Thanks for the advice. I do have a beater now and it does the job whenever I ride however I really only use it for short trips - to the shops & to the local park which has an outdoor gym. I do two main car trips now - one to my BJJ gym and one once per week when I drop my 3 y.o. at my parents. I think I need the car for the trip to my parents as the traffic is really busy when I drop him off and an accident would be horrific.jacob wrote:@steveo73 - A regular human-powered bike will do. For such a short ride, I don't think the hassle of electric power, extra cost, risk of getting it stolen,... is worth dealing with.
When it's raining, various sharp rocks tend to puncture your tires more. Also dirt gets into your drive train. If you have a single speed or internal gears, you can somewhat ignore this problem. If you have external gears, you'll clean it after every rainy ride... or replace it every other year due to rust.
Conclusion, for regular short distances in all kinds of weather, I prefer a $50 beater (=used $100 bike).
What I should do is start riding my bike to BJJ and see how it goes.
You do mention some good advantages of the beater - a stolen beater is not really a big problem plus the beater probably requires less maintenance. My understanding is that the batteries on e-bikes need to be replaced every so often.