Retrolectric bike

[allenh]

Mini update. It wasn't raining when I got home from work yesterday so I took the electric 27 out for its maiden whoosh and all in all I'm very happy with it. It only assists when you use the thumb throttle so I can ride it about normally and the extra weight isn't really noticeable at all but as soon as I need a little help when the incline rises I simply open the throttle and I'm suddenly 30 years younger and shooting uphill at whatever speed I fancy.

I've got to do some decent miles on it to give it a proper test but so far given the choice between this £400 kit and using a bike I already own against something for 3 times the price that is in all honesty a pretty poor example of a bicycle this is a winner, so much so that I now have to build another for my wife.

 

[MartinB123]

Mini update. It wasn't raining when I got home from work yesterday so I took the electric 27 out for its maiden whoosh and all in all I'm very happy with it. It only assists when you use the thumb throttle so I can ride it about normally and the extra weight isn't really noticeable at all but as soon as I need a little help when the incline rises I simply open the throttle and I'm suddenly 30 years younger and shooting uphill at whatever speed I fancy.

I've got to do some decent miles on it to give it a proper test but so far given the choice between this £400 kit and using a bike I already own against something for 3 times the price that is in all honesty a pretty poor example of a bicycle this is a winner, so much so that I now have to build another for my wife.

Slightly intrigued about electric bike conversions, yours looks grear BTW! got a few questions:

can you turn the pedal assist off and use it to power you along without pedalling?

what did you get for £400... was the battery included?

 

[allenh]

lightly intrigued about electric bike conversions, yours looks grear BTW! got a few questions:

can you turn the pedal assist off and use it to power you along without pedalling?

what did you get for £400... was the battery included?

Not sure on that and I haven't tried all the various modes yet, I don't think you are supposed to be able to power it without pedalling but then it is Chinese so I expect you make it do all sorts of things it shouldn't. The front wheel motor ones you definitely can, one of the guys at work has a converted mountain bike which has a 48V 1000w motor in the front wheel and it's a rocketship that you don't have to pedal.

With mine for £391 I got a 700c rear wheel with the motor in and a cassette hub, the battery with controller built in, a charger, a little LCD display control unit, thumb throttle, a new pair of brake levers with switches built in for motor shut off, a BB crank sensor and all the cabling needed. So everything I needed to convert a bike really.

 

[Mike-p]

I think you need the pedal assist to give you the full lance Armstrong feeling...

 

[Dicky71]

I'm expecting this to create some opinions but In the words of Jeremy Clarkson I've done a thing so I'm very interested in what peoples thoughts are about this thing I've done? I do very much doubt there are any other Campag equipped electric bikes though.

The reason for this thing is quite simply peer pressure as a couple of the guys a work use electric bikes to ride to work, we're all old people, live at the seaside and the office is over the hills in Canterbury so getting to work in a sensible time is of the essence. I have ridden many of my normal bikes to the office on many an occasion but it takes far too much of my day and these guys are getting into the office in double quick time.

I've looked at a few of these electric bike things and unless you're prepared to spend car money they are all pretty much rubbish bike wise and heavy so I thought I'd have a go with one of the conversion kits. I took a bike I like but don't use much (in this case my pub bike), which doesn't weigh several tonnes to start with and added a cheapish (£390) kit from ebay which has a 36V 350W motor and a battery with integral controller that bolts onto the down tube via the bottle cage.

I put it together very quickly Sunday afternoon and its been charging overnight so I haven't actually tested my creation yet and probably won't be able until the weekend but will report back with some better pictures and some insights once I've had the thing moving.
View attachment 629729

I don't have a degree in anything, especially mechanical engineering but my semi-proffesional guess is that if an e-bike didn't require a re-enforced, strengthened,over dimensioned frame to accomadate for the extra weight and stresses caused by the implementation of a motor, then the engineers at the makers of these bikes, would not have designed them like that and the EU would not have decided that e-bikes should pass a suitability test. Reynolds 531 may not survive the increased stresses and strains. You may not survive the crash and your insurance company may not pay out. My advice is a helmet that fits properly and isn't from the middle of the 90's, at least. Good luck.

 

[Peachy!]

I did something very similar to this @allenh about 15 years ago to use as a London commuter. Motor rear wheel in a Giant rigid aluminium ATB. It worked perfectly and got me into work on time day after day for a couple of years.
I really wouldn’t worry about the strength of your old frame tubes & components etc, it’s not like you’re planning on “sending” it or tackling rough stuff.

 

[rwm1962]

I've just stripped down my ebike build on a 17" Orange C16R & moved it onto a 19" P7. Originally I didn't want to use the bottle cage mounts & got some 3d printed mounts that cable tied to the down tube. They worked but I was never totally happy with it as the battery could rotate a little even when ties as tight as they'd go.



On the new build I've used a Grin Technology Double Bob. This uses the cage bosses & can be backed up with jubilee clips & spreads the weight across the tube better. It's rock solid. I'd seen them when doing the original build but had to be imported. Someone in the UK is now selling them on ebay:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325126934114?hash=item4bb3134e62:g:k84AAOSwrMxiRj2a

I'm rarely using the car these days & commute by bike the 3 days I work. I originally built the ebike when I was recovering from an ankle replacement but now it'll be used the odd day when I'm a bit knackered to ride & maybe visits/chores the rest of the week if needed.

@allenh - I notice the mounting plate for your battery looks to be just plastic where it bolts to the frame. If so it may be worth beefing it up a bit so the battery doesn't rip out - maybe a couple of Voile straps as a minimum. Most I've seen have an adjustable metal plate that the bolts go though sandwiching the plastic frame between the plate & downtube

 

[allenh]

@allenh - I notice the mounting plate for your battery looks to be just plastic where it bolts to the frame. If so it may be worth beefing it up a bit so the battery doesn't rip out - maybe a couple of Voile straps as a minimum. Most I've seen have an adjustable metal plate that the bolts go though sandwiching the plastic frame between the plate & downtube

Yes being cheap Chinese it is mostly plastic although it is surprisingly rigid and the battery is a very snug fit. Also there are supporting pieces with metal inserts that sit beneath it around the boss and are crescent shaped to fit around the tube and there metal inserts for the screw heads to screw down onto but looking at the picture in yours I feel a modification with a length of top hat din rail coming on because that is basically all they've used in that one.

 

[allenh]

I did something very similar to this @allenh about 15 years ago to use as a London commuter. Motor rear wheel in a Giant rigid aluminium ATB. It worked perfectly and got me into work on time day after day for a couple of years.
I really wouldn’t worry about the strength of your old frame tubes & components etc, it’s not like you’re planning on “sending” it or tackling rough stuff.

TBH @Peachy! against the strain I put much lower quality frames through with the weight I put on them and the heights I used to jump them as a child riding around the bomb crater strewn woods of Kent, what I'm asking of this frame is a doddle

 

[greencat]

I don't have a degree in anything, especially mechanical engineering but my semi-proffesional guess is that if an e-bike didn't require a re-enforced, strengthened,over dimensioned frame to accomadate for the extra weight and stresses caused by the implementation of a motor, then the engineers at the makers of these bikes, would not have designed them like that and the EU would not have decided that e-bikes should pass a suitability test. Reynolds 531 may not survive the increased stresses and strains. You may not survive the crash and your insurance company may not pay out. My advice is a helmet that fits properly and isn't from the middle of the 90's, at least. Good luck.

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.