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Downshifting: What's your favourite electric bike?

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    • CommentAuthorRobinB
    • CommentTimeDec 19th 2011
     
    Santa's not getting me one this year, but I keep looking at them... and my birthday's in February.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeDec 19th 2011
     
    My home made folding one. It lives in the back of my car and gets used all the time to ride around the city and avoid parking charges (I park well out of town and ride in on it).
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeDec 19th 2011
     
    Pedals = lack of confidence in the technology!

    And personalised numberplate? You little poser, you!! :wink:
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      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeDec 19th 2011 edited
     
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: Joiner</cite>Pedals = lack of confidence in the technology!

    And personalised numberplate? You little poser, you!!<</blockquote>

    The pedals have to work to be legal - take them off and it's a motorcycle in law, believe it or not!

    The number plate is a long story. Suffice to say it was free in return for a favour and I didn't seek to have it before it was offered to me (around 20 years ago now). Fairly pointless putting something like that on a new car, anyway, you lose the momentary joy of having the "current" year number plate...........
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeDec 19th 2011
     
    Yeah, yeah, yeah. :bigsmile: :winkkiss:
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeDec 19th 2011
     
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: Joiner</cite>Yeah, yeah, yeah.</blockquote>

    BTW, that alloy frame full suspension folding bike cost me £120 (brand new, bankrupt stock, from ebay), plus about £50 for the geared hub motor, around £80 for a few packs of model aircraft lithium polymer batteries and £20 for a bare brushless DC motor controller, with throttle assembly, from China.

    Total cost was well under £300 for all the bits. It will cruise (illegally......) at 25 mph with no pedalling (also illegal..........) and will do around 20 miles on a charge. The battery pack is easily removed and is charged using a couple of standard model aircraft battery chargers.
    • CommentAuthorRobinB
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011
     
    Bike looks nice. Does it come in red? Let me know when the production line is up and running.
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011
     
    Robin, if you don't have JSHs engineering knowlege, then you could buy a normal bike to suit ,e.g. racer, town bike, hybrid, trail, recumbent, and have it fitted with a heinzmann, or bionX system they are available to buy as retrofit kits or you can have them fitted. We bought a Dawes hybrid/tourer about 4 years ago and fitted the heinzmann system. My partner uses it for Summer commuting, a 28 mile round trip, albeit not powered all the way, just up the hills. Still going strong and shifts along like the proverbial "s..t off the shovel".Can't match JSs price, although for long distance I wouldn't fancy those small wheels. :bigsmile:
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011 edited
     
    In my view, if you've already got a bike (or even if you haven't) it's often better to fit a kit than buy a ready-built electric bike. It's not at all difficult to convert and ordinary bike to electric assist, even the route I took of having a wheel built with a new hub motor and making my own battery pack wasn't that tough to do and probably took about a day's work.

    There are many people selling kits, but the people with the best reputation and who I know provide good support are these people: http://www.alienocean.co.uk/

    The sell ready built electric bikes, as well as kits, and their prices are generally pretty good.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011 edited
     
    Last bike I was involved in was this one. Would like to put a 200W motor on it and see how it goes:
    http://www.ibikedb.net/bikes/32405-kingcycle-bean
    • CommentAuthorRobinB
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011
     
    Thanks, will look at those kits!
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011 edited
     
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: SteamyTea</cite>Last bike I was involved in was this one. Would like to put a 200W motor on it and see how it goes:
    <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ibikedb.net/bikes/32405-kingcycle-bean">http://www.ibikedb.net/bikes/32405-kingcycle-bean</a></blockquote>

    It'd probably go pretty well, I'd have thought, as long as there were no cross winds!

    BTW, you can fit up to 250 W motors legally, it's only the old UK regs that had a 200 W limit and these have been effectively superseded by the EU regs.

    Having said that, my little folder is running around 1100 W maximum into that small geared rear hub. There's no way that anyone can tell that though, as the law is worded in such a way that roadside testing simply couldn't show whether a bike was legal or not. I can say that a kW of power makes for an entertaining ride :)
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011
     
    Posted By: JSHarris................. I can say that a kW of power makes for an entertaining ride

    I bet; I have this vision of you JS in black heavily studded, leathers, and "G" force tugging at those whiskers. When commuting, my partner just loves overtaking the lycra clad boyos with their £0000s machines on the uphills. The look on their faces as this demure lady sails past with a jaunty, "good morning" is amusing. They usually get their own back on the straight though.
    • CommentAuthorEd Davies
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011
     
    There seems to be a bit of a LiFePO4 famine. AlienOcean and EclipsEBikes.com both indicate they're out of stock. I tried to order some small cells from ev-power.eu recently but they don't have any in until February, though they have larger cells sooner.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011 edited
     
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: Ed Davies</cite>There seems to be a bit of a LiFePO4 famine. AlienOcean and EclipsEBikes.com both indicate they're out of stock. I tried to order some small cells from ev-power.eu recently but they don't have any in until February, though they have larger cells sooner.</blockquote>

    I switched from LiFePO4 to ordinary model aircraft LiPo packs a year or so ago. I have to say the performance difference between the two is quite marked, with the LiPo packs delivering a lot more energy for a given weight and size.

    I have a spare 36V 10 Ah Ping LiFePO4 pattery pack, built in to a hard case and complete with charger if you're interested. It's around 3 years old, with maybe 200 cycles, but still seems to be in good order. here's a picture of it under the seat of my old SWB recumbent:
    • CommentAuthorwookey
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011
     
    This is where you end up if you get obsessed with turning up the power on your ebike:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk_bmSRog-c

    That one is probably about 30kW peak, which is very silly.

    ebike building can get addictive :-)
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011 edited
     
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: wookey</cite>This is where you end up if you get obsessed with turning up the power on your ebike:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk_bmSRog-c

    That one is probably about 30kW peak, which is very silly.

    ebike building can get addictive :-)</blockquote>

    Well, Luke is just a bit obsessed with power! Mind you, as he's the battery pack engineer for Zero motorcycles perhaps that's just as well.

    As for ebike building being a bit addictive I agree. I started with the electric SWB recumbent, then built an electric Yamaha RD50 (currently being rebuilt) then built the electric folder, then an electric step through for my MiL and have been contemplating building on off road MTB with the new 20 to 25 kW peak hubmotor from Greyborg..............
    • CommentAuthorRobinB
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011
     
    JSH Have I at least got you off the heated (in both senses) glass topic?

    Bike buying/building is definitely a not-before-february project for me. Certainly can't afford to risk any new addictions before then.

    Thanks for all suggestions.
    • CommentAuthorEd Davies
    • CommentTimeDec 20th 2011
     
    Posted By: JSHarrisI switched from LiFePO4 to ordinary model aircraft LiPo packs a year or so ago. I have to say the performance difference between the two is quite marked, with the LiPo packs delivering a lot more energy for a given weight and size.


    Much as electric bikes, etc, appeal my main interest is off-grid where weight and size are a lot less critical than robustness. Still, I was quite impressed that model aircraft wielding friends had small batteries at "only" £1/Wh, less than three times the price of much bigger batteries, and that wasn't being particularly careful about shopping around.

    I have a spare 36V 10 Ah Ping LiFePO4 pattery pack, built in to a hard case and complete with charger if you're interested.


    Interesting, thanks. But I think I'm going to order some bigger batteries and panels early in the new year depending on how other plans go.
    • CommentAuthorbealers
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2012
     
    Hi,

    new boy here, I didn't expect my first contribution here to be on a thread about bikes...

    I bought new a retrofitted Brompton around 18 months ago and I wrote this review a few weeks after delivery:
    http://bealers.com/2010/07/electric-brompton-road-test/

    18 months on I'm still pretty pleased with it. I work in London about 10 days a month meaning I do about 100 miles a month commuting on it; I no longer carry it home so leave it there all the time.

    I can do 50 miles on it and not recharge though it's not particularly speedy, the assist really is just to take the edge off (which was the main buying requirement when I lived in mid-Wales on the top of a silly hill) and I'd estimate I'm always providing 80% of the motive power.

    +ve points are:
    * brilliant at the lights, avoiding cars side swiping you at junctions
    * great to annoy harcore lycra/fixie bods when you cream them (again at the lights)

    -ve points:
    * really ruddy expensive
    * battery heavy

    Reading this thread I'm wondering whether I should try a much larger motor,though the other part of me thinks sell it and go non assist as I've strong legs and I live in a flat part of the world.
  21.  
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2012
     
    Mine is a fully charged one on top of a huge hill :wink:
    •  
      CommentAuthorJSHarris
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2012
     
    You can reduce the battery weight by using model aircraft lithium batteries, which transforms many electric bikes that are too heavy, but needs a bit of ingenuity. I can easily lift my electric folder out of the back of my car, with the battery fitted, and my frame is nowhere near as light as a Brompton.

    The best Brompton conversion I've seen is one using a very light Tongxin hub motor in the front wheel (cheap, too, at around £150 for the motor and controller) and a lightweight model aircraft LiPo battery pack. The whole thing was probably less than 2/3rds the weight of my alloy folder and still had enough power to perform well.
    • CommentAuthorbealers
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2012
     
    Posted By: JSHarrisThe best Brompton conversion I've seen is one using a very light Tongxin hub motor in the front wheel (cheap, too, at around £150 for the motor and controller) and a lightweight model aircraft LiPo battery pack. The whole thing was probably less than 2/3rds the weight of my alloy folder and still had enough power to perform well.


    Looks like that's the motor mine has.

    I should qualify 'heavy'. It's not that I can't carry it. I carry it up/down 3 flights of stairs a day either end with the battery in the Brompton bag. It's just that when I lived in Wales I found the Wales->London commute a bit of a drag carrying the bike between train platforms and if - say - I'm going out to dinner somewhere or popping into a supermarket carrying the bag with a battery in can become annoying.
    • CommentAuthorBluemoon
    • CommentTimeJun 26th 2013
     
    I had a Yamaha PAS XPC-26 as a gift. It goes OK but is sooooo heavy, up to the max legal weight of 40kg. I have 20" small wheel folder(14kg) to take on buses, an electric conversion would suit me.
  26.  
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      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeJun 26th 2013
     
    All I can say about this one is 'Why bother'

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HVS5foMyBM
  28.  
    @jamesingram

    I fancy an electric trials bike, but I don't think the wife would be too happy with me setting up piles of drums and pallets in the back garden!

    http://osetbikes.com/gb/oset-bikes/oset-20-0-48v/
  29.  
    A friend has the smaller one of those for his 7 year old . Good fun , very torquey . A bit pricey .
    One of the main complaint with trials and motorcross has always been noise polution, seems electrics the perfect solution. Ok so there's nothing particularly 'green' about ripping round a dirt track , but hay a little hedonism is good for you.
    I've a guy looking to sell a half done Honda 250crz electric conversion ,he got the bike completely new , but no engine. Stuck an electric motor in it and has stalled there. He's asking a bit to much for it and I'm also not sure if I've the time or knowledge to complete it, very tempting though. Know doubt the infos all out there on the web.
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeJun 28th 2013
     
    Nice. Skip the intro? Last half is best..
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilMQA-fgreg

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