You may or may not remember that when Decathlon’s R500 longtail e-cargo bike first arrived in the UK, it was somewhere around £1,000 more expensive than it was on the other side of the Channel. That appears to have changed – at least for the time being – with a discount on these shores and a slight bump in price on the continent meaning that it actually works out (very slightly) cheaper here at the minute.
The R500 is a longtail e-cargo bike that can carry a rider and two children or up to 170kg of cargo, including the rider.
The rear bench – which comes with side rails – is rated for up to 80kg and there’s a front basket that can hold another 10kg. Somewhat unusually for an e-cargo bike, it’s powered by a rear hub motor.
If there’s one thing Decathlon can usually deliver, it’s value, but when the R500 first came out in the UK, it was priced at £3,499 versus just €2,799 on the continent – which at the time worked out at about £2,400.
In 2022, the brand said that its significantly higher UK prices for e-bikes were largely down to Brexit as it had had to expand the size of its supply team to deal with the additional administration, costs and import duties.
Fair enough – no two markets are the same, but this seemed a pretty big difference. Commenting on the R500 specifically, a spokesperson told ebiketips: "At Decathlon, we always offer the best possible price for our customers around the world. Any differing prices across markets will be due to differences in duties and taxes."
Here in the UK, the standard price of the R500 has since come down to £3,299, while the price in France has inched up to €2,999 (the merest smidge over £2,500).
But what’s this? A significant UK discount, you say? The Decathlon UK website currently lists the R500 at £2,499.
A bike being almost exactly the same price in two different countries wouldn’t ordinarily be newsworthy, but we thought in this instance it was worth highlighting given where this particular e-bike started off.
