Laughing Wolf
New member
My wife and I represent the older and perhaps more frugal demographic in this group. Occasional social riding with a relatively weak thought of exercise benefit has been our motivation on standard bikes for some years. I have a late '70's Schwinn and a converted mountain-to-road bike for those general purposes. My wife had some kind of a step-through bike she used hardly ever.
Her knees started going bad so pumping a bike for any distance became unrealistic. A year ago I suggested an ebike for her and after considerable evaluation chose the Pace 500.2. step-through for its throttle and cadence sensor. She could choose to pedal for some exercise, just move the pedals around to maintain some speed level, or lean on the throttle until her thumb got tired if the knees still hurt moving the pedals. Paying $1450 just killed me.
Until then my bikes cost $20 or less at garage sales. As I said our demographic is probably in the minority in this forum.
Shortly after, we went on our first ride together, she on her ebike and I on the Schwinn. On the second significant hill as she again was at the top and I was only 1/4 of the way. I texted her the message, "Have a good ride, I'm going home.". I had explained multiple times the concept of the faster rider pacing to the slower rider, but for naught. So at Christmas she talked me into a Pace 500.2 step-over. I agreed to pay ANOTHER $1450 for these reasons: 1) to have the quality time with her, 2) to use the bike on travel trailer trips for close in local transportation and sightseeing, and 3) with gasoline/diesel at $6/gal to use it for local errands (I have a flatbed bike trailer with large mounted cooler). I had to buy a new bike rack both because these frames would not fit the current rack and to carry them behind a trailer required an upgrade in stoutness.
Because of a family situation for the next 8 months we were not able to ride for any distance together and my wife used her bike for 5 mile one-way rides to the local public swimming pool. Then one day in August we did a 16 mile ride, the longest we had done. At mile 8 her bike lost all e-power right in the middle of a busy T-intersection as we were waiting to turn left. She freaked and the person behind us blared their horn; it was not good. Rebooting regained the power but only for a few minutes. We swapped bikes so I could deal with the on-the-fly reboots and at the end of the ride took the bike to Sports Basement where we purchased it. Aventon told them to replace the control module (think motherboard) and in a short test ride it worked. A few weeks later we took another 16 mile ride and her bike again lost power at about the 8 mile point and we took it in the same day. Bike techs cannot do much electronic diagnosing and rather than do semi-random part swaps Aventon agreed to give her a new bike, a Pace 500.3! Had I realized the switch to the torque sensor I would have pushed to find a 500.2 to keep the cadence sensor.
So here we are with a .2 and a .3. The good news is, worst case on a long ride if her knees give out we can swap bikes so she won't have to apply torque to activate the assist. She has only ridden her new bike once so far, and not very far, but she likes it. The jury is still out though whether this bike will satisfy her needs as well as the .2.
I like the cadence sensor. If I am doing errands or on a social ride with the wife it's not about exercise and I don't have to sweat. Yesterday I spent 2 hours running around town without sweating. For exercise and sweating I use my old heavy bikes, more exercise.
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading my intro.
Her knees started going bad so pumping a bike for any distance became unrealistic. A year ago I suggested an ebike for her and after considerable evaluation chose the Pace 500.2. step-through for its throttle and cadence sensor. She could choose to pedal for some exercise, just move the pedals around to maintain some speed level, or lean on the throttle until her thumb got tired if the knees still hurt moving the pedals. Paying $1450 just killed me.
Until then my bikes cost $20 or less at garage sales. As I said our demographic is probably in the minority in this forum.Shortly after, we went on our first ride together, she on her ebike and I on the Schwinn. On the second significant hill as she again was at the top and I was only 1/4 of the way. I texted her the message, "Have a good ride, I'm going home.". I had explained multiple times the concept of the faster rider pacing to the slower rider, but for naught. So at Christmas she talked me into a Pace 500.2 step-over. I agreed to pay ANOTHER $1450 for these reasons: 1) to have the quality time with her, 2) to use the bike on travel trailer trips for close in local transportation and sightseeing, and 3) with gasoline/diesel at $6/gal to use it for local errands (I have a flatbed bike trailer with large mounted cooler). I had to buy a new bike rack both because these frames would not fit the current rack and to carry them behind a trailer required an upgrade in stoutness.
Because of a family situation for the next 8 months we were not able to ride for any distance together and my wife used her bike for 5 mile one-way rides to the local public swimming pool. Then one day in August we did a 16 mile ride, the longest we had done. At mile 8 her bike lost all e-power right in the middle of a busy T-intersection as we were waiting to turn left. She freaked and the person behind us blared their horn; it was not good. Rebooting regained the power but only for a few minutes. We swapped bikes so I could deal with the on-the-fly reboots and at the end of the ride took the bike to Sports Basement where we purchased it. Aventon told them to replace the control module (think motherboard) and in a short test ride it worked. A few weeks later we took another 16 mile ride and her bike again lost power at about the 8 mile point and we took it in the same day. Bike techs cannot do much electronic diagnosing and rather than do semi-random part swaps Aventon agreed to give her a new bike, a Pace 500.3! Had I realized the switch to the torque sensor I would have pushed to find a 500.2 to keep the cadence sensor.
So here we are with a .2 and a .3. The good news is, worst case on a long ride if her knees give out we can swap bikes so she won't have to apply torque to activate the assist. She has only ridden her new bike once so far, and not very far, but she likes it. The jury is still out though whether this bike will satisfy her needs as well as the .2.
I like the cadence sensor. If I am doing errands or on a social ride with the wife it's not about exercise and I don't have to sweat. Yesterday I spent 2 hours running around town without sweating. For exercise and sweating I use my old heavy bikes, more exercise.
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading my intro.
