electric bicycle kits

alanco15

Hi ,all,
just wondering if anyone has fitted an electric bike kit to their bicycle, I have seen them on ebay with motors ranging from 200-1000w, i was wondering what sort of speeds they produce and how good they are,
any advice would be much appreciated, sounds like a good solutuion to a small commuting problem i have .

thanks all
alfie

johnfarquhar74

Can't give you too much help I'm afraid as I didn't buy/build the bike, but a chap at work added on a front wheel drive option to his touring style bike, powered by 2 moderate size Lith batteries.
The bike sits comfortbably at 25MPH, unassisted with pedals however this is due to his motor exceeding the 'legal' limit. The batteries cost about 20p a charge and have a decent range (50miles?!?).
Word of warning, if you do intend to use the system to increase your average speed rather than flatten the hills, make sure the brakes are up to it!

plebeian

Just a warning... there's a reason electric bikes are bottom of the food chain!
http://www.itsnotarace.org/fcn-calculator/

Also, be careful as to legality, the line is where the motor becomes the primary means of propulsion - after that it becomes a motor vehicle and as such needs to be registered as any other motor vehicle. And if it's not your primary method of propulsion, remember that motors, batteries etc can be heavy.

boliston

There's a guy I sometimes see on my daily commute who has an electric bike and it was a bit of a "double take" at first because I did not realise it was electric and it looked really odd that he was freewheeling most of the time yet still going fairly fast (about 15mph at a guess). These things are still pretty easy to overtake on a non powered bike though ;-)