581 ebike rabbit hole part 3

At this point, I'm starting to get pretty confused. It's been three months since I took all these screen shots, and a month since the last entry. To even start writing this, I had to go back and look at the last entry. 

And now we find ourselves on Amazon. Which is basically Alibaba but one step removed. Someone picks a bike off Alibaba, slaps their logo on and imports a bunch. This brand Eahora, is one of the bigger Amazon brands. Pretty sure it's garbage, but maybe not?

At this point, we're only looking at full suspension, mid-drive bikes. That's not all I took screenshots about, but to keep up with my brother-in-law on the trails, that's what I need. This one, at 76 lbs, is heavy.

There are actually some decent looking options on Amazon. This ticks almost none of my boxes, but it looks kinda cool, and it's cheap. At times in this odyssey, those two factors, cheap and cool looking, almost seem like enough. But we keep looking.

Possibly even repeating ourselves. With so many options, I can see why everyone just buys the Aventon Aventure.

Here we are back at the Eahora Ace. Maybe this is worth seeing if there are any YouTube reviews. No, too heavy.

This is all starting to drive me a little crazy. You're not even seeing half the screen shots I took. But we're learning. There are the big brands, the direct-to-consumer brands, the Amazon brands, and the source of most of all of the above, the Alibaba cross-your-fingers brands. Vitus seems to fall into the direct-to-consumer range. This one ticks all the boxes, but has older geometry and a small battery and not that much power. But it might actually be a decent bike for the money.

This one looks like it has even older styling. But that's full suspension and mid-drive for under two grand. It could keep up with the brother-in-law, and I could just end this search. For cheap-ish.

No torque sensor. We keep looking.

At this point, I'm beginning to understand: you get what you pay for. This is the light weight version of my brother-in-law's bike. It has a smaller battery and less powerful motor. The Specialized Turbo Levo SL Comp. The keyword there is SL. I guess that stands for "slower and lighter?"

At $5300, it's still a bit much for me to bite. So the search for the magic bullet goes on. Or should I say, El Dorado?

That's a pretty good markdown. The battery isn't as big as his, but I think the carbon is lighter. Still over $5k tho. There's just something gnawing at me that says "that's nice used motorcycle territory." Heck, it's decent new motorcycle territory.

So we go to Alibaba's easier option, Ali-Express. Which offers one click shopping, supposedly. But what are you clicking on? 36 volts or 48? And only 13Ah? At this point, I'm kinda wishing I had about $20 grand to order up a handful of these bikes and test them against each other.

This would definitely be in my order basket. The Luna X2 checks all my boxes. 500 watt mid-drive motor, decent geometry, carbon frame, real mountain bike, full suspension, dropper post... But... They only have the 27.5" tires available. They make a 29er, but it's out of stock. Brother-in-law says wait.

The Z-1 is in stock, with a mullet set-up, 27.5 in the back, 29 in the front. That's fine, but what I hear is the 750 watt mid-drive motor is just too much power. It eats chains for breakfast and spits out shredded chainwheels.

Still, actually a top contender at this point.

It's a maybe. I hear it kinda goes through the battery pretty quick. Would be really fun to test though. 

It's almost enough to make me just click and... Wait... This isn't even an ebike.

How the hell will I make up my mind?

This one has an awkward down tube. They hid it in with the crank in that first picture. Let's call it the "stump catcher." Too bad.

Should I "Trust" this bike off Alibaba? I think I actually reached out to the maker. It all sounded good, until I asked for a picture of the factory. They told me each bike was built to order, so there's a bit of lead time. The factory looked like a living room. Hmmm.

Geez I dunno. Maybe?

But that's a bigger maybe than Luna Cycle, which actually has US customer service, for not that much more, once you factor in shipping.

There is a dropper, though!