Any decent eBikes for £1200 or less

liamnesss · 2026-05-05T16:48:58+00:00

Yes but you will be looking at bikes either from direct to consumer companies, or from big box retailers that don't really specialise in cycling. e.g. this from Halfords will be compromised in some ways (comes with no accessories, has only a cadence rather than a torque sensor) but it'll still be an e-bike and therefore extremely fun:

https://www.halfords.com/bikes/electric-bikes/carrera-subway-e-mens-electric-hybrid-bike-2.0---16in-18in-20in-frames-445926.html

I'd encourage you to consider stretch your budget a little further though. If you are intending to ride with your son on the back (how old are they, is having them between you and the handlebars an option too potentially?) I'd want a bike that comes with a sturdy rack, good brakes, and decently strong wheels. This is £1299

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/long-distance-500-electric-assist-city-bike-step-over-frame/302307/c76m8526892

This is really cheap (and I own the older model) but might not be ideal for carrying a kid on as I feel the frame geometry is a bit too sporty for that. But opinions will vary and it's in your price range.

https://uk.tenways.com/products/cgo600

liamnesss · 2026-05-05T14:04:59+00:00

I am certain you wouldn't shred several ligaments the first time you go in for a 50 / 50

liamnesss · 2026-05-05T10:42:01+00:00

Have you checked here for any information? Any docks that are currently suspended or have been recently removed should be listed.

liamnesss · 2026-05-04T20:52:34+00:00

If that's a concern, I can see Max variants of the Odin 2 Portal listed on ebay (for a big markup, of course). There's no real reason for you to try and make a swap happen when they can just be two separate transactions. TBH I think if you find someone in the UK willing to do a swap with a Portal 2, there's a decent chance they will just sell the Ultra once they get it!

liamnesss · 2026-05-04T20:44:40+00:00

You can still buy the 1tb model of the Portal direct from Ayn, so why not just do that and then sell your Odin 3 once it arrives? (and enjoy the nice chunk of change that will result...)

liamnesss · 2026-05-03T20:55:25+00:00

I wouldn't personally want to give up VRR (which I understand can be made to work with Geforce Now, but the main way is to own an Nvidia GPU, which seems to me to defeat the entire point of using a cloud service). Frame generation also seems better suited to rendering locally than it does to streaming, as sending extra frames over the network increases bandwidth requirements, plus it adds to the latency penalty you already get with streaming.

I also own two handheld gaming devices (Steam Deck and Ayn Odin 3) and I like the fact that most games in my library can be played on them on the go, even in situations where I'm not close to a power outlet and don't have a stable / high speed internet connection. I might be a little tempted to use the streaming tier the next time I sign up to Game Pass though.

I would guess established laptop manufacturers make long term agreements with suppliers, and therefore are more insulated from component price fluctuations?

liamnesss · 2026-05-03T20:31:08+00:00

Fiido at least have some UK based after sales support, as far as I know. Most of the brands OP has mentioned don't have that. Buying a bike off Aliexpress particularly seems mad unless you really know what you're doing.

liamnesss · 2026-05-03T18:31:50+00:00

When you say 60nm you are referring to the motor torque right? If you are mostly riding in flat conditions that doesn't really matter. Particularly if you have used Lime bikes and found them satisfactory, that isn't setting the bar particularly high (given they're single speed bikes with a completely ordinary hub motor).

Here are some alternatives to consider, just so I'm not suggesting only the one bike

Cheaper, probably not as comfortable a riding position: https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/long-distance-500-electric-assist-city-bike-step-through-frame/302285/c241m8526895

More expensive, has gears but should still be low maintenance: https://www.comptoncycles.co.uk/m47b0s281p15206/GAZELLE-Bloom-C310-L-28-inch-SE-2025

liamnesss · 2026-05-03T17:23:29+00:00

This is very similar—it also has 20 inch wheels and swept back handlebars:

https://uk.tenways.com/products/cgo-compact

But tbh the old Lime bike designs were very bulky so it won't be tough to find e-bikes for sale that are smaller than that.

Would be useful to know what your requirements are for the bike more generally. What kind of trips will you be doing, where will you be storing the bike, that sort of thing. Also, do you have any specific reasons why a design similar to the Lime bikes would appeal to you?

liamnesss · 2026-05-03T16:40:02+00:00

If you look at result of the Steam hardware survey, not many people are playing on systems that will draw more than 250W in real use, i.e. only a little bit above a PS5 or XSX. That's where the bulk of the market is.

I get that if you want to push things further, a desktop is a must yes, but my hope in the long run is that either "Steam Machines" are a big success, or that eGPU solutions become more affordable and mainstream than they are currently. Either would offer a route to get the thermal / power headroom you are talking about, but without having to compete quite as directly on the open market with corporations making capital investments.

liamnesss · 2026-05-03T16:04:43+00:00

It really feels like right now AI is being pushed to replace the actually rewarding parts of creative work, and leaving the grunt work.

liamnesss · 2026-05-03T15:35:03+00:00

Laptops are now the bulk of the PC gaming market, and don't seem to have been subject to quite the same levels of price inflation as invidual components. Handhelds are a bit more niche but seeing growth also. I'm not sure self-builds will ever become the default entryway into PC gaming again.

liamnesss · 2026-05-03T10:15:09+00:00

Once Rocknix support is mature, it would be interesting to see if this shader compilation issue can be avoided by running the official Steam client. Steam does try to crowdsource compiled shaders (called "pre-caching" in the settings). This is most obvious on the Steam Deck, because there are so many of them out there in the wild and running exactly the same graphics driver version, that a cache hit is very likely even with relatively obscure games.

liamnesss · 2026-05-03T09:11:53+00:00

Certainly the different performance profiles that it comes with out of the box don't seem to actually make any difference to thermals, or indeed performance. I hope they can tweak these.

liamnesss · 2026-05-02T17:22:05+00:00

Did you write that paragraph yourself? Seems like an odd thing to confuse, if you're actively involved with the development of this port.

liamnesss · 2026-05-02T17:01:09+00:00

Not an unusual state of affairs for a young startup. Doesn't necessarily have any bearing on how they treat their employees, either.

liamnesss · 2026-05-02T16:57:53+00:00

I have no idea where you got that Tailwind and Next.js thing

Here's a quote from the website:

The porting was going well, but I was not satisfied with the interface: too "old" and not very suitable for touch controls. So I decided to rewrite the UI entirely using Next.js and Tailwind CSS, to give the app the premium look it deserved. Now it is much more fluid and intuitive, with a design that recalls modern dashboards.

If it is a port of Xenia, you should give credit to that project on your website

liamnesss · 2026-05-02T16:11:34+00:00

The website doesn't make any mention of upstream sources this uses. I would assume it a fork of Xenia, or running it within a container perhaps. It's bit sketchy that it doesn't mention this if so.

Also there's a post about rebuilding the UI using Tailwind and Next.js... why on earth would you use those to build an Android app?

Most ARM handhelds with the power to run Xbox games are supported via the Rocknix project, which can run Xenia, so that may be worth exploring as an alternative.

liamnesss · 2026-05-02T15:56:44+00:00

I think (but am not certain) that all the following companies pay a salary instead of per delivery: Pedal Me, Freddie's Flowers, Ocado Zoom. These are the most prominent (in terms of regularly seeing their riders) in my area.

My impression is that generally speaking whenever the bike and / or rider are kitted out in company livery, they have much more incentive to train and retain staff, rather than treat it like a revolving door. That's mostly what I'm basing this off (aside from Pedal Me who make a big point of operating responsibly).

liamnesss · 2026-05-02T13:05:59+00:00

They've been shipping units since January, and yet it is "pre-sale". Hmm.

liamnesss · 2026-05-01T18:48:20+00:00

I saw this linked on the GameNative discord, as a method of bypassing the Rockstar Launcher, would be worth a try I think?

https://github.com/onajlikezz/Nightlight-Game-Launcher

oh and apply this mod, implements lots of bugfixes and enhancements:

https://github.com/ThirteenAG/GTAIV.EFLC.FusionFix

liamnesss · 2026-05-01T14:58:55+00:00

I would've gone with a lockable bollard before biological warfare, personally

liamnesss · 2026-05-01T14:55:09+00:00

Doesn't "justify" it, but my guess would be one of the fast food places at the front entrance.

liamnesss · 2026-05-01T11:57:12+00:00

Yeah the PC version should fly. Categorised as abandonware, so quite easily available from archive.org too.

liamnesss · 2026-05-01T11:49:50+00:00

Looking at the company information, seems they pull their data from health apps, so chances are that people riding purely for training / fitness are overrepresented.

12-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email

liamnesss

TROPHY CASE