Wildwood 

Nice that you followed-up with a report.
And good to know the bike fits the purposes.
How about a picture?

Dockhead

Sure.





Second photo shows the bike properly loaded down to prove its qualities as a cargo bike.

tds101 

That bike looks absolutely WICKED!!!

2old

Excellent report, and that bike looks like a loaded bike should. There are no R & M dealers in socal AFAIK since my friend sold his shop and moved to Thailand.

Smaug1

Very nice. This is The Way.

Dockhead

The most pleasant surprise for me from ebiking has been what a good workout it is. I really didn't expect this. I found this study which confirms my experience: https://electrek.co/2019/08/11/elect...than-cyclists/
The secret is that you have full control over the amount of workout you are getting, so you just set the assist level to get a constant, sustainable, pleasant level of effort. You don't worry about hills. You go faster. So you can cover a lot more distance. Not to mention a large proportion of what would otherwise be car trips, can be pleasantly done on two wheels.
I am just more and more delighted with this decision to buy an ebike instead of a car, with every week which goes by. It's an incredibly versatile, useful vehicle, which gives enormous pleasure.

Smaug1

Agree 100% and regular cyclists just. don't. get it. They assume eBikers are all lazy or crippled.
I'm in my local bike club and there is a stigma against eBikes. They accept eBikes for older riders or riders who are handicapped in some way, but I get little looks and comments when I choose to ride my eBike as an able-bodied middle-aged man. Sometimes, it's that I'm sore from the previous day's ride and want to rest my muscles, so riding the mBike again isn't in the cards. I either forgo the ride or take my eBike.

There's one guy who rides an road eBike (Trek Domane+) who used to be A Fast Guy. he had heart problems and got a pacemaker, so that his heart cannot go fast enough for him to maintain the pace he did as a younger man, but he wanted to ride with the same fast people. For him, the solution was eBike. He couldn't take the hit to his pride of moving down to a slower group. OR, he didn't want to be limited to the options of either riding with the slower group or getting dropped from the faster groups.

Another point in favor of eBikes is temperature flexibility: In hotter weather, we don't have to arrive sweaty. When it gets really hot here, I plan to take my eMoped and not sweat at ALL on the commute in to work.

Dockhead

That's a good point about hot weather. I hadn't thought about that. I live in Northern Europe above 60N in the land of the midnight sun, so we don't have that much hot weather, but I HATE to be sweaty (one reason I moved up here).

What concerns social acceptance of e-bikes -- I am absolutely sure this will grow with time. E-bikes are so bloody fantastic that most people will be riding them before too long. We are just early adopters.
.
I don't work in an office so only commute when I have meetings, but I'm riding mine every single day that I'm not traveling by air somewhere. The effect on my mobility is amazing. The e-bike has greatly widened my geographic horizons. It's still wintry here with ice and snow but spring will come soon and it will be even more pleasure to be on the bike.

Pinehurst

My wife has the Gazelle Ultimate C380 as described above. We live on Vancouver Island. Great bike.

Dockhead

Small update.
I now have a few hundred km on this bike and still love it.
HOWEVER, for the price (nearly €5k), I have certain quibbles:
1. Rohloff drivetrain. The Shimano Linkglide system is good, but chain maintenance, gear range. Rohloff is right for this grade of bike.
2. Hard tail. Despite the Thudbuster seat post, I neverthless get thuds up my butt. I'm coming to this bike from a full suspension Dahon Jetstream EX and I miss the full suspension. I realize that full suspension is not really compatible with all the rackage of this cargo bike.
3. Suntour fork. It's not bad (it's the air version), but for this kind of money, shouldn't there be Fox long travel forks?

What I do really love, however is:

1. Cockpit geometry. Fits like a dream!
2. Low center of gravity. Rides really well, very stable even when heavily loaded down (I double my girlfriend sometimes; carrying her 50kg and a ton of groceries is NO problem).
3. Motor, control system. Kudos to Bosch. Brilliant system.
4. Front rack. I have the bigger one, and my backpack-type briefcase slots right into it. I don't even need to tie it down.
5. Panniers. Beautifully designed, and expandable to gargantuan capacity.
6. Beautifully finished and put together. That's what we pay for, I guess.

I have a crazy idea that I'll order a R&M Delight with Rohloff and Fox suspension upgrade, and use the Multicharger for hauling stuff and the Delight for getting around. Kind of a silly idea I guess.

Dockhead

To put all this in perspective, what I paid for this bicycle is more than what I paid for my last motorcycle -- a used Ducati Monster, a magnificent bike, two wheel Ferrari.

2old

Thanks for the update. I've become (with the aging processes changing my ability to absorb impact) a FS devotee too, although I still ride rigid (for a change) every so often. My first BBS02 conversion was a hardtail, but that has been changed to a bike with FS.

Rick_D

Nice to hear.

And yet more evidence the Perfect Bike is four bikes, minimum. :-)

Dockhead

Wanted to add a report -- I spent nearly €5000 on my fancy R&M Multicharger, but last year I bought my girlfriend a cheap Zundapp 802 with hub motor from Amazon. It cost about €1000.

Well, I think my girlfriend is getting even more pleasure from that Zundapp, than I get from my R&M. She LOVES it. The cheap Chinese tech -- Bafong I guess -- works brilliantly. She goes everywhere with it. And unlike my bike, which has 11 speeds and no front derailleur, this one has 27 speeds, and is light enough -- unlike my bike -- to work quite well even without assist.

Shows that you don't always get what you pay for. Sometimes much more.

cat0020

As a perspective, I bought my newest motorcycle back in NOV 2023 for $3750 USD.
2006 BMW K1200S with 19k mi. on odometer, turn key & ride.