What's the fastest way to commute by bike on a budget? The sub-£500 DIY e-bike vs acoustic bike challenge

At road.cc we love to champion commuting by bike, but Dave and I disagree on how it's best done on a budget. To find out who was right, we were each given a £500 budget and told to meet in a top-secret location (next to the bins in the office car park) to hash out the finer details of our challenge. 

My sub-£500 commuter bike choice

I was the first to arrive aboard a Merida Speeder 20D. This is a bike that I think proves that you can commute on a budget without compromising on important things like reliability, gear range or braking performance. 

The Merida Speeder 20D recently scored an 8/10 review on road.cc, and even though it has an RRP of £550, with a bit of searching about you can find one for around £440. That's well within our budget. 

I was confident that with its 24 gears, dependable components and hydraulic disc brakes I was on to a winner, no matter what the challenge would entail.

Dave's sub-£500 commuter bike of choice (with an added extra)

Dave, meanwhile, had taken a very different approach. A second-hand Triban RC100 used up less than £100 of his budget, with the rest going on the new Swytch GO+ Kit. With a 50% pre-order discount it cost £399.

The Swytch GO Kit is the newest and best value kit in the Swytch range, and promises to lower the point of entry to electric bike riding. The company says that it was made in response to the cost-of-living crisis, and that by enabling people to add electric power to a non-assisted bike saves money when compared to a new electric bike. There are three battery sizes available: The GO+ kit that Dave used is the middle one, with the GO the smallest and GO++ the largest.

We were both under budget then, but could a sub-£500 e-bike really pull the skin off a rice pudding? Would Dave's 250Wh boost be enough to propel him to victory? I was still confident of my chances as we were issued with our challenge...

The challenge

• The challenge consists of a 16km point-to-point race with 250m of climbing, starting at the road.cc office and finishing at the local pub in the village where Jamie lives.
• The route will consist of urban riding, a bike path including a hardpack gravel section and a main road.
• The winner is the first to be sat drinking a pint... but there's a catch. You’ll have to pass a 'sweat test' to be allowed in!
• The challenge starts as soon as the whistle goes, so you’ll have to get your bike into a rideable state if it isn't already...

I only had a short while to laugh at the prospect of Dave having to build his e-bike before the whistle went... and we were off!

The race

Part 1: Getting ready to race

Realising that there was no way that I would be able to ride up hills with any meaningful speed without sweating through my civvies, I made the choice to Lycra up as I usually do for my 10-mile commute. I then thanked my lucky stars that it was only pedals missing from my bike, adjusted the saddle height, donned my rucksack and set off riding just six minutes after the whistle had gone.

Dave was still quietly confident that he could fit his Swytch kit in much less time than I expected, and to be fair he did!

The Swytch GO+ kit consists of a wheel with a hub motor that replaces your existing one, a battery pack that attaches to the top tube and seat tube of the bike (or anywhere you like), a pedal sensor located on the non-drive side crank, a display, and of course some wires to connect it all together.

This wasn't Dave's first rodeo with a Swytch kit; in fact, he has previously fitted both the first and second-generation Swytch kits for reviews over on our sister site ebiketips. With this experience and the simplicity of fitting the Swytch kit, he was ready to hit the road in just under 10 minutes, around four minutes behind me.

Part 2: Hitting the (not so) open road

By this point, despite the numerous red lights, I'd managed to make it across a fair portion of a heavily congested Bath city centre. Dave seemed less annoyed by the red lights, because when it came to setting off again the Swytch kit assisted his pedalling to the tune of 250 watts.

Dave seemed impressed with both the kit and his building skills. While he realised that he probably wouldn't manage to reel me in by the pub, he had decided to stay in casual clothes for the commute. The idea behind this was that if he could use the Swytch kit to take plenty of the load, he would pass the sweat test at the pub and be allowed straight in without having to get changed.

Even so, in the UK all e-bikes are limited to 25kph, so I was confident that with a bit of effort, I could extend my lead.

Part 3: How commuting should be!

...and extend my lead I did! Taking full advantage of the flat cycle path along a disused railway line, I hammered through the tunnels and continued to put the watts down. By this point, it was clear that even if I did want to sit in a pub in Lycra, it was very unlikely that I was going to pass the sweat test. There's only one thing for it, and that is more speed!

Now around seven minutes behind, Dave continued his much more laid-back approach to commuting. 

Without the display, the Swytch GO+ offers a single level of power assistance, which is more than enough for mostly flat riding and moderate hill climbing. However, with the display, Dave was able to select from five power levels. No prizes for guessing which one he selected! 

If he wasn't racing then this would allow Dave to turn the power off on the flat sections, making his bike behave just like it did before the Swytch kit, and extending the battery life. While it's no aero road racer, the Triban RC100 is much less draggy compared to some other e-bikes. There wasn't much of that going on for this ride though.

Part 4: The hill

31 minutes after the whistle had blown, and I'd hit the foot of 'Col du'Hinton', the bane of my commute. It didn't take me long to wish that I too was on an e-bike, and as I dropped to my smallest gear I knew that Dave would be eating into my lead.

The Merida Speeder 20D is many things, but at over 12kg it isn't light. Despite my efforts, the speed dragged down into the single digits as sweat poured down my face.

As I neared the top, it was Dave's turn to face our challenge's biggest hurdle. He kept the Swytch kit in maximum power mode as the hill stretched in front of him.

It would be wrong to assume that Dave could simply coast up the hill, such is the gradient of 'Cote duHinton', but he was visibly less distressed than me.

Dave gauged his effort well, being careful not to sweat and undo his tortoise strategy... I say tortoise, he was now clawing back time and by the top of the hill had cut the deficit from eight minutes to just over six.

Part 5: The final stretch

As I entered the final few kilometres, I couldn't help but keep one eye looking over my shoulder. I had certainly ridden significantly harder and faster than I usually do on my commute, but would it be enough?

As Dave browed the hill, he was confident that he had enough bars of battery left to keep the power on all the way to the finish. The GO+ has a range of over 60km depending on what mode you have it in. Clearly Dave had been rinsing the electrical assistance for all it was worth, but even in this mode it comfortably handled our 16km hilly commute.

Part 6: The finish

If you haven't already guessed, I am quite competitive. When I arrived at the pub I was a sweaty mess, and it's no surprise that I failed the road.cc sweat test (I've definitely seen worse in pubs though). Time to pop a few doors down for a shower and change, and maybe I'd still be in with a shout.

As Dave arrived at the pub he was looking decidedly fresher than the state I'd rolled up in a few minutes prior... but would he pass the sweat test? Yep, first time! But as he opened the door, there I sat.

I'd love to say that I'd been sat there for ages, but in truth it was merely minutes. So is analogue the way to go for your commute? Well, it may have won out in our race but it's safe to say I don't usually ride that hard on my commute, and Dave won't have to refit the Swytch kit when he sets off for work tomorrow.

Conclusions

So after 16 (rather sweaty in my case) miles what had we learnt? Well, gone are the days when you had to spend a fortune to get electrical assistance and in answer to the question I posed earlier a sub-£500 e-bike can indeed pull the skin off a rice pudding.

Despite its price, the Swytch Go+ kit is an excellent way to take the sting out of pulling away from lights and indeed climbs. The range is more than enough for the average cycling commute and annoyingly (In my case) easy to fit.

I think the main takeaway though is that commuting by bike is approximately 12,344 times more fun than a bus or car. Dave and I both arrived at the pub with a grin on our faces, the fresh air in our lungs, we hadn't sworn at any traffic jams, had a car door dinged in a car park and had probably gone someway to counter the health effects of the pints we then consumed. Commuting by bike is the real winner here!

Find out more about Swytch kits by heading to the Swytch website. Would you choose an e-bike or unassisted bike for your commute? Let us know in the comments below.