E- bike newbie here - well not quite!

[Greener]

Hi everyone, just to introduce myself. I’m an old guy who started MTB’ing back in the mid 80’s with a Breezer Storm. I came from being a roadie with a Pennine race bike I had built for me and a Saracen tourer. But I got the bug and far prefer being off road these days with all the traffic and it’s such fun ?
Because of age and creaking bones I decided it was time to take plunge and go electric, despite previously accusing E-bikers of cheating ?
To be honest, I’ve been waiting to see how the technology developed before committing to a big purchase. I’ve decided, rightly or wrongly, that things can’t change dramatically, especially with battery capacity, because of the weight penalty - I know about all of this with cars as I drive a plug-in hybrid.
Anyway, I’m not there yet as I’ve just ordered a Focus Jam2 9.8 Nine from a well known online bike discount store in Germany - they’ve hardly any stock and the price of my bike went up literally overnight by £950 after I’d ordered at the previous price, I imagine because if you’ve got virtually no stock why give it away!
I was having doubts about the small internal battery and it not being removable for charging, as well as the limited range with it. Also, I have a feeling that they might dump their ‘clever’ 2 battery solution with the advent of neater, larger capacity batteries which are well integrated becoming the norm. If that happens then it would have implications for battery supply in the future in the event of warranty claims. I was close to cancelling and buying a Thron2 6.9 which has a better spec but not carbon. It was marginally cheaper, but now out of stock and nearly £500 more than the Jam.
So I’ve decided to leave the order for now because it’ll probably be 3 weeks before they dispatch it.
I’ll keep looking at the alternatives, but they are so expensive compared with the deal I’ve got. My son, who is also a keen biker, is anxious for me to go ahead with it because if I don’t get on with it he’ll buy it off me!
Apologies for long intro. I should probably have posted some of the above elsewhere on the forum.
Cheers for now.

 

[z1ppy]

Hello and welcome, don't worry about long meandering posts, this is the internet!
Unfortunately you are completely at the mercy of Focus for that battery system as it their own, so it maybe worth emailing them, to see what their (public) plans are for the system life is, and what they will promise for supporting the current setup & make a final decision based on that. That said, there are lots of very clever ppl about who can re-manufacturer batteries (after all most are just full of individual 18650 batteries), so I doubt the battery will dictate the life span of the bike. What I found was, that for all my good intentions, to test (in my case) if bike was the right size for me, and I would definitely send it back if it wasn't.... yeah right, I ended up with a bike that was too small for 18months (till I bought another).
No matter what have fun.

 

[Greener]

Hello and welcome, don't worry about long meandering posts, this is the internet!
Unfortunately are completely at the mercy of Focus for that battery system as it their own, so it maybe worth emailing them, to see what their (public) plans are for the system life is, and what they will promise for supporting the current setup & make a final decision based on that. That said, there are lots of very clever ppl about who can re-manufacturer batteries (after all most are just full of individual 18650 batteries), so I doubt the battery will dictate the life span of the bike. What I found was, that for all my good intentions, to test (in my case) if bike was the right size for me, and I would definitely send it back if it wasn't.... yeah right, I ended up with a bike that was too small for 18months (till I bought another).
No matter what have fun.

Hi z1ppy, thanks for that. I’ve actually decided to cancel the Jam 9.8 Nine largely because of battery issues. I don’t need a carbon bike at my age. I was originally going for Focus Thron2 6.9 - great spec for the money, before I ordered the Jam. Trying to buy high value stuff from Germany is a nightmare. Both my credit cards blocked the transaction. It was on a Sunday and by the time I sorted it with the bank all the stock had gone?
I’m now going for a Thron2 6.7 at 23% off. I can always upgrade, but is a Bosch 500Wh rather than 625. I think it’ll be adequate and I like the saving.