Anyone converted a normal bike to electric using a kit and happy with the results?

[BikeShmike]

Just that really.
To be used for a daily commute of a few miles.
Any recommendations?

A friend of mine used the Swytch kit and was very disappointed with the faff and results. Compared to even a basic proper ebike it felt compromised and unfinished. I think it would be easier, and not much more money, to buy a decent second hand ebike or a basic new one

I was thinking of buying an electric bike from Halfords but the staff in the store said that any of their ebikes under £2k are very problematic and they wouldn't recommend them.
Fair play for their honesty.

I've got a Trek Verve 1. It's the basic model but it's great. I've had it for very nearly a year and had no problems with it at all and and it cost me £1600.

1600 is quite a lot more than I wanted to spend.

I did it with an original Swytch kit. It’s ok and has made a difference to my daily commute for sure. But there are certainly issues. I’m a few years down the line with it and the battery performance is certainly substantially reduced and I have two batteries which I swap between using so haven’t even used one battery for the whole time.

I dont need two batteries but the connectors on the first one were faulty and they sent a replacement, when the second one came we realised it’s a design fault and have fiddled with the connectors to get them a better fit.

they have changed the design now so I don’t think the connection design fault is still an issue. I think they’ve got smaller/lighter. My commute is 6.5 miles on the flat each way and i only just get to work and back on one charge.

Please be careful doing it yourself. Get a reputable kit, not something you buy online. Fires from electric bikes can be deadly.

I didn't realise the Swytch kit was so expensive. It costs between £500 and £1000

I'm surprised! Perhaps the £2000 ones are much better, but I'm very happy with the £500 one I bought off Amazon!

Just ask the Deliveroo guys? They must have worked out many cost-effective ways to do this.

They've got sales targets to meet. Go to a proper bike shop (you don't need to wear lycra) and they will give you advice. I wouldn't believe Halfords if they told me bears crap in the woods.

The main reason I was looking at Halfords was because I could have got it through the cycle2work scheme which would save me about 40%.

I don't think they were trying to get me to buy a more expensive bike as I was only interested in a bike for £550 on their website which seemed to have good reviews.

It seemed like the cheaper bikes were so problematic that it made their life a pain trying to resolve unhappy customers complaints.

There are over 2600 retailers offering the cycle scheme, the majority are not Halfords and will offer you something that meets your needs and budget, or tell you that you want the impossible. TBH depending on the distance and terrain, you might be better with a hybrid, the halfway house between a road bike and a mountain bike, or if you think you may occasionally want to catch the train/bus home because it's cold and wet maybe a folder like a Bickerton would be the answer.

Seriously, it is a false economy converting a normal bike.

E-bike conversion kit fires: 'Action needed to save lives' - BBC News

I've got a Trek Verve 1. It's the basic model but it's great. I've had it for very nearly a year and had no problems with it at all and and it cost me £1600.

Yeah it is expensive. I was just letting you know that not all bikes under £2000 are rubbish.

I don't know what happened to my last post.

For some reason I was under the impression that Halfords were the only bike shop in the cycle2work scheme. DOH!

How far, how often and how many hills do you need to do? I'm Dutch, so cycle every day, and we're notoriously tight so bikes here aren't overpriced. A cheap ebike is a false economy if you're using it regularly: it will break down, be difficult to repair, be hard to find parts for, and is probably a fire risk. You'll end up spending the same amount fixing and replacing it as if you bought a better one first time, and get a lot less pleasure from it. However, you don't need to spend 2k! Here, a good model that will last 10 years used every day and be suitable for a commute up to about 10km starts at about €1500, so a bit cheaper in pounds.