Motorized Bicycles and Price

I live in a mountain town, with steep hills everywhere. These often have narrow roads climbing them, with trees close on either side and blind corners. You would think this would be a bad place for bicycling, but there's a regular contingent of serious hill climbers here. And drivers don't run them over. Drivers are strangely conscientious about making sure they don't have accidents with cyclists, motorcyclists, scooterists, walkers, and kids going home from school. That's a very positive thing about the locals.

If you aren't a superfit athlete wrapped in skin tight spandex, bicycling here is extremely hard, so you only go a short distance and are exhausted the rest of the day. Technology to the rescue? There IS such a thing as a bicycle motor. Legally, you can use those up to 33 cc without a license or registration.

Most of the kits sold on Amazon and Ebay are 80cc, and geared for flatland speed. This will get you arrested and ticketed for using an illegal vehicle on the roads. So what are the legal alternatives?

There is such a thing as an electric bicycle. The two different conversion kits involve replacing a wheel on your bicycle with one that has an electric hub, a controller, brake cutoff and regenerative braking system, and often you have to buy your own battery. The Chinese kits have TERRIBLE Engrish instructions and no specs are listed as to the wheel's axel width so you can't tell if it will fit your bicycle frame. Also, the batteries don't come with the bike, and so far, those batteries don't last more than about 500 days of use, and realistically need to be replaced in a year. They're getting cleverer about the design, such as all inclusive swappable wheel (totally worth stealing!) that uses your smartphone for wireless controller, but you give up your other gears on your bike if you do that. And here in the Mountains? You need those other gears. Also, these tight setups in one wheel have a small battery yet cost $1100. Um... no. Tidy design, but the price is wrong. If that were $300, it would probably sell. Just keep in mind that the actual build price, in parts and labor, for a Vespa is $175. No really. The parts are $125, and the assembly time is 15 minutes. The rest is greed and markup. This is why I despair at Vespa. They COULD Be the Honda of scooters and be on every street if they were selling for double their manufacturing cost. They'd corner the market. But they went for luxury greed and so only rich fools buy them because they don't care. This irritates me so much.

Amazon also sells fully assembled purpose built e-bikes, for $900. Their reviews are relatively positive, but the fine details on the warranty are that the batteries aren't warrantied after a year, which is about when they need to be replaced, and good luck getting ahold of an English-speaking rep to send you a replacement $300 battery from China. There's sites which list the best ebikes, which are often around $4000. That is a LOT of money. That's the cost of a new motor scooter, and several entry level 250cc motorcycles, which get 70-80 mpg and don't require $300 in battery (or gasoline) per year, and those can go on the freeway and climb mountain roads at considerable speed.

As it stands, Electric Bicycles are a luxury item, and remain on the cutting edge. Their advantages are:

1. being nearly silent 
2. can park in your apartment or office
3. Can recharge in various places
4. Do not require a special license to ride

Their disadvantages are: 

1. Battery only lasts a couple dozen miles per charge
2. Battery needs replacement every year for $300-600
3. Initial cost is higher than motorized transport
4. Legally limited to under 20 mph
5. Weight significant compared to a regular bicycle
6. Worth stealing so can't park in public
7. Purpose built Ebikes are $3-$4K

I will note that if you have a Kymco scooter dealer, with parts on stock, a Kymco Agility 125cc motor scooter from Taiwan is $1900 and will climb the hills better than an ebike, doesn't need its battery replaced annually, and gets 80 mpg. 

If you don't have a local Kymco dealer, a Piaggio (makes Vespa too) Fly 150cc is $2900 and gets 70 mpg and has better quality than the Kymco and uses the Vespa parts network. I see these around town, being $1300-3000 less than a similar Vespa. They have less chrome. They can still be stolen, but they are heavier and thus require two people to lift into a pickup truck and hauled off at speed. These can generally be parked in public. This being Gold Mining country, the local main streets are NARROW with very limited parking and you can put these on the sidewalk legally. I would have one. Honda makes UGLY scooters made for seriously flamboyant homosexuals. I wouldn't be caught dead on one. Being straight and single sometimes limits your choices in vehicle. 

50 ccs 4-stroke is only 4 HP. This is pointless in California. 

Too Ghey for words. 

If you don't have either scooter dealer, or you need to get on and off the freeway, a Honda Rebel motorcycle, with a 234cc engine and a cruiser setup with crappy drum brakes is around $2000 used, or $4400 new with the better brakes and the new EFI 250cc engine, which is far better than the old one (the 234cc air cooled Honda has been in production for 25 years). The Rebel creeps up the hills, but it is pretty bulletproof and is slow enough to reduce self destructive acts of speed. A couple of my neighborhood teenagers have 650cc supersport bikes. Neither has died yet, but they get more and more aggressive with their riding as they gain skill and I expect each of them to die because of it. This is sad, but everybody makes choices. Choosing to die is a choice. I have to respect that. The little Rebel is a baseline choice, used, compared to the various scooters. 

Honda Rebel with disc front brake

I could probably live with this as a daily commuter, and its less expensive and more able to climb hills and deal with bumps than a scooter. There's a local guy who put a sidecar onto his. Its a bodge-job with a mountain bike wheel and heavy steel angle iron, and I'm sure I could do better, including leaning and a bias brake to help it slow down without causing the bike to wreck. Even some suspension for the bumps. Still, this is better than a scooter or electric bike, despite requiring a motorcycle license and safety gear, uncomfortable at this time of year due to the heat. It does get 70 mpg. So keep this in mind when thinking about value. I also think about the value, which is why I don't own a Vespa. If they were $300 I totally would, but not for $4500.