Help choosing first bike!

[Cullen]

In need of some advice, before I buy my first EMTB. I'll summarise about me and what I want, below.

● Budget is max £3000
● I will mostly ride trails and some rough terrain/basic hills rarely.
● From what I'm reading, I may as well go for full suspension?
● Bosch Gen 4 motor seems best? But I'm all ears and open to Yamaha.
● I'm heavy! At 105kg and 5ft11, some bikes aren't suitable for me.
● Do I want 27.5 or 29 inch wheels?
● I guess for my weight I'll want a 720kwh battery over a 625kwh? I will ride mostly for 2-3 hours max.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

A bike I love the look of, is the Lapierre Overvolt tr 4.6 in Emerald Green, this is currently £2900 but I cannot find it's weight limit anywhere...

I'm wanting to order it this weekend, ready to go away with in a couple of weeks.

Thank you!

 

[RustyIron]

● From what I'm reading, I may as well go for full suspension?

Definitely. A hardtail isn't what you're looking for.

● Do I want 27.5 or 29 inch wheels?

29" for sure.

I think it would be best if you order from a reputable store. As a newbie, you might need assistance in the future.

 

[Stihldog]

Full suspension for sure. 29” wheels…definitely. 750wh battery. Bosch CX motor would be my choice.

And most importantly …buy locally if possible.

 

[mustclime]

$3000 is not realistic imo. At that price point your suspension and drivetrain is crap. The drive unit and battery add $1500-$2000 to any bike design so a $3000 e bike will be spec’ed like a $1000 full suspension mountain bike. I agree with the shop bought bike for the support.

 

[Stihldog]

$3000 is not realistic imo. At that price point your suspension and drivetrain is crap. The drive unit and battery add $1500-$2000 to any bike design so a $3000 e bike will be spec’ed like a $1000 full suspension mountain bike. I agree with the shop bought bike for the support.

I agree. $3k seems a little low. The frame, motor and battery is important for an eMTB at that price. The rest of the components can be low value but eventually you’ll upgrade those things.

Prices of a decent eMTB can be found. In Canada our exchange rate is kinda f**d up so my budget starts at $7k. After several upgrades I’m quickly over $10k. (No…it’s not gold plated). After riding the Fuel EXE enough I didn’t mind throwing more doe-ray-me at it.

 

[Dans1210]

Levo alloy should drop in price soon loads of the 2024 stock left around on the base model in uk.

 

[markloch]

£2900 is about $3800 but still on the low end for a eMTB except maybe for some hardtails. Like trek’s marlin+ about which I know nothing.

I see a gen 3 trek rail 5 is on sale for about £4k. That’s a good bike. I’ve got a gen 2 Rail 5 (‘21 … and think it’s gen 2?) and it’s served me well. Over the years everything but the cranks have been upgraded - as mentioned earlier with limited budget it’s the frame/motor and to some extent battery that’s the core, everything else you’ll likely upgrade over time.

I weigh about the same as you. With 625wh battery I easily get 2-3 hours and 20+ miles with 3k ft of ascent with electrons to spare.

I also have an ‘23 Orbea Urrun, hard tail with a Shimano ep801-RS motor and I love it. RS = software de-tuned “full-fat” ep801 motor, less power and torque, but easy to override it, I’ve got profile #1 set up stock lower power/torque and profile #2 set to full torque 85nm and power 600w. And for most of my rides the, which tend to be 200-300 feet of rise over a mile, stock profile is plenty, as is the 540wh battery on either profile.

I see Orbea has the ‘23 Urrun 40 on sale for £3300.

+1 on recommendation to buy local, or at least buy a bike from a manufacturer that has local dealers.

Have fun!

 

[Anders]

Full suspension for sure. 29” wheels…definitely. 750wh battery. Bosch CX motor would be my choice.

And most importantly …buy locally if possible.

I had a similar budget. My though was that it is better to buy a hardtail with decent components than a full suspension bike with mediocre components (and then spend lots on upgrades).
Hence I ended up at my local shop with a heavily discounted top-of-the-line Haibike hardtail (Alltrack 11) with Bosch CX, 750Wh battery, dropper post, 29" wheels with good tires, Shimano 4-pot brakes, 12 speed SLX etc. I paid the equal of £2850

On the other hand, I didn't foresee how fun this is. If I had known, I think my budget would have been higher, and a full susp bike would have been within reach on said budget

 

[Zed.]

My first Eeeb was aTrek Rail5 (full suspension, Bosch motor / 500wh battery), this was bought new, a 2022 model but price reduced to ~£3500 in March 2023
Exellent bike but lower spec components so the urge to improve became strong

had great fun on it with over a thousand miles ridden / pedaled in Bpw this year
as to battery range, the 500wh averaged ~15 miles pedalup / downhill lugging my ~110kg ass around so a less steep gradient or not blasting around in 'Turbo' would incrase range a bit & larger batteries obviously better


Rich.

 

[CraigR]

I had a Giant Stance EMTB for about 3 years and really liked it. It was my first EMTB and first MTB as I took up MTB riding during covid. Never had any issues with the Yamaha motor. I recently this year upgraded to a new Trance X Advance. Both bikes are great. The Stance is running $3,200-$3,500 USD right now in the US. I did upgrade to SRAM AXS about year after getting the Stance. It was a game changer for shifting. When I got my Trance, I had them upgrade to SRAM Transmission before I even picked up the bike. As other have said your budget is a little low for EMTB, but the Stance is close.