Retrolectric bike

[Dicky71]

A lot of bikes will have carried heavier loads than a battery & motor via commuting or touring - although admittedly not on their bottle cage mounts so worth keeping an eye out for cracks on the down tube.

You have a point there.
Personally, i wouldn't recomend someone to convert an ordinary bike to an e-bike, especially an unrestricted one, which is usually what people think of doing. I think it is better to have an over dimensioned frame rather than an under dimensioned one. An e-bike weighs approxamatly 10kgs more than a normal bike without assistence. With the weight of the rider and some added luggage, then you could easily be over the 120kgs manufacturers safety limit. The safety aspect is what should be given the largest proportion of consideration, in my world anyway.
A bit of fun could end up being a nasty wake up call.

 

[greencat]

Yep, I probably wouldn't convert an ultra lightweight steed. But most of the bikes I see converted tend to have frames of the pig iron variety - and tbf, you don't really hear of frame failures either.

 

[allenh]

Have a look at the lower end of the e bike market and there are a lot of very cheap bikes that have the electric kit added in exactly the same way I have. Looking at the quality of the frames on a lot of them I think I'd much rather trust my well built Raleigh frame over most of them.

 

[rwm1962]

Aye, Newcastle is swarming with food couriers on cheap Mongoose's from Evans with home conversions often with 2 batteries. Broken spokes & worn rotors seem to be the common failure as most of them are clueless on bike maintenance.

 

[KermitGKona88]

Picking this up tomorrow 80 of her majesties finest pound notes... Apparently only ridden 5 times...

 

[greencat]

Bargain. An excellent introduction to ebikes.

 

[Frankenorange]

Biggest problem with conversions, and with super cheap bikes from not well known manufacturers, is the fire risk when charging. I was made aware of this a couple of years ago when somebody on another forum had a an ebike fire in their basement. The firemen said that it was fast becoming the most common call out. All incidents were cheap as chips ebay specials and ebike shaped objects. A few weeks ago there was an article on the BBC news(i think) website about ebike battery charging fires so be careful where you charge the cheap stuff.

 

[mdvineng]

Wall warts left switched on, have been a major factor in domestic fires for a very long time.

 

[allenh]

Cheap batteries and power supplies from the far east are always a concern so sensible precautions like not leaving things unattended when charging are always wise.

The good news is that is that power supplies made anywhere tend to fail early in life so if its survived a little while then all should be good. The bad news and the cause of a lot of these failures is the charger part in the controller, as those that fail invariably have little or no short circuit or failed cell protection so they just keep trying to charge a battery that would rather you didn't, and once that happens the inevitable result is that you adhere to the first rule of electricity which is everything electric contains smoke and sooner or later it has to come out.

The biggest problem I find with anything made in China is that the price you pay bears absolutely no relation to the quality you receive and that is still true of things that are sold by companies in Europe and the US but still made in China. So as always buyer beware and do your research.

 

[greencat]

I've had one cree led light power adapter go pop, but pretty much all of them seem to have moved over to usb which means you can bring your own robust adaptor.

I'd never leave an ebike charging over night (not least because I want our solar panels to do the work) - and both of mine live in the porch which wouldn't be ideal if it caught fire, but might be a bit more contained from the rest of the house.

I agree on China. Price is no indication of quality. Working with a colleague around 25 years ago, I was clued into their observation that with the Chinese, the negotiation never stops. You may think you've specced a certain quality, but unless you check on arrival - it's considered fair enough if some more savings are found/corners cut between the specification and delivery.