How to choose an electric bike in London — motors, range, security and the law
An electric bike is the rare purchase that makes your day simpler rather than more complicated. The motor takes the hills, the headwinds and the loaded-up school run in its stride, so you arrive when you meant to and without the sweat — and without standing at a stop wondering whether the bus is coming at all. Across London it’s a sensible swap: cheaper than driving, quicker across town than it looks, and a bit of daily movement that never feels like a chore. This guide sets out what’s genuinely worth knowing before you buy — how the bikes work, what they cost to run and look after, how to choose between them, where the law stands, and how Cycle to Work fits in. Anything it doesn’t cover, ask us; we’d sooner talk it through than sell you the wrong bike.
Ready to look? Family · Cargo · City · All electric bikes.
Why ride electric
You still pedal an e-bike — the motor just takes the strain out of the parts you’d rather skip. The hill you plan your route around, the headwind on the way home, the bike loaded with children and a week’s shopping: the assist quietly evens all of it out, so you arrive when you meant to and in much the state you set off in.
There’s a lingering idea that this means you’re not really exercising. It isn’t true. You’re still pedalling every turn of the cranks, and the assistance is yours to control — dial it right down, or switch it off entirely — so the effort is whatever you decide it should be on the day. In our experience that same control is what keeps people cycling for the long term: on a pedal-power bike, one ride home that leaves you wrecked can be enough to put you off the next, whereas an assist you can call on when you need it keeps the bike the easy choice tomorrow too, and the habit holds. There’s a safety side to it as well — less worn down by the effort, you’ve more in reserve to read the road, react quickly and move with the traffic rather than struggling to keep up.
What people tend to tell us, once they’ve lived with one for a week or two, is that the car keys start staying on the hook — not out of principle, just because the bike has become the easier way across town. That’s the whole idea.
How e-bike motors and batteries work
Every bike we sell is pedal-assist: the motor helps while you pedal, rather than driving the bike along on its own. On a standard UK e-bike — an EAPC — the assistance eases off at 15.5 mph, and that one detail is what lets you treat it like any other bicycle: no licence, no tax, no insurance, and the full run of the cycle lanes.
The motor is usually one of two kinds. A mid-drive sits down at the pedals and drives through the gears — balanced, strong on hills, and the reason nearly every quality bike, and almost every cargo and family bike, is built around one. Most of our range runs Bosch: widely serviced, well proven, and a system our workshop knows inside out. A hub motor sits in the wheel and tends to appear on lighter, simpler city bikes, where that’s all the bike needs.
The battery decides how far you’ll go. It’s measured in watt-hours — a bigger number means more miles — and on many bikes it lifts out, so you can bring it indoors or charge it at your desk. Some take a second battery for longer days. Either way the running cost is pennies: for most commutes you’ll top it up once or twice a week and otherwise forget about it.
Range, charging and care
Range comes down to what you’d expect — how hilly your route is, how much assistance you lean on, how much you’re carrying, and the size of the battery. As a rough guide, most of our bikes will see out a week of city commuting between charges, and where you cover more ground there are dual-battery options that take range out of the conversation. Tell us your real weekly mileage and we’ll size the battery to that, not to a spec sheet.
Charging is simple and cheap. Use the charger the bike came with, don’t leave it charging unattended overnight, and keep it clear of real extremes of heat and cold. For battery safety, what matters is choosing a quality, certified system — Bosch among them — rather than the unbranded cells behind most of the cautionary stories you’ll have read.
Care is what separates a bike you keep for a decade from one you replace. The brands we stock are built to be serviced and repaired, with parts we can still get hold of years down the line — and every e-bike comes with a free first service, a proper health check at 500 km once everything has bedded in. After that, our workshops in Camden, Notting Hill and Hackney look after them for the long haul, warranty claims included, so you’re never left chasing a manufacturer. Keep up the occasional service and a good e-bike will give you years of it, and thousands of miles.
Choosing the right type — family, cargo or city
Start with the job, not the bike:
Family bikes — for carrying children and passengers: longtails, box bikes and family trikes.
Cargo bikes — for loads, tools and trade: compact, front-loading and cargo trikes.
City bikes — for getting yourself across town: commuter, folding and step-through.
After that it’s down to the specifics — your routes, where the bike will live overnight, and how you like to ride. Rather do the pedalling yourself? Our pedal-power range sits right alongside the electric one. The honest way to settle it is to ride a few: tell us about your week and we’ll have two or three ready to try, back to back, so the difference is something you feel rather than something we describe.
