless forums and videos explaining how to open up the motors, repair them and getting on with life. There are even brass gear wheels available which many people use to replace the plastic ones to make the motors more reliable. When it comes to the Bosch ones Bosch does not sell any spare parts in the UK. They will not even sell - officially - the special wrench you need to open up a Bosch motor. I have seen Brits post on ebike forums that if they had known this when they bought their Bosch ebikes that they would not have bought them. I see plenty of people saying that Bosch are great when the motor is under warranty and that Bosch is very good at replacing motors that fail. However, I have also seen people who have said that, when they had problems with their motors towards the end of the 2 year warranty, that Bosch has been less than helpful wanting to know how far the bike has travelled and when it last got serviced - yes, they expect you to get the Bosch motor regularly serviced at one of their service centres. Not cheap by all accounts. I have also seen it posted on forums that when a Bosch motor fails outside of warranty that Bosch want about £650 to sell you a new motor BUT they allegedly demand that you send back your old broken motor first. Hang on, you bought that. It is yours. It is knackered and dead but in order to sell you a new motor for a hefty sum then Bosch demand you give them something that you already own???? Now there are plenty of happy Bosch ebike owners but these things are relatively new and no one really knows how reliable they are or what the longterm costs are. The idea of paying £1400 for a Bosch powered ebike - and that would be a bargain basement sale price - is scary enough when you know of the above. But what if you pay 2 thousand or 3... or 4... or even more? I think the Bosch motors are better generally in performance than the Bafang or the Tongsheng but at least you have some chance of repairing one of those if it goes wrong. But here is something else to bear in mind. The legal limit for an ebike motor in the UK/EU is 250 watts. Many people in the UK on ebike forums argue that a 250w motor is not powerful enough to get you up many UK hills. I live in hilly Wales. Hence you will read that lots of people - illegally - have 350 watt and often 500 watt motors on their ebikes. From what I can make out a 500 watt motor is really needed if you live in a hilly area. But if you are ride one of these then you are breaking the law. What happens if you have an accident with car or, worse, a person? Now, the likes of Bosch and Yamaha, etc, have their motors are 250 watts also but apparently they had 250 watts nominal. What does that mean? Well, it supposedly means that they are officially 250 watts and hence legal but they can do bursts up to 500 watts and, some say, a bit higher. It appears to be some technical legalise to make their motors legal. This might now be important if you live in a very flat area but I have loads of hills on my commute and the main reason for buying an ebike is getting up hills each day when I am knackered of a return journey. So a Bosch bike, from a legal POV, seems to be the only way to go as otherwise I would be looking at a 500 watt Tongsheng or Bafang which are illegal. Sorry to rant on, but there are lots of things to think about. You have lots of pros and cons whichever system you decide upon. I am leaning towards a Bosch but only a Bosch which is at sale prices - around £1400 tops. Any prices above that are just crazy IMPO considering what I have read about issues with repairs and reliability. Excuse any typos or mistakes as I have not read back what I have ranted on about :)

Thanks for the follow up. Not yet ready to go part assisted but the price is getting nearer to the tipping point for me and I imagine a lot of people.

Step through bikes are gender neutral

Finally got this response from Halfords: Further on from our conversation yesterday and I have found more information regarding the frame size of the Assist Hybrid Electric Bike. The frame size of this bike is 18.5 inches. I hope this helps and if I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me via email or on 0345 504 5353.

Or, for men's read old awkward frame from which is harder to get on and off from, but which could theoretically survive a head-on collision better than a women's bike? Presumably potential outliving its rider? Thank you, but I've had enough of men's frames and will now only buy step-through frames.

Trying to be helpful or trying to make some sort of sexist point? You have a choice of frame types anyway - try reading the post. BTW after 8 years lurking here isn't it time you posted a deal to return all the favours?