a response to a few of the comments:-
@rwm1962 Bentley Components, he does various silly top caps, not cheap but well made, and no, not all weather is nice! not even with the best kit!
@synchronicity regards what mode i use, my bike has Eco, Trail and Boost, which mode i use depends on the ride i am doing and how i feel, obvs i don't want to ride everywhere and make it easy to the point of pointless, my fitness has been dodgy this last 2 years as covid has made my shop crazy busy and i have been sacrificing my time outside of work to do extra work, as a result i felt i wanted an e bike to do the bigger rides, i still take a few weekends off to hit Wales etc, without the e bike i'd struggle to do some of the riding i want to do, or rather i just simply wouldn't enjoy it. also with my bike sometimes the more powerful modes don't actually help in the way you think they would, Eco mode gives me 25% of the motors power, spinning on the road i'm almost at the 15.5mph cut off quite easily, if i go on trail or boost then i'm in and out of the cut off and it's like the bike hits the brakes, so sitting under the cut out is better, and can make the riding more mellow. when it comes to climbs, i did coed y brenin last november, there is a big gravel climb towards the end, quite long and quite steep, one day i rode up it in eco mode after doing a big day, i span up there comfortably at a sensible speed, not flying, the next day towards the end of the ride which was shorter i came to the same hill, it started to piss down so i thought get back to the van asap, so i hit boost mode, started off fine as it helped me accelerate but then you have to sort of keep the bike at a certain speed in whatever gear that means to keep the motor in a power band, if your pedaling slows you sort of drop off the power band so it becomes harder, what i found was it was easier to spin at a slower speed in eco or a slightly slower speed in trail mode, it's almost like the boost mode was too much power and you struggle to keep with it, weird i know. the other thing that makes a difference as to the mode i pick is the terrain and mileage i want to do, hilly terrain i won't get that 110miles in eco, i think 55miles in trail but again not in a hilly area so overall i find myself using eco and then trail if i feel i want it on some hills. hope that explains it a bit for you.
@DrGooGoo as has been said there's a point where i think an e bike does become a motorbike, here the official limit is 15.5mph and 250watts, people flout that all time, the bolt on kits don't have the same restrictions as the fully built bikes and these are quite often used as cheaper than cars for commuting which make sense but again these are usually non cyclists using them, what i've found is "proper" cyclists tend to buy quality e bikes that are complete, almost like the kits are the inexperienced riders choice, but often problematic.
@rwm1962 to your point about deliveroo riders borrowing stuff, yes i think you are right, i'm not town centre based but a friend is, he has now banned e bikes from the shop, he'll do some things but refuse anything utterly crap (same as me) but when one comes in with one broken spoke, he'll insist on full respoke or he won't touch it and insist they only bring him the wheel, also he says they come in with a bike in an absolute state, want you to drop everything and fix it there and then and then want to pay nothing or very little so now he tells them to go away, he's a super busy shop with a loyal customer base who pay him to fix carbon frames, high end Di2 work, bike fitting etc that he can charge good money for so when a moody ebike rider comes in and expects to pay £10 for 3 spokes to fitted to a crap wheel that may take a lot of time to remove and refit to the bike and you're fighting rust and abuse and they want to wait while you fix it he just thinks no that customer is not viable to spend time with, to me it seems rude not to help but i agree that you can dig yourself a deep hole and that customer doesn't care how hard the job can be they still want to pay bugger all because they only get paid bugger all. problem is we can't all work for bugger all, we all have bills so if you're not making the money out of that job for the time you spend on it you have to start saying no, sad for them but still true for us.