Cycling on the Cheap - Alternatives

[TNT1]

Just now, Mountain Bru said:

Is that a form of meditation? 

Something like that.

[Karakoram]

Cycling on the cheap - back to equipment. Who has considered an e-bike due to health problems, but have balked at the cost of these machines? I know of a few cyclist that haven't regained full lung capacity after Covid-19 and have switched to an e-bike to still enjoy cycling.

My wife only has 50% lung capacity, loves cycling and cycle-touring but cannot keep up when we do distance. We decided to look at e-bikes, but we have a few very specific requirements. First of all, low cost, a step-thru frame would be great, the ability to fit racks and a good range.

We found a South African supplier that had a product that perfectly matched our requirements. See https://pedego.co.za/. We settled on one of the Smart-e bikes at under R30,000 (https://pedego.co.za/product/smart-dais-e-mountain-bike/). It doesn't have the coolness factor of some mainstream e-bikes, but this bike ticked all of our requirement boxes. 

In July we rode our own version of the cancelled Around the Pot event, from Swellendam to Buffeljagsrivier, via the Malgas Pont. She could easily do the gravel travel distance of 85km, 1400m climbing, using pedal assist level 1 only (there are 5 levels altogether).  After we stopped at Buffeljagsrivier, she had only used a quarter of the available battery capacity. (She is very light, which helps, but also put in a good deal of cycling effort to make the battery last the distance). We didn't know what the actual range of the bike would be, but we are now confident that it could easily do 95 to 100km with loaded panniers.

The image below is the display of the bike after 85km distance: