I am an ebike freak. It's so nice to finally see some ebike enthusiasm on hn! If you have any questions about ebikes just ask me. If I can't answer I can at the very least put you on the right path. If you want to get into ebikes, check out the endless sphere forums. It's the defacto online headquarters for everything ebike. Doctor bass and live-for-physics-luke are two of the most formidable experts on there. Luke used to be in IT and now designs the battery systems for zero motorcycle. Great guy. If you don't understand why electric bikes or transportation is cool then Google "lightning electric motorcycle" and become converted. Cheers.
Great! Price is still restrictive for many. What are your recommendations on how to get a cheap starter eBike while steering clear of common pitfalls (and what are they)?
The highest power to dollar ratio is got by building a bike. Pre-made bikes as very expensive right now as you point out. If you just want to try one out, go to a bike shop and test drive one. If you want one for yourself and you want it to be fast or go long then I would suggest building a battery pack with headway lithium iron phosphate cells, a lyen high power controller and a solid hub motor, maybe a crystalite. Endless sphere has endless documentation on how to do it. I don't know what your background is so there may be a learning curve, but I can say that you should learn that stuff if you want to get into ebikes anyway. Unless you want to wait 5 years for prices to fall.
