Does anyone have one of these?

I would like to cycle more but hills do not really agree with me as much as they used to, with age, dodgy knee and so forth. It means my bike goes largely unused and, although I am a fair weather cyclist these days, I would like to get out more and perhaps tackle the Otago Rail Trail sometime.

An ebike seems a sensible way to facilitate that. However, they are fairly expensive if you place a premium on manufacturing quality and so on, with the Swiss built Stromer costing some $8,500 in NZ! Van Moof, who make very nice looking ebikes (so many of them just look like a normal bike with a brick taped to the downtube..!), do not export to the Southern hemisphere at all.

It looks like decent Euro quality is in the $4,000 range (eg Kalkhoff, Gepida, Gazelle etc) which is a lot to pay for a bike but I suppose if it enables you to get fitter, save petrol, get fresh air etc etc then it might be worthwhile. I certainly do not want some cheap Chinese made no-brand type of thing as if it is costing you thousands, you want a brand that will stand behind the product and still be there in 5 years when you need parts or what have you.

Has anyone dipped their toe in the ebike water?