jeirvine 

If I were to go down the electric assist route, that's the kind of conversion I'd want - invisible motor down the seat tube, just to give an extra umph up hills. Not to cheat (I don't race), but to not mess with the aesthetics of a nice bike.

spinnanz

I like this! How have you found the older rear hubs with a mid drive? How many of these did you make for NZ?

Manu431

I don't consider myself doing this kind of transformation, but if it was the case, I will probably go this way.
I have read various forum, and this solution as proved to be reliable so far i can judge.
Plus it doesn't need to modify the bike, which can be used in a normal way anytime if wanted.

https://www.add-e.at/

spinnanz

Up and running today, although currently its all just zip tied together, mostly to make sure it all works! Speed controller is running sensor-less at the moment so acceleration is a bit nosier than it will be when finished. GPS speedo attached to the bars for speed check, that's not staying.

Did a quick 8km, can maintain 20-22kph without me pedaling at all. If I pedal, its only slightly faster but the current the motor is using drops, therefore (I guess) increasing range.

With the current sprocket ratios of 16/47, I'm pedaling about as fast as id ever want when its at max speed, and it's not geared so high that I cant use it slowly around the park with the kids, so a happy medium. The new wheels are WAY smoother than I expected, Id happily travel faster if the hub and gearing allowed. When up to speed its also quieter than I expected.

Left to do are fit the brakes, hook up the hubs all sensors, and fit everything permanently in the pannier.

downhillmaster

Always amusing when people project their personal deficiencies and limitations onto others.

63rickert

Yes, Master. I am limited and deficient. Indebted to you forever for enlightening me.

Korina

I've been contemplating the day when the headwind will win (hopefully not soon), and thought my RockHopper would make a good conversion. Not looking to race, just looking to keep going. Thanks for the useful info.

cudak888 

Anti-ebike arguments are almost identical to anti-bike lane arguments: One party believes that their space is being "stolen" by another. The end result is a lot of pissed off people - on both sides - with no progress.

Human beings have a lot to learn before they're ready to live among each other in harmony #sarcasm

-Kurt

Kabuki12

I have fantasized a conversion build as I have a few frames that would be good candidates . My wife has a disability that limits her ability to ride with me. We have been a cycling couple since the early seventies and it breaks my heart every weekend to leave her at home when I go riding. She has an ebike that she rides with me occasionally and she always pedals with the assist , our average speed is 12-13mph when we go riding , usually 15 miles or so. I have never had anyone give us any grief when using bike paths or MUP’s . I have gotten a lot of negative vibe from this forum on ebikes, some I agree with, some are just ridicules and closed minded “ opinions”. It would be really cool to convert a mixte for her to ride with some touring bars. Say, an early Motobecane or Peugeot with a mid drive would be cool.

spinnanz

Id say go for it! A conversion that not looking to get extreme speeds and rather to extend the time someone is able to ride is a perfect reason to electrify a bike!

greenspark

There is no effect, except remember to stop the chain moving before shifting an internal hub. Since the motor keeps going for a second or two, look down at the chain until it becomes natural. In the end, I found the Nexus 3-speed internal hub was all I needed - most durable as well. On my rat bike (750W) I installed a Nuvinci N360 because I use that one in traffic and it is safer to proceed at the speed of traffic (I should say, the speed of traffic in central Auckland on a good day is about 25kph, and on a bad day cars are moving at 5kph). On the ancient Raleigh DL1s I left the ancient Sturmey Archer 3-speeds and they performed as they always do. Remember a 300W motor on 100W legs is not much different than Lance Armstrong's 400W legs as far as the chain is concerned.

"Make" is not quite the right word. We put together a buying group of 27 motors with a Saturday where everyone came over and we all assembled our bikes at the same time; helping each other out. That caught the interest of local entrepreneurs who began to import BBS01 kits, then expanded into making their own brand name, then opening stores all over the country. We just made introductions - planted the first seed.

squirtdad

the real mess is the do e-bikes belong in bike lanes argument (complicated by scooters, electric only no peds, etc)

squirtdad

IMHO this is perfect and superbly beneficial use of ebike technology

cudak888 

I rode one of those RideOn Miami e-bike pedelecs tonight on our pitiful excuse of an MUP called the "M-Path" - which is barely 4' wide. I had no trouble at 15mph top speed, nor did I have any trouble bringing it down to a pedestrian-safe level when a mom and her young (couldn't have been more than 5 years old) daughter appeared ahead.

We exchanged smiles and continued on.

Is this an atypical e-bike story? Perhaps, but us human beings tend to remember the negative, and forget the positive (and who's going to remember someone on an e-bike if they're riding respectfully like everyone else?)

If we're going to get bent out of shape over scofflaws, let's start with the biggest elephant in the room: Driving culture.

-Kurt

greenspark

We are discussing the usual issues when infrastructure lags behind technology. Not that long ago, China would have one car lane and 8 bike lanes. Last time I was there, they had separate roads for bikes [bike-north] [car-north] [car-south] [bike-south]. When China grew its middle class more people got cars. Now with ebikes and traffic congestion, the balance shifts the other way. In the cycle world, China is way ahead of the West.

It takes a while, but as gridlock grows in city after city, moving to vehicles that are power assist (ebikes) or power driven (e-scooters) or anything else that is not much bigger than a person will result in reallocation of road geography. Bus lanes are inefficient except in the most populated cities because they are 40-seat even if carrying one passenger; eventually, I predict they will give way to Ebikes, scooters, etc. that have a one-to-one ratio. I expect eventually, dedicated lanes for them that will be elevated.

An elevated road for buses or rail for trains needs to carry massive tonnage to move relatively light baggage (people). For people on bikes and scooters, it could be as simple as 40' (12m) containers opened at both ends and connected end to end and set at 26' (8m) above street level. In Auckland, they are spending over $4.4 billion to install an underground rail link going 3.5 km. Imagine what they could have done with $4.4 billion building a light, weather-protected elevated roadway for ebikes and e-scooters.

Note in this, I am not discussing leg-powered bicycles. I consider e-bikes to be a different form of transportation. Sure, they began with a bike, but the motor changes speed, lengthens reach, flattens hills, overcomes wind and opens up mobility to older, less able riders. Having said that, the other day I was on my 3-speed with a 300W motor and was passed by a pedlar on a road bike clearly made for speed. No motor, faster than me. But decades younger. Ebikes democratise, especially for those less fit.

Where mixing pedal power with electric becomes dangerous is when mummy decides to take the little ones on their first bikes and decides a bike lane is just the thing. Or the entitled, riding three abreast, chatting up a storm with no sensitivity that they are blocking others needing to get from point A to point B. But the same holds true with e-power... the idiot who is so proud of his 5,000 watt, front, rear and middle motor beast that can top zero to 100km (60 mph) in two seconds with the twist of a throttle, and like Mr. Toad is furious at the peasants dawdling in his way.

In 2013, I began posting my experience with Bafang's very first mid-drive (they sold me serial #17 ) after they gave me a test drive on serial #1 a few months earlier. I spread the word online and then put together a buyers group of 27 motors that caught the attention of bike shops. Soon they were carrying the kits, and of course a few years into it had moved into ebikes, not conversion kits. Then the big boys jumped in. Now, seven years later, ebikes are mainstream and complaining about the new kids on the block - e-scooters.

If we look back a century or so, this is not new. It took decades for the west to pave roads after the invention of the automobile. It took half a century to build the American freeways. I expect eventually, infrastructure will catch up, but by then technology may have jumped ahead again. Perhaps self-driving cycles where you hop on, tell it where you want to go and everything is managed by 5g computers in the cloud. What goes around, comes around.

crank_addict

Reading many of the comments here, not necessarily the mechanics of it, rather infrastructure and civil behaviour of e-bikes, I feel much has long been available in many parts of the country but its the lack of politicians and municipalities, town board members. And it doesn't involve any mingling with roadway vehicles!

One example is a county I reside in having apparently ranked one of the highest in the country proportion of taxes going towards county forest preserves. Terrific and wonderful bike pathways, not uncommon to see super built underpasses at country roads! Drop $1mil here and there, condemn properties, or burn dollars buying up properties over what developers would pay. The county currently has 550 miles of dedicated trails and bike ways connecting towns and forest preserves.

Here's the kicker-- I ride the trails fairly regularly but rarely see anyone! Even on the most gorgeous weather weekends. No family outing types, not even hikers or jogger. Where are the taxpayers or visitors to use the beautiful forest preserves and fine trail infrastructure?

I say open the pathways to commuters and encourage e-bikes and gas powered mopeds. Does one really believe these transportation machines are such danger to environmental or others? Not even a fickle of a percent compared to regulated road traffic. It pisses me off they can fine and confiscate a motorized bicycle if riding on these trails, yet all Winter long they permit snowmobiles.

Added to the insult of paying for luxurious bikey, hiker pathways, its unlawful to use after dusk. C'mon now. I admit breaking that law and greatly enjoy middle of the night rides in these forest preserves.

spinnanz

Have been using the bike for the last week and a bit, doing 18-22km a day, averaging 30kph. This uses 1/3 of a 10ah battery. Have refitted the rear fender, and also scored myself an oldschool Rosebank Helmet!





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nlerner

Well done!

2old

Not really vintage, but mid 80's Schwinn High Sierra that I built five years ago with a $600 motor/battery combination. 52V, 33+ mph on flat terrain, no wind, 180 pound rider (shut it down since that was as fast as seemed safe to me)..

loftus

Here's my 1984 Gazelle Impala converted with a bafang mid drive motor, if you can just spot it.

I haven't seen any other bike that has managed to fit a mid drive and retain the fully enclosed chain guard. Yes it was a pain to figure out so can see why no one else has done it!

mmcc73

This thread hasn't been active in a couple weeks, but I thought I'd add to it instead of starting a new one.

I have a 1980 Raleigh Super Grand Prix - a Made in Japan version. You can see a picture of it in this thread: https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...al-number.html

Would this make a decent platform for an ebike conversion? I'm not looking to go terribly fast - I'd just like some help getting up the hills that prevent me from commuting to work from time to time.

I'm thinking mid-drive - like the Bafang deals - would put the less stress on the frame and fork as compared to a front or rear hub system. Is that accurate?

loftus

Depends how you want it to look once you're done. Those front chain rings look great and so does the metal disc on the rear cassette. Fitting either a mid drive or rear hub would lose those nice details. As you're not after power, just a bit of assistance I'd say a lower power front (250w) hub wouldn't stress the front forks and would keep the great look of the bike, a silver front hub would blend in nicely.

mmcc73

Do the hub motors include any sort of torque limiting functionality to ensure undo stress isn't place on the fork or rear triangle?

spinnanz

to be honest I'd go a small front hub motor laced to your original rim. My hubs rated at 250w and easily gets me around 30kph.

You'd want a geared hub, these are better low to mid speeds, a gearless is better if you are going for outright speed. For a commuter hub drives are very simple and maintance free, they are also cheaper than mid drives.

The thing I will give a mid drive is that they give a much more natural feeing to ride, as most offer torque based assistance, which most (but not all) hub drives dont have.

spinnanz

Some controllers have the ability to limit current, which would act as a torque limit. My controller has it but I've not been able to get it to work.

Id not worry though, In reality you'd have to fit a very powerful hub to stress the forks as much as hard braking does and hard braking doesn't generally cause fork failure.