The Dark Side of E-biking

A short while back, I wrote a piece on how buying an electric bike has dramatically changed my life for the better. I went from someone with little to no interest in cycling, to someone who is always actively looking for any excuse to take my bike somewhere. I wouldn’t describe myself as a cyclist per se, in the same way most people wouldn’t describe themselves as motorists. I have yet to simply take the bike out for a spin without a destination in mind; instead, I am someone who uses a bike as my primary means of transport, cycling to reach a destination rather than for the activity itself. The key difference between commuting by bike rather than by car (unless you happen to be driving a sports car on an empty country road) is that biking makes the journey in and as of itself fun. Very rarely when I’m sat behind a slow driver in my Mini Cooper (which, disclaimer, I do actually love driving) do I feel the urge to cry out “Wheeeeee!”

I am a full convert, to the extent where, when overtaken going uphill by a fellow e-bicyclist last night, (he had a more powerful motor, and is to date the first and only cyclist to overtake me since I bought my Boardman,) I made it my mission to catch him back up on the downhill so we could have a chat about bikes. E-bikes are awesome, especially if you live in a hilly region of the country like I do.

There is, however, a potential dark side to the e-bike—one that is unlikely to affect many people, but if you search the web, there are a few example cases, me being one of them. The problem with sticking a motor and a battery in a bike, is that it is one more thing to go wrong.

In general, bikes are pretty simple machines. If you get a fixed-gear bike with rim brakes, there is very little maintenance involved beyond checking the tire pressure every now and then and occasionally oiling the chain (though very few people actually do these things it would seem.) Sure, there might be the occasional puncture to contend with, but unless you are taking your bike off the tarmac, you are unlikely to get one. Once you add gears via a derailleur, and hydraulic disc brakes, there’s usually a bit more maintenance involved that requires you to be a little bit handy and have a small amount of knowhow to tackle all by your lonesome. But a £20 service at Halfords every year or so is more than enough to keep on top of a normal bike.

Now, in theory, issues with the electrical aspects of an e-bike should be few and far between. Electric motors are renown for being incredibly reliable and require little maintenance. Likewise, lithium ion batteries are in every device under the sun, and generally perform without issue. The problems tend to arise with the electrical and software components that allow these two things to interact.

I bought my Boardman 8.9 adv e back in October of last year after a long period of waiting for the bike to come into stock in the midst of the pandemic bike shortage. I ended up travelling all the way to Yeovil to pick it up, and it was the display model that I got my hands on. Now, full disclaimer, I absolutely love this bike, and I have no regrets about buying it. It was not cheap. I could certainly have bought an okay second-hand car for the price I paid, but where as a second hand car of the same price range would likely require a significant amount spent on annual maintenance, this bike should have in theory been good to go for a good few years without issue.

But, as you have probably guessed by now, that simply was not the case. Fast-forward to January. I’d been commuting on the bike for the last few months through a pretty chilly winter period, averaging about 10 miles a day with probably 10-15kg of kit per journey in my panniers. Nothing too heavy when you consider that at the time I was under 70kg myself. I put the battery onto charge and came back a few hours later to find all the lights on the battery were flashing. Typically, only one of the LEDs flashes, indicating what percentage the battery is charged. Slightly bemused, and understandably wary, I disconnected it from the charger and slotted it into the bike. And, ta-dah! a yellow error light flashes up on the control panel.

After a little bit of googling to see if the issue was something I could solve myself, I concluded it was a software fault and one for Halfords to solve. I phone them up, I head in, they tell me they need to send off for both a replacement battery and motor from Fazua, the German manufacturer of the e part of my e-bike. (Boardman make the bike, Fazua make all the electrical components.) After I explain that this bike is my main vehicle and that I use it for commuting, the fine lads at the Exmouth branch of Halfords sort me out a courtesy e-bike for me to use whilst mine is in the store! Pretty sweet huh? I mean, the bike was a size smaller than mine and it was a hybrid rather than my sweet gravel bike, but at the end of the day it was a lovely replacement given the circumstances.

Anyway, because Brexit, blah blah blah, Covid-19, blah blah blah, it was something like six weeks that I was riding that courtesy bike around! Needless to say, when it came time to go pick my bike up with a new battery and motor fitted, it was a welcome relief. And that was the end of that... oh no, wait, no it wasn’t!

Several months later, we’re talking mid-summer now, I walk past my charging battery to see the LEDs were off conspicuously early. They normally go dark when the battery has finished charging, but to get from low to full it usually takes a couple of hours. I go, ‘hmmm, that’s odd,’ but foolishly think little else of it.

Come Monday morning, I plug my battery into the bike to notice it is sitting at only about 90% charge. Curious, but no bigy, that’s about three days worth of cycling for me. Off I got, arriving back home on Wednesday evening low on juice. I take the battery inside and stick it on charge, only, no I don’t, because it isn’t charging!

Now, at this stage I know its probably not the battery, because it is still running fine and indicating it has a small amount of charge in it. My conclusion: it’s the charger! Now, my first theory is, it is probably the fuse in the plug, not the transformer. After an hour opening every other plug in the house searching for a 3 amp fuse to swap out to test it, I discover: no, its not the fuse, it IS the transformer. After a long internal sigh, I phone Halfords.

Now, this time I am wise to the fact that they have another electric Boardman in stock; it’s the display model hybrid that they lent me last time I had an issue. It used exactly the same charger as my bike, so after a little persuasion, the guys at Halfords lend me their charger whilst they send off to replace mine. (Another +6 weeks process.) Annoying, yes, but no deal breaker. Just an hour lost running around sorting it out.

Skip ahead now another month or so, (still not got my charger back at this stage,) I’m nearing the top of the hill on my way into work and I feel the power assist of my motor start to cut out. Each time it does, there is a red light that blinks on the control display. ‘Hmmm, that’s odd.’ I power off the bike whilst on the move; power it back on, and it starts working again.

A bit of googling when I get to work helps me determine that it’s a connection fault with the battery and the motor. I take the battery out, give everything a bit of a clean, slot it back in and figure that is the end of that. Come the end of the day, I powered her up, figuring the problem was a freak thing and that I’d resolved it, however, much to my dismay, the red light of death had returned with a vengeance. This time it is here to stay; no amount of powering up and down resolves the issue, and the motor assistance isn’t intermittent anymore, just altogether absent. Sigh.

I cycle straight to Halfords, no courtesy call ahead of time to warn them I am coming. I explain the issue. We take the battery out, plug it into a computer to try and run a diagnostic, only for a list of error messages to ping up across the computer. Back to Fazua it is with the battery. Meanwhile, I convince Halfords to simply lend me the battery for their bike instead of the whole bike this time. I cycle off, somewhat annoyed, but not massively inconvenienced.

Here we are several weeks later. I’ve got my battery back. I’ve got a newer better charger. Apparently, it was just an overheating issue (the battery, not the charger) and the battery is actually fine. I have my doubts, given that, A, the battery started playing up on a particularly cool morning after little more than a few miles of cycling, before then sitting switched off for eight hours when the issue set in in full; and B, all those error messages on the computer!? Irrespective, the battery seems to be working fine... for the time being.

Apparently, these issues are exceedingly rare amongst Fazua bikes, and given that they are German, you would expect them to be reliable. So, it is just me. And I am inclined to believe that. I always have issues with the things I buy, it’s just my luck, and as annoying as all of this is, it all pales in comparison to the issues I’ve had with the house I bought last year. But that is a tale for another time... maybe next week. Who knows? (Spoilers, it is next week!)