Merry Christmas to us..........

[ShadowsPapa]

It's always trouble for my wife and I figuring out what sort of gifts to buy each other. She's not a jewelry person, so no rings or necklaces (other than what she already has, which are few), she's really picky on clothes so always picks out her own.
As far as me - she has no clue what I'm talking about or needing and tells me "just go get it" if I need something and we've saved up enough.
Last year she went above and beyond, having a friend get involved, who called her son who called his friend to recommend a drone. My wife doesn't do online shopping so she had her friend do all of that and paid her back.

This time, I told her I was having an impossible time for her - she's got hundreds of yards of fabric, and my old thing of getting her gift certificates is well worn. I said I'd heard her mention a serger or ebike over the past year after seeing the bikes advertised around various places. She lit up when I said ebike.
Ah, the problem - her handicap - a birth defect that prevents her from using hand controls on handle bars as normal, and reaching far forward for handlebars. No manufacturer I contacted would even talk about mods or other parts.
I contacted Lectric who suggested a local business that does ebike rentals - to check 'em out, test drives, see how well they'd work for my wife. Found out the business also is in sales and the guy is a bike genius. He had some ideas and after finding out we liked them - IF, things could be modified to make the handlebars easier for her to reach, and switch brakes around and so on. He said "come back tomorrow and check out the changes". Wow, perfect fit and she loves it.

It's hilly where we live, and her old bike was, well, VERY old, I'd bet 40+ years old and I finally gave it away. We're not in the best shape and the hills here are killers for us on bikes. My bike is probably 20 years old, nice but not top of the line.
So, it made sense.
That credit card company will love us and we'll rack up massive points with it LOL - but, Christmas is all taken care of now. Whew.

Luckily, she's also the type that a "present" is me doing something that she needs - like putting small notches in several steel bobbins she has for her quilting machine so the winder could latch onto them, things like that.

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[Jesnamy01]

That’s awesome story. Glad to hear that not all is lost in the world and there are still those people who like and will help others! My wife has been mentioning one of these e-bikes for a while as well. Can’t wait to hear some good stories about the rides.

 

[Sempe-Fi Rubicon]

After you are married for 30+ years Christmas gifts for your spouse can be quite the challenge. I'm in the same boat as you Papa, my wife has all the jewelry she wants, hell after 36 years of marriage we both have everything we need. It's a matter of wants and neither of us want much these days. When we do want something, we normally just go out and get it (after waiting for some type of a deal or sale.) She loves cooking and baking and she recently discovered Le Creuset cookware so that will be my gift to her this Christmas... Hope all on the forum has a wonderful Christmas with friends and family, I always say to my family, that's the only gift I need, spending time with them all is truly the best gift of all.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

That’s awesome story. Glad to hear that not all is lost in the world and there are still those people who like and will help others! My wife has been mentioning one of these e-bikes for a while as well. Can’t wait to hear some good stories about the rides.

The people we bought from just started in the business of rental and sales earlier this year. Really friendly, home-town types. He works for Polaris or something and is good at bikes and things mechanical. He said he recalled reading where someone had a similar problem and turned things around so the handlebars were closer for another handicapped person.
He said he'd never done it but said it looked easy.

We had pretty much blown today on other chores and trips so decided to take some quilting stuff to one of my wife's friends - while we were there we found out they had a pair of these bikes as well and loved them.
My neighbor saw me back down the driveway with them in the JT and asked if I needed help unloading. (he's 82 and horrible health and can't walk easily so I knew he wasn't offering himself!). He said he'd called his son, Chad, over to help him with some things and he was on his way over.
Found out that Chad had worked at Facebook - construction for them or something, and he said a lot of employees there have them. Used as a commuter bike, I'm sure. They probably live in or around Altoona and FB is just NW of Altoona across I80 from town.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

After you are married for 30+ years Christmas gifts for your spouse can be quite the challenge. I'm in the same boat as you Papa, my wife has all the jewelry she wants, hell after 36 years of marriage we both have everything we need. It's a matter of wants and neither of us want much these days. When we do want something, we normally just go out and get it (after waiting for some type of a deal or sale.)

That sounds like Barbara and I could have written it!

 

[Jesnamy01]

After you are married for 30+ years Christmas gifts for your spouse can be quite the challenge. I'm in the same boat as you Papa, my wife has all the jewelry she wants, hell after 36 years of marriage we both have everything we need. It's a matter of wants and neither of us want much these days. When we do want something, we normally just go out and get it (after waiting for some type of a deal or sale.) She loves cooking and baking and she recently discovered Le Creuset cookware so that will be my gift to her this Christmas... Hope all on the forum has a wonderful Christmas with friends and family, I always say to my family, that's the only gift I need, spending time with them all is truly the best gift of all.

Only 23 years here but same boat as you and Papa with gifts. We like to take trips (mostly cruises) so we take time to plan and that’s more exciting than another shirt or gift card.

 

[Sempe-Fi Rubicon]

Only 23 years here but same boat as you and Papa with gifts. We like to take trips (mostly cruises) so we take time to plan and that’s more exciting than another shirt or gift card.

If you like cruising and haven't done it yet, I highly recommend a Mediterranean cruise. We did a 13 day out of Barcelona Spain a few years ago. 3 stops in Italy, Croatia, Greece, Sicily, Sardinia and Malta. Best cruise we've been on out of the 20+ cruises we've been on.

 

[Reddout99]

Heartfelt story, man. We've ben married 44 years and it's darn near impossible to buy for each other. Like others here, she, just tells me to get something I want. I know she enjoys a massage but always says, "no, don't spend too much money". But I do anyway. We're both retired but will be OK financially through retirement, but she's always been very "frugal".
I like the idea of e-bikes and asked her what she thought, telling her your story. She said let's look!
Can I ask what company you used? We're on the other side of the river in Nebraska.
Thanks, and Merry Christmas

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Heartfelt story, man. We've ben married 44 years and it's darn near impossible to buy for each other. Like others here, she, just tells me to get something I want. I know she enjoys a massage but always says, "no, don't spend too much money". But I do anyway. We're both retired but will be OK financially through retirement, but she's always been very "frugal".
I like the idea of e-bikes and asked her what she thought, telling her your story. She said let's look!
Can I ask what company you used? We're on the other side of the river in Nebraska.
Thanks, and Merry Christmas

The manufacturer is Lectric eBikes, in Arizona.
I had trouble finding a way to actually look, ride, feel, experience them - especially for my wife with her "birth defect". (she related to the show Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer)
For her old former bike, I had to find butterfly handlebars for her. All pictures of these ebikes show the handlebar out there a ways.
The company told me of Bondubikes - said they rent their bikes and we could look at them there.
They also deal with these and another brand.
They are in Bondurant, Iowa - just off I80 north of Altoona 3 or 4 miles. Easy to get to.
They are a startup mom and pop place. They seem to pretty much follow the Lectric internet pricing and have a fair amount of things on hand for not really having a building yet. (well, they do, but it's being gutted to convert it from a house to a destination shop since they are along one of our major bike trails in the state)

Barbara's bike is the "last year model" of the XP Lite, so it still has cable disk brakes and the black and white display and so on. 2.0 came out in July I believe and has hydraulic brakes and a color display and some other changes.
We went that route as she prefers simplicity - no shifting gears and so on. Heck of a deal meaning we could pay them for some "conversions" and still be under full retail on it.
I went with the XP 3.0 as I prefer at least some gear changes at times, I'm heavier and don't mind the tech and complexity.
Interesting note that the battery is keyed to the key.
If you don't have the correct key for the specific battery that's in it - it's just a heavier bike. Don't lose the keys!
The spare batteries we got each came with their own keys.

I don't know what the mods/admin/jay will think of the below, but I don't mind giving small startups a bit of a boost when they are friendly and helpful. Sort of the American way. And I'm not promoting my own business with this.

https://bondubikes.com/

You're welcome - and Merry Christmas.

I also like mine because the color scheme - well, parked next to a 4xe Jeep.......
and you'll never guess what she asked the couple who sells these "do they come in purple"? No, sorry, they don't. She was disappointed, of course. Then "do you have purple bike helmets??"
No, sorry............

 

[Reddout99]

Thanks!

 

[Janster]

I can totally relate.... been married 29 years and we go thru the same thing every year.

He bought some things for his car........ and I'm going to pickup a set of new wheels tomorrow for the JT. I won't be installing those until next spring. The last thing I want...is to mess up the wheels over the winter (salt/grime, etc).

We'll put silly stuff under the tree...like sweat shirts, t-shirts, hats.... For a while, I was buying cooking knives for him (to replace the ancient ones we had).

We got rid of our old bikes years ago. We'd talked about getting ebikes before, but we just wouldn't use them enough and have no place to store them. We're more likely to go out fishing, hiking, or walking.

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