Spreading the cause, prepared for the flak... e-bikes

[Skyfarmer]

OK, so slag me off... I am prepared

I'd have done the same to myself a few years ago, but now I am a convert I want to convert others.

What am I rambling on about...electric bike conversions...that is what I am talking of.

Now I am not talking of 'DVLA approved' 15mph granny bikes...yes they have their place but that is not me...

I am talking about strictly off road ( ) bikes, home converted DIY e-bikes capable of 30-40-50 plus mph.

I am not advocating being a tosser and trashing and thrashing around MTB trails to piss people off, or riding like a C**t and causing danger...there are enough riders out there doing that on standard bikes.


But I have enjoyed my foray from pedal power to electric so much, I feel I should spread the word.

Brief history..I lost my driving licence, but since I was a bit of a MTB'er anyway..no issue..I just cycled...till I bought a fancy Trek Madonne 5.2 road bike and started caning it on the road, I now had a fancy expensive carbon bike and parked it indoors and did the 'wet wipe wash' in the unused back office.....Till work got stroppy about the bike being inside...so having no where secure to park the bike at work that was safe...an worse, no where to shower/change in to less sweaty clothes before a days work...I went electric...

Well not immediately ...I first built a petrol power bike ...chain saw motor and chain drive and researched electric.

Oh man...what a revelation.. I found the Endless sphere website and set about building myself a fast MTB, converted to road transport.


I have my driving licence back now, but still use my Mongoose Xlyte 5304 bike every day as work commuter and every day transport , last two years over 10,000 miles .

OK so the battery cost is not cheap, in fact the most expensive part, my 20 series 4 parallel LiPo battery pack costs near on £900, but that works out at about 10 pence per mile.

I don't feel it is 'cheating' any more that driving a car or riding a moped is 'cheating'. it is not a bicycle , it is an e-bike..to me a different form of transport..i still occasionally go out on a blast around the local farm tracks on my old British eagle BOSS....but yes...riding an e-bike does make you a fat lazy S.o.B.


And for those that still think that e-bikes are slow and crap...see Lukes e-bike vid on You tube..

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJsMDsT8siU[/youtube]

 

[al-onestare]

....but yes...riding an e-bike does make you a fat lazy S.o.B.

 

[scottmac]

That's an interesting forum about e-bikes.

I'm fed up dragging the missus up mountains on the tandem to see the tour every year, so I was thinking of converting her hybrid with a front wheel motor.

The 15mph limit is a bit of downer though for this country. I was thinking of converting it as a derny anyhow

 

[velomaniac]

The 15mph limit is not a downer if your a cyclist as the power helps you up to speed and if you want to go faster pedal harder. The 15mph limit is a downer if your a lazy motor cyclist who doesn't want to pedal and if this is you then your on entirely the wrong forum :roll:

 

[Skyfarmer]

All depends why you are using an e-bike. If you are a true cyclist then an e-bike is not for you any how..but if you are someone like a mate who died last week, then an e-bike that can do more than 15mph was his only means of transport for the last few years of his life.

He had a brain tumour and voluntarily surrended his driving licence after his first operation. They gave him 18 months but he held out for over 2 years. For him an e-bike was the perfect and only means of transport. He could not cycle a normal bike for any distance due to him being quite weak.

More of a downer than the 15 mph limit is the 250 Watt limit. I have a shed full of old e-bikes..probably a ten or a dozen in there now. They were mainly bought by elderly people to help them up hills etc, but the 250W limit meant that as soon as they got to any hills the bloody things were useless.

I am not saying all e-bikes should be as stupidly powerful as the one in the video, but an upping of the limits to maybe 20 mph and 1500 watt, still makes them slower than mopeds, but do what people expect them too...help them up hills etc.

Not every one wants to cycle a normal bike because it means they are hot and sweaty when they get to work if e-bikes get more people cycling then it is a good thing.

 

[Raging_Bulls]

Re:

1500 Watt? :shock: That's as much as a moped makes (under EU restricions).

I reckon 500-600 Watt should do. Most normal people generate that kind of power.

 

[Skyfarmer]

I got the 1500 from tests on my bike with speed limited to 15.

I am about 13 stone and perhaps the bike with motor and batteries is about 30 kilo, going up hills with a bit of pedalling to maintain 15mph often requires up to 1500 -2000 watts.


I have a pile of scrap e-bikes because people buy them, realise they are heavy and slow and give up on them.
If they had just a little bit more 'go' then they would be far more popular.

 

[highlandsflyer]

Electric motorbikes have been around a long time. Some genuinely usable equipment, though I wouldn't be tempted as I love the smell of fresh petrol in the morning.

 

[FairfaxPat]

Re: Re:

1500 Watt? :shock: That's as much as a moped makes (under EU restricions).

I reckon 500-600 Watt should do. Most normal people generate that kind of power.

Actually the average person can make about 150-200 watts for about a minute. A very good climber going uphill can generate about 450 Watts uphill for a few minutes, the great Eddy Merckx, when tested, put out 465 Watts for an hour
Here in California they regulate ebikes with a top speed limit of 20 MPH on the motor alone-if you pedal along, you can go a good bit faster. There is no limit on the size of the motor. If your bike can go faster than 20 MPH on it's own, then you must register it like a moped and get a license plate and have all the lights to make it legal. That in itself isn't hard to do here. On the 250 Watt limit-that is the nominal power that motor makes under normal conditions-you can get a different controller and overdrive it to a lot more Watts for a short time-such as a particularly nasty steep stretch-the only enemy is heat in the motor, so you can't do it for too long...

 

[scottmac]

The 15mph limit is not a downer if your a cyclist as the power helps you up to speed and if you want to go faster pedal harder. The 15mph limit is a downer if your a lazy motor cyclist who doesn't want to pedal and if this is you then your on entirely the wrong forum :roll:

The 15mph limit is a downer because it is pretty hard to accelerate whilst carting a shedload of batteries on your frame.
You need to be in a gear to accelerate to get you out of trouble whilst on the roads.
A 15mph limit on a bike will not help anyone and could be a death sentence