EMMO MONTA PRO Electric Bike

500W Continuously Hub Motor. Watts set the ceiling; what you feel on a grade is how much pulling power is available low in the range, where a climb from a standstill actually happens.

Climbing is where an e-bike either justifies itself or does not. A drive unit with real torque in reserve turns the hill you avoid into the route you prefer, and it does it without asking you to hammer the pedals or slow to walking pace. That change in what you are willing to ride to is the whole reason people buy these.

Front and Rear Hydraulic Disc Brakes, 26" x 2.10" tyres. Stopping distance is set by the contact patch as much as by the caliper: hardware can only ask for as much grip as the tyre has to give, which is why both are quoted here rather than just the one that sounds impressive. Rated to 115 kg all in, that is the weight the brakes and the contact patch are being asked to arrest on a wet painted line.

Nobody shops on brakes and everybody remembers them. The right question is not how hard it stops on a dry test but whether the fifth hard stop feels like the first, in the rain, with luggage and a passenger-weight load on the rack.

Gears: Shimano MF-TZ500-7, Riding Mode: Up to 9 Levels of PAS; Thumb Throttle on Demand. Gearing decides what the motor is asked to do: the right gear on a climb keeps you spinning and keeps the drive unit cool and efficient, and the wrong one grinds through your knees and your range at the same time. Assistance runs to 32 km/h; past that the motor stops helping and the drivetrain is doing all of it, which is exactly when the spread of gears starts to matter.

The drivetrain is what riders upgrade first and shop for last. Chain, cassette and pads are consumables on any bike and wear faster under assistance, so the practical question is not which groupset is fitted but how cheaply and quickly it can be serviced when it wears — which is a question about your shop, not your bike.