Aldi e bike

Aldi are selling a folding e bike online for £499.99. Also found a Nextbase dash cam for £49.99.

The bike has good spec and has been previously sold online by the makers for €1000. There’s always a down side, it took a fair amount of detective work to establish the weight is somewhat over 21kgs

Their latest online leaflet states weight approx 20kgs. Charging time only 2 to 3 hours. Doesn't give weight without battery which would be needed to know if your bike rack could take it.

I'm selling my old blue and yellow push bike Tony (ex tour de Yorkshire) it's none electric though.
Boaby

The Aldi ebike has very mixed reviews and some of the specs shown seem to vary depending on where you look. I'm a little dubious about the advertised battery performance, as up to 50km from only a 6.5ah battery seems highly optimistic. I'm also doubtful about being able to charge that size battery in 2-3 hours. Some of the reviews point to about 6 hours which is about right in my opinion. The weight of 21.5 Kg is quite a lot to lift onto a bike rack, I can manage my 19kg ones, but still an effort. 

I did quite a lot of research before finally getting our Byocycle Tornado folding bikes, which are currently available for about £699 including a 7.8ah battery hidden in the frame and disc brakes which are much better than the usual V brakes. We managed to buy a virtually unused pair privately for a silly price and they have been brilliant, sometimes being used as manual geared bikes without bothering with the batteries in flatter areas. 

I would definitely recommend trying before you buy, as the small wheeled folding bikes handle a little differently to larger wheeled and framed traditional bikes. One thing I found quickly is that you need to be more positive with the steering due to far less centrifugal effort from larger wheels, so no cycling with you hands off the bars   Having the electric power for gradients though, has restored my enjoyment of cycling that I haven't had for years.

Roger

If googling Aldi ebike for reviews it's hard to find the one that's coming this week. Lots of reviews are about different models sold by Aldi in different countries including Australia.

Rogers comments about small wheeled bikes applies to all small wheel models whether electric or not. I tried a Dahon 20 inch wheel folder and despite its very high price, found it quite unnerving to handle and so sold it. I've also tried a 16 inch wheel model which handled much the same. Whether this unsteadiness is due to small wheels or the lack of rigidity of a folding frame, I don't know.

The Aldi folding bike sold in Australia, looks to be the same spec as the UK one, so the reviews for that would seem to be applicable to the UK version.

Roger G wrote:The Aldi ebike has very mixed reviews and some of the specs shown seem to vary depending on where you look. I'm a little dubious about the advertised battery performance, as up to 50km from only a 6.5ah battery seems highly optimistic. 

Roger

Indeed you would be right to be dubious that a mere 6.5Ah battery could cover 31 miles (50 km). Maybe possible on level terrain with a behind wind. Our compact folding 'Batribikes' have 15.6 Ah batteries that will give us all day cycling and cover on average 50 miles. Of course it all depends on gradients, headwinds, applied effort, gear setting and your weight. Without batteries, total weight of bikes is 41 kg so on the Fiamma carrier there is 19 kg to spare which to our minds allows plenty of allowance for any 'road bounce'.

first of all....we love Aldi....and saw the above bike in the latest catalog today...

however, my wife's proper 26" wheeled step through Raleigh, Panasonic crank driven, ebike is on eBay (though could be sold....) at a similar price, and I'd rather have that than a cheap new bike....loads of life left in it. She's just got a new one, again a Bosch crank drive system.

having spent several years buying, rebuilding, servicing and selling electric golf trolleys (something to do after retirement..and many similar components to an ebike.) I can tell you that cheap means incredibly thin breakable wiring, the cheapest of other components and probably water ingress.
the most expensive trolleys on the market (Powakaddy) were so much better built than the cheap Chinese stuff.....and much better value even at twice the price....
I'd never go near a cheap electric bike, and certainly not one bought at a caravan show (or a discount supermarket)
.....would you go to an electric bike shop to buy a motorhome?

But with 3 year warranty????? and Aldi's normal no-quibble warranty.  Aren't Raleigh bikes now made in China, Taiwan or South-East Asia except for the one in this article.....

https://www.bikeradar.com/news/raleigh-powers-up-uk-assembly-lines-after-13-year-wait/

yes, a warranty is great, but it's a bit like MHs, I'd rather have one that never goes wrong than one 'with a great warranty' that's always being fixed....
just my opinion, as a couple we've done 25,000+ km on our current ebikes and needed something more than a 'pop to ALDI' shopper..(although we do pop to ALDI on them....) comfort, performance and reliability are what we need and perhaps this would be as,ing too much of the ALDI bike?
I know folk who've bought cheap ebikes, realised how good it is to get out and about and then that the range for what they now want to do isn't enough, so have to upgrade...
it's horses for courses, but £500 isnt much to pay in today's huge ebike market (about a quarter of my wife's new bike) so it's fair to ask what you get for this ratio of price level?

Too slow me sold out!

Heanorboy wrote:Too slow me sold out!

Wonder who bought the other one