Haibike Overstock

Talking to a friend who owns a local e-bike shop and he said that Haibike has some great deals. Yamaha mid-drive equipped hardtails and FS for as low as $1000 and $2000, respectively.
 
I have a Bosch-drive Haibike hardtail. Haibike has their stuff together as far as the frame and build quality. They are not a fly by night company, they are a German manufacturer who started years ago making regular bikes, and they jumped into eBikes harder than anyone else.

The frame on my hardtail 29'er (which I swap back and forth between 700c cross tires and 27.5x2.6 knobbies) shows a lot of great engineering. Through-axle design, hydroformed tubing, everything just done really well. I am not as thrilled with their FS designs with the idler wheel that they use on the Bosch drive models. They do not need the idler wheel on their Yamaha models because Yamaha uses normal sized chainrings.

The Yamaha drives I have ridden are great. They have the huge advantage over the Bosch that they use a normal crank and can have a front derailleur.

I would say whatever drive motor you get, get the 500wh battery over the 400Wh.
 
Agree; I have a Yamaha hardtail and, while overbuilt (heavy) IMO, it operates well, and have the same opinion of the Bosch-equipped FS models; don't like their feel with that jackshaft (or whatever it's called). Solid deals at the prices they have on 2017's.
 
There's only one local dealer that I know; he's a long time acquaintance and told me about the pricing when visiting his shop. There were customers being offered the same deals. I didn't mention the place since didn't want to be advertising it.
 
Geometry looks short and tall unfortunately. Walk disabled is foolish on the Yamaha if you want to explore stuff that requires hike-a-bike. Entertaining a wide hardtail. Looking to sell my soul for scouting and unconventional shenanigans. It pains me, but time is a virtue.
 
If you read between the lines of the article, and see what is happening elsewhere in the bike business, it looks to me like in another five years we will have Trek/Specialized/Giant dealers, and all other bikes will be sold online, and sent to a bike van for final assembly and delivery.

After a recent very bad experience buying a bike online and having it be damaged in shipping, I've decided you need to be very careful about buying online. I'm still dealing with the fallout six weeks later. In the future I won't buy online unless the bike is sent to someone else to be prepped and delivered, so they can deal with the back and forth with the bike brand and UPS when UPS crushes the bike along the way.
 
I have no local bike shop that sells haibikes. I have 3 specialized bikes that all came from the local dealer. I would have much rather bought in person but there was just no one within 2.5 hours of me. Price was the most important factor because I just want to try this out.

I didn't like the experience of buying a bike online. I always prefer to go in the store and pick out.try on stuff, bikes especially.

I talked to a number of dealers that sold haibikes because it was obvious I was going to have to buy online. Several said the prices were due to overstock and we would not see them again at these prices. i thought it was all sale talk BS, but reading this article, I'm not so sure.

i will never buy a bike online again unless it is my only option. I really disliked that part of the purchase, but wow this thing is fun.
 
Pretty much. There's a shop here that has been in business for about 10 years that only sells boutique brands and just has a few demo models, you order the frame or entire bike, it comes to them and they build it up as you wish, then provide service and various items that you might want down the road. It's probably less than 1,000 sq ft.

I've always bought my frames online and built up my own bikes, since I prefer it that way. I can't see how anyone can any longer have a few hundred thousand dollars worth of bikes on the floor and still make it work, when you can buy direct for less. I think it will be even worse for ebikes, especially in this early period, since each new model year will bring new tech advances with motors and batteries, which will devalue older ebikes more than it would with a bike.
 
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