this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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If you want an electric bike, the price goes up fast.
If you want one with a belt so that it won't take crazy maintenance not to degrade over the winter, it goes up faster still.
If you want storage for your purse and whatnot, a bit more expensive still. A good large basket is more expensive than you'd think.
I can easily believe a commuter ebike hits a grand.
I just never assume anything with a motor when I encounter the word "bicycle".
Where I live, 1k gets you a decent commuter bike without a motor. Doesn't even matter much if used or new. Then you spend ~200 on parts every year. It's outside 24/7, I don't have a garage.
Oh yeah it took me years to finally find an apartment where the landlord would allow me to get a storage shed. I'm glad I can finally own a bike.
Leaving the bike outside all the time was always taught to me as a no-no that'll pretty much instantly ruin your bike, so I hadn't considered it.
Now though I'm moving this year or next year and I'm unsure how we'll manage with my shed. Can it be moved? Will someone buy it? 🤔 Eh, I guess I'll see.
I don't have a garage either, but I want to get a shed so I can stop spending $200/yr in repairs.
Anything but carrying the bike up from the basement every morning
Oh god that would stop me from using my bike so fast.
A-men
Fr, when I hear bike my default thought is always like a $200 Huffy, not these pro-sumer things that cost nearly as much as a damn car
Fair. I just don't consider non-electric one in such a hilly city. I just know I'd be too lazy to face the hills without the help of a motor.
As someone who repairs bikes for a hobby this all sounds insane. I paid like $10 for my back rack with folding baskets
I mean i got a metal-mesh basket for the back for 20€ and its longer than wide so i can still park my bike in tight spaces. Idk what you mean by "good large basket" but mine is good and large enough
Over here the only one I could find that would allow me to lug around my purse and a little bit of extra cargo if needed was this one. It doesn't even mount on my bike so the people at the bike shop had to improvise with zip ties and the like.
It took a while to find, because I couldn't trust steel not to start getting rust stains on all my stuff, and my previous one pretty much instantly broke the very first time my bike fell, so I couldn't trust just any kind of plastic.
I had the employees of no less than 5 bike shops try to recommend me something with little success before finally finding something. Most shops seem to carry 0~1 models of bike basket period, and not to have much more that they can order from their distributors.
I think North American shops are just confused at the idea of a bike for anything but leisure overall. Which is understandable considering how goddamn dangerous our awful car-centric cities can be.
I love my big basket, but man was it not easy to find
My first thought on that second link was: Id never buy such a thing made of plastic?!
In Switzerland you can get normal Baskets for CHF 15.- to 100.- (around 1:1 to USD). https://www.veloplus.ch/shop/ausruestung/koerbe/gepaecktraegerkoerbe You see them all the time, they are so common that the images often don't even feature a size comparison or use demonstration like in your first link, because everyone knows them 😅.
10-20 years ago it was considered a woman or gay thing to have them but apparently they are convenient enough to have overcome that stigma.
The one you got is a bit heftier and looks pretty heavy tbh
Oh yeah they look pretty handy, and affordable. Only thing I'd be worried about is that they look like steel. I don't know how well they react to water, snow and salt.
But you definitely look like you have a lot more options than we do.
The plastic basket was the best the bike shop where I bought mine could find. Most people here use satchels on the sides of the wheel, but 1. That precludes the use of a trailer for groceries, 2. I don't see what's so convenient about them unless you're a camper.
There's also just having no storage and using a backpack for everything. A popular option, but backpacks are hot. Not a fan.
The basket I ended up with is certainly big, but its aluminium construction reduces the weight, and above all, it's handled a few falls just fine so far.
And well, on an e-bike, weight is much less critical. I paid a fortune for this bike; might as well enjoy the perks.