When it comes to durability, ease of maintenance and cleanliness, most modern electric bikes are lacking in some — if not all — departments.
Unlike most transportation built for the masses, such as automobiles and motorcycles, e-bikes are a Christmas tree of components hung from a frame; fragile parts exposed to the elements, threatening wayward pant legs with greasy mastication. Many of those components are also wear parts that stretch or degrade with normal use, with maintenance or replacement intervals in terms of hundreds or the low thousands of miles — comparably short to similar components on cars
or motorcycles...