Would you trade your home built bike for an optibike?

[Green Machine]

Who out there who has spent 3k or more on there home built bike would trade there bike for $12,000 850w 15ah optibike if you had the condition that you had to keep the bike and ride the bike as your main bike for the life of the bike...no selling allowed. No sitting as a musuem piece to brag to your friends.

It came to my attention in another thread that people on endless sphere are really not into the optibike that much...since endless sphere is THE hang out for electric bike enthusiasts...i am wondering if optibike really missed out on some key market research designing that bike.

Pluses of the optibike:

> mid drive motor driven through the gear train of the bike.
> high quality batteries build into a carbon fiber frame, super well balanced.
> won the pikes peak hill climb by a literal mile against 10+ other types of electric bikes
>this thing will climb super steep grade at slow speed thanks to the motor running through the gearing.

Minuses of optibike;
> Loud as hell...this bike sounds like a nest of angry wasts beneath your feet.
> looks like an ebike..ad this to the noise and you might get kicked off the bike lane by some angry snobby cyclist
> looks espensive....forget leaving this thing locked to a post when downtown.
> looks kind of weird...i have heard ebikers complain about the odd looks of this bike.
> lipo batteries need to be replaced every few years.

So there you have it. Would you trade your 3k+ bike for an optibike? I know i would trade mine in a flash but i just wanted to see what the group consensus was.

I have been suprised in another thread how much some ebikers are repulsed by the optibike....i wondered if that was consistant with the Es community.

It was seeing an optibike that got me into electric bikes recently. It was on display in a San Francisco musuem and i immediatly went home to see if it possible to buy one. When i saw the price i decided to build my own instead...and now have 5 bikes i spent over 3k on....

 

[Rassy]

Except for the fact that I don't ride 2 wheels anymore, and prefer recumbents, I liked the Optibike. I think they should have completed the job and equiped it with an enclosed drive shaft.

IMHO, the folks these bikes need to appeal to aren't lycras, and may not currently ride any bikes. They don't want to maintain a messy chain, have spoke problems, or worry about flat tires. Of course the battery should be integrated and trouble free.

I also don't think an expensive IGH is necessary on an e-bike. I like my 8 speed IGH on my trike, but I have lots of weight and pretty steep hills to deal with. For most, a basic 3 speed would probably suffice.

So I think all the pieces are available today for a nice low cost electric assist bicycle for pavement use. Now if all this was available on a tadpole trike...

 

[Jethro56]

If technology was fixed it would be tempting.I think we're in the premodel T era now.When the demand for high quality ebike explodes. Things will change quickly.

 

[neptronix]

I can buy a 1 year old used car, brammo/zero cycles electric motorcycle, house in Detroit, or build 3-5 equivalent high end eBikes for the cost of an upper end optibike.

I can build over 3 electric bikes of similar caliber, but with an aluminum body, for the cost of the lowest end optibike.

Then again i am not the guy who would drop $4000 on a Mac Pro tower. I'd build my own equivalent PC system for $1000 and be happier with it.

 

[Lessss]

You answered your own question.

It was on display in a San Francisco musuem and i immediatly went home to see if it possible to buy one. When i saw the price i decided to build my own instead...and now have 5 bikes i spent over 3k on....

 

[Drunkskunk]

No.

Its an amazing bike for what it is, and they deserve the price they're asking. But no.

I want a bike that doesn't sound like angry bees, and can take some actual abuse. its also an archaic design. Y frames were popular the mid 90s, then died. While the design is great, they should have strived for something that lookes less dated.

This bike should have been exiting the market in 1999.

 

[LI-ghtcycle]

The Opti-Bike isn't my cup of tea, if I could trade a standard basic E-Bike that I had built in the $2,000 range for it, sure, but I think most of the negatives you mentioned make it too much of a hobby horse.

Who wants to commute on an exotic ultra expensive sport bike that could cost half the bike's value to have it repaired from a low speed crash?

Same with the Opti-Bike.

Sure if I were Jay Leno I'd probably have a few, but since I'm not, I don't have any.

Even the costs replacing the batteries, servicing the complex BB drive and just the construction from Carbon Fiber would be enough to discourage me.

Just too impractical in too many ways for my budget.

 

[MadRhino]

I plan to build a chain drive next winter, but I think that I will do better than the Optibike with my Santa Cruz. I'd trade one of my bikes for it though, but I doubt that I would ride it more than one season in the mountain. On the streets, I prefer my actual ride, that is much faster and silent thant the Optibike.

 

[Hillhater]

Few Ebikers would kick the Optibike out of bed if it were a trade as you say . They would probably even buy one if it were priced reasonably to reflect what it is ... a powered bicycle ..not a piece of art or a Ferrari.!

 

[j3tch1u]

uhh...no.

 

[oatnet]

I would trade for one in a heartbeat, but I have many ebikes to trade.

-JD

 

[neptronix]

Even if i had the money, i would not buy it.
Good luck repairing the damn thing. I feel the same way about a lambo/ferrari.
If it is exotic, it is going to be both expensive and time consuming to live with.
I would take the BMW M3 instead.

Same with the optibike. If i wanted a high tech frame and good components, i'd get a new crystalyte motor, put it on a high end frame, get bitchin' disc brakes and a A123 pack, and probably have $8000 left over at the end of the day still..

 

[knoxie]

No

Not any of my four bikes, I have ridden an opti , sure they are great bikes but no for the reasons posted already really, all my bikes outperform them for a 20th of the cost! they have had battery issues of late as well, no UK dealer etc etc, not me. If I had the dollars it would be bombers all the way for me! that at the moment is pretty much the perfect of the rack bike you can buy although sadly they have also crept up in price lately as well.

They do seem to sell quite a few optis though so someone is buying, there are prob more folks with more cash than we like to think of that dont bat eyelids at the price tag, the same folks couldnt repair them or speed them up like we do though so you will always get this scenario, why pay for a Ferrari when you can make your ford faster relatively easily and cheaply! OK made it quicker just need to work on the handling now :lol:

 

[AussieJester]

My cruiser for a overpriced under performing over rated Optibike hrmz
lemme think for a minute...HELL NO! LoL

Even if i had the money, i would not buy it.
Good luck repairing the damn thing. I feel the same way about a lambo/ferrari.
If it is exotic, it is going to be both expensive and time consuming to live with.
I would take the BMW M3 instead.

Same with the optibike. If i wanted a high tech frame and good components, i'd get a new crystalyte motor, put it on a high end frame, get bitchin' disc brakes and a A123 pack, and probably have $8000 left over at the end of the day still..

Fact is if you have the money to buy a Lambo or a Ferrari you don't care how much
it cost or how much it is going to cost you when its time for a service or repair its
one of those cases if you have to ask how much it is, you can;t afford it
Where as the Ferrari and Lambo can outperform most of their rivals, the opti bike
would fail too outperform majority of the medium to high end powered bikes on Endless Sphere
alone... Must have been some real clunkers in the Pikes Peak hill climb for it too win, guessing
all direct drive frock motored e-bikes?

KiM

 

[neptronix]

Btw, Just looked at the specs.
34mph top speed? 20ah? anyone can build something like that for well under $2000.

ES members, here's your chance to feel better about yourself, lol.

 

[GrayKard]

Nope, never did like the design.

 

[Green Machine]

Btw, Just looked at the specs.
34mph top speed? 20ah? anyone can build something like that for well under $2000.

ES members, here's your chance to feel better about yourself, lol.

- that

In the last year optibike stepped up with a 30+ mile an hour 30 mile bike...climb anything in low gear.

I was thinking of optibike as the 20mph "street legal version" of a couple of years ago that had a 650 watt motor.

Optibike stepped up with a dream machine while we werent looking.

 

[AussieJester]

.Optibike stepped up with a dream machine while we werent looking.

Unfortunately (for the buyer) they "stepped up" with a ridiculously high price tag that couldn't be missed too

KiM

 

[dogman dan]

I'd do the trade in a heartbeat. Then cheat like hell on the condition that I ride it daily. I'd get tired of the noise pretty soon, but it would be cool to take out on certain occasions just for show.

What can I say, I'm a hoarder. Someday they'd pry it from my cold dead hands and then they could museum it. I have lots of bikes I would part with laying around, and wouldn't miss one of my funkier commuters.

 

[oatnet]

I would trade for one in a heartbeat...

" if you had the condition that you had to keep the bike and ride the bike as your main bike for the life of the bike...no selling allowed."

I missed this condition when I answered... I would not make any trade that restricted me to one bike, I have different bikes for different purposes. However, if it was just trading the $3000 bike that I would ride in the same conditions, sure. The noise is annoying to a hubbie like me, but about the same as any outrunner bike. The bottom bracket interface is likely more robust than anything I could build or buy myself, and as a factory bike it likely has the bugs already worked out, so I could spend more time on it than under it. 850w is light for me, but it is geared via the chain so it is easy to get great performance and efficiency.

I see many folks saying it is too expensive, and the retail is more than I would pay, but at the 3k price point in the original question, it would likely become my favorite offroad bike.

-JD

 

[amberwolf]

Nope, I'd rather ride my junkpile CrazyBike2. More comfortable and more useful for everything I need it for. The Optibike's design just won't do what I need it to.

 

[docnjoj]

Nope! It would have to be an "Opti-trike"!
otherDoc

 

[John in CR]

Sure, I'd do the trade and turn around and immediately sell the Opti, and build myself a couple of cost no object ebikes. Then I could throw a nice party with the leftover money.

 

[oatnet]

Sure, I'd do the trade and turn around and immediately sell the Opti, and build myself a couple of cost no object ebikes. Then I could throw a nice party with the leftover money.

I also missed this condition in first read:

"if you had the condition that you had to keep the bike and ride the bike as your main bike for the life of the bike...no selling allowed."

How about flipping the question - if you could only ride (1) ebike for the next 5 years, what would it look like? What's your idea of the ultimate jack-of-all trades, what would it be?

 

[Mundo]

What's your idea of the ultimate jack-of-all trades, what would it be?

Yuba Mundo