Originally Posted by
chas58
Building your own bike can be "fun" but it takes a fair amount of time, research, trial, and error
Wow, I've built my one Specialized hybrid bike into two different ebikes - one hub drive and one mid-drive - and neither one took a lot of time, research, trial or error. I'd add that by far the most difficult and time consuming part is positioning the wiring and using a lot of zip ties. That was followed by a few handlebar item adjustments to get the cockpit laid out just so.
The actual builds required... 1) order the kit, 2) take one day to install the kit, 3) try different places to zip tie the wires for half a day and 4) ride the bike to check the locations of everything on the handle bars.
It really has gotten that easy if you are building up a standard bike. If you're trying to convert a full-suspension MTB or super wide tired sand/snow bike or similar then yes, some pre-planning is necessary. But that part is kind of fun.
I will say it's much easier if you have a few specialized bike tools - the kind you'd have to do any work on any bike.