Checking Out The Competition

What competition?

I was just looking at a $2200 ebike with a 36V 500W hub motor and 8AH battery. What a joke. I'm thinking that a bike with a 500W motor should have twice the AH battery at half the price. When you get up into the $2000 price range, the bike should either have borderline illegal power, or one hell of a big battery (with quality cells) for long range. The company that I was looking at even claims the bike has front & rear suspension when it clearly is a hard tail. Don't buy a bike from someone who evidently don't even know the difference between a hard tail and suspension rear end, or you'll wind up trying to sell the junk on Craigslist like this poor sucker wound up doing for 1/4 the price he paid. What a waste of money! If you see someone riding one of these, don't laugh in their face. Be content to just visualize the word SUCKER as though it was printed on their forehead.

Show me where the rear suspension is. I don't see it. 

Is something wrong with my eyes?

Unfortunately this is only one example in many. I look on Craigslist a few times a week to see what's on the market, and I see too many people who've been suckered into buying junk like this. If you buy junk, expect to keep it because nobody wants to buy your mistakes. Buy quality or pedal home.


The Competition

Now I'm going to do something that is unheard of in the Ebike industry. I'm going to give away potential customers to whom I see as the only real competition, Luna Cycle. I don't believe in polishing a turd and calling it a ebike, and I know that Eric at Luna don't either. They sell nothing but quality bikes at the best prices. You can't buy the individual parts and put the same bike together yourself for less than what Luna charges for their complete ebikes. How they do this is by buying in bulk quantity.

The Luna 4 Season 500 KHS Fat Bike priced at $2,299.95 blows the socks off the junk ebike in the photo at the top of page for only $99 more! Like I say, "Buy quality or pedal home."

It's worth mentioning that all the motors and 18650 batteries I'll be using on my bikes will be purchased threw Luna Cycle for their high quality. Considering that I just said "you can't build the same bike for less than Luna charges for a complete bike", that's only true if you're using a top of the line bike like the KHS models Luna uses for their bikes. I like the Motobecane brand of bikes for the lower price point. All of the Motobecane parts are of the highest quality rivaling KHS, and considering the lower price, any components that are not up to my standards can be upgraded to better than what KHS offers on their bikes for a lower overall complete bike price. For example the Tektro Dorado HD-E710 hydraulic electric bike brake. I don't think disk brakes get any better than that. Check out this video on high end bike pricing to better understand why I choose the Motobecane over the KHS for my bikes. Another way I can stay competitive with Luna, is zero inventory and zero overhead. I don't need and have no interest in having a giant warehouse full of bikes and parts, waiting to be ordered, and I will never have a store rent to pay.

You can see this Motobecane is almost identical to the more expensive KHS 4 Season 500 bike in the above photo. Swap out the mechanical front brake to the Tektro Dorado HD-E710 hydraulic electric bike brake, and I think it becomes a better bike for less money.

I haven't seen one ebike manufacturer offering a decent Beach Cruiser ebike. I've seen some polished turds, but noting I would be seen dead on. I see this as my niche in the ebike market. Luna has a bad ass cargo bike that works as their beach bike, and all their fat tire bikes can pull double duty for the beach and off road trails, but I like just the basic beach bike setup without a lot of extra stuff. Affordability and quality are the two most important things for me at Duke's Moto Electric. These basic beach bike frames are built bombproof like a German Panzer Tank, and can take some powerful motors and large battery packs without the slightest thought to anything breaking.

Just a basic Beach Cruiser. How much fun would this be with a 2000W or 3000W Cyclone motor with a 52V or 72V 20 AH battery for around or less than the price of the junk bike in the first photo!!! 

In closing, I want to say that I wish all these junk dealers / manufacturers selling polished turd ebikes would just drop off the face of the earth. If liars pants actually caught fire, the rest of us who care about quality and customer satisfaction would have no competition at all.







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