BROOKLINEBIKER

Thanks!

2old

Just for interest (I hope) and not to distract from the main issue, but I've seen many e-bikes while riding off road (obviously all recreational) and AFAICT never a DIY, but all OEM mid-drives. On the other hand about 99% of the bikes I've seen on bike paths have been rear hub drive models.

portals

I would never take my rear hub off-road (I can see a spinout happening very quickly), I try not to even bump over kerbs that I don't have to as I don't want to stress dropouts or bump the battery and stress the screws in drinks holder, I try to keep the ride as smooth as possible. One thing the Council has done over the years is at all junctions reduce the level of the pavement so you have ramps, I believe this is to comply with Disability legislation however, good for cyclists too!

2old

I've ridden several rear hub systems off road, both OEM and DIY, and the ride is horrendous (to me) because the rear of the bike feels like concrete with the extra weight. Smooth dirt trails are OK, but not anything with eroded terrain.

cat0020

I take my hub motored ebikes off road frequently, I find them similar to riding my dirt bike, just point the front wheel to where you want to go and open that throttle.
No need to try to pedal through the rough sections, no need to worry about whether you're in the right gear or if you need to shift.

On my mid drive ebike, I have wider range of speed, but I need to pay careful attention to which gear I'm in; whether I need to shift before a steep hill, or PAS up a steep/technical section.
And if I do rely on the motor 100%, I need to make sure the chain doesn't snap under the high-output motor, nobody likes to fix a broken chain on the trail while it's hot & humid out.

Weight distribution of hub vs mid motor never really bother me, I'm used to 250 lb. dirt bikes & 50-60 lb. downhill MTBs in the trails.
Either way, both motor types require practice for operator to take full advantage of its performance.
I would never say one motor type is horrendous vs another if I haven't put in the hours to learn how to operate it to its potentials.

Broctoon

There are many factors to consider in this decision, and a lot of good points have been brought up in the thread.

Here's one consideration that I don't think was mentioned yet. Sometimes you cannot find a factory built e-bike that's to your liking; only a conversion will meet all your criteria.

My wife and I recently spent some time shopping around to find her an e-bike. We had some pretty specific parameters in mind.

We wanted at least 26" wheels, and preferably 700c. So all the small wheel e-bikes are out.

She needs a really low step frame. No conventional double diamonds or even mid-step.

We also wanted mid drive, not a hub motor.

And she needs a bike that fits her small body. She's 4'9" tall, which puts her on about a 44cm frame. Most bikes nowadays are sized nominally, rather than with a number measurement, so we found she needs an eXtra Small. Most of the e-bike possibilities we looked at are only offered as far down as Small (no XS). The manufacturer's recommendations usually say someone as short as 5' or maybe 4'10" can ride comfortably--not small enough. An exception is Trek. She rides an XS size Trek FX3 hybrid (non e-bike), which she loves, so we looked at some similar models in their e-bike line. Many Treks are offered in standard and electrified versions, with a + added to the model name to differentiate them. We found that an XS size Verve+ 2 or Verve+ 3 could work well for her. The trouble is that those models cost $3000, give or take a few hundred. The battery that comes standard with them would give her a range of about 30 miles, according to the estimators we checked. An additional battery costs about $600 to $800 and would be necessary for her to get the 60 or 70 mile range she wants. So we were looking at nearly $4000. The bikes are really nice and come with some good features, but to us that is a lot of money.

I read up on Bafang kits, specifically the BBS-02. (This is a 750w motor, and they also offer a 1000w in the BBS-HD). Installing one of these on a bike my wife already owns would guarantee the fit is right. We decided to go with this option. We did not put it on the FX3, but on her older Schwinn mountain bike that had been sent into semi-retirement. The whole kit came to about $1000, including a cargo rack, which is necessary to carry the battery, because her frame does not have room to accommodate it. This system is more powerful than the Bosch that comes on Trek's factory e-bikes. For the $1k we spent, we got one battery that will offer a range of about 30 miles. To double that range by adding a second battery will require us to spend only an additional $400 to $500. We figure this setup is not as sleek or elegant as a new factory e-bike, but the total cost will be $1500 as opposed to $3500+.

The BBS-02 kit was fairly easy to install, but it needed a few minor custom modifications to work with her frame--nothing that a moderately experienced mechanic like me can't easily handle. I found the rack that Bafang sells for $60 is just okay. I don't really trust it to hold up over bumpy roads with the 8 lb. battery on it, so I fabricated some custom supports to beef it up. Now it is quite solid. ($6 at Lowe's and an hour or two of extra work.)

She's ridden the e-conversion four or five times now, for a total of about 20 miles. We have everything pretty well dialed in, and she loves it. Soon we'll start going on longer and more adventurous rides, and will then see if Bafang is really as good as we hope.

My apologies to those who have read a similar thread I posted recently and noticed a lot of overlap. I wanted to add some context to my remarks here, which are meant to address the specific questions posed by this OP.

For what it's worth, some other models of factory e-bikes that we were really impressed with (had they come in small enough sizes) include Specialized Como and several models from Gazelle.

cat0020

I'm curious, why write-off the smaller wheel ebikes? have you or your wife tried different wheel sized ebikes for decent amount in comparison?

Similarly mid vs hub motor, have you or your wife tried either to give decent comparison?

My wife is 4'11", we've been cycling together since 2006, we ride together about 1k to 2k miles annually since.
I've built her a few acoustic bicycles including road, MTB, commuter, recumbents, tandem & ebikes;
some of them are folding versions for when we used to travel with our bikes prior to COVID.
Most of the bikes I built for wife are less expensive (under $2k), find the smallest quality frame and build with components that I can find for the best fitting of her needs.
Her road bike has 650c wheels, her MTB has 24" wheels, her recumbent has 26" & 20" wheels, so does the tandem we ride together.
I ride a 20" folding bike in my daily commute in NYC, my commuting cargo ebike has 20x4" hub motor wheels, but they ride more like 24" wheels with much suspension travel in the wide tires.
We are not strangers to smaller wheeled bikes and for the advantage of more durable wheels, more compact sizing that take up less room when they are not ridden, easier to transport, those are all valid reasons to have smaller wheels.
On ebikes, wife & I have been riding together mostly on rails-to-trail paths, no single track trails yet.
Longest distance on a single ride was about 34 miles, out & back kinda ride.
Wife feels that riding an ebike is cheating, but welcomes it when the hills are present.
She's kept it on PAS mode most of the time, not used to using the throttle on a 16" or 14" wheeled ebike.
Wife does enjoy the small compact size of the micro ebikes, low standover height, small stature allow he to be instantly comfortable with maneuvering the ebike without need of instructions. She plays with the ebike controls on her own, I just ride behind or next to her to answer questions.
Now she feel that she can ride faster on her acoustic bikes since she can keep a higher pace on her ebike (20+mph) easily.

If a sub $1K compact hub driven ebike the gets delivered to my driveway allows the wife to have a safe & comfortable first experience with ebike and suits her needs, that's
a win for me, no need to spend more time & money trying to convert an acoustic bike that may or may not be designed for the extra stress of a motor/battery can exert on the acoustic frame.

Broctoon

Just not our style. We looked at lots of different designs. She didn't care for any of the 16" or 20" models, and I didn't either.



I read up on the pros and cons, and talked to some people. Then concluded that mid drive is best for the kind of riding we do.


To quote some minor social media celebrity, "Okay. Well that's you. But on the other hand, me? I'm finna turn up [for a Bafang kit]."

I don't think there's anything wrong with most of the myriad styles and models of bikes available today. It's wonderful that we have such a variety to choose from. My wife and I just have certain types that we prefer. It's because, well, we prefer them.

2old

Broctoon, I doubt your wife will encounter anything but bliss with her BBS02. I just built a hardtail for my son with one (52V, 14 ah battery) and he loves it. This is the third BBS02 in the family and all have been 100% reliable with no maintenance. On the other hand, my daughter wanted a coaster brake hub so hers has a front hub model (Dillenger kit). Surprisingly (to me), the 36V, 17 ah battery is still going strong after five years.

CVT

Is the BBS02 kit easy to install? any modification required or plug and play?

2old

You need to be familiar with bottom brackets (BB) and have the required tools (or have bike shop assistance). This isn't rocket science. There are YouTube videos that will guide you as well as looking at Sheldon Brown's site to learn about BB. It's easier if your bike has a 68 mm BB because you can use the "jam nut" to secure the main nut affixing the system (this isn't possible with 73 mm BB). As above you need to really crank on these nuts (IMO) to ensure the system doesn't loosen (don't ask me how I know) and sometimes need to fiddle with the bolts and washers holding the plate against the BB. Hopefully Broctoon will answer too since he just completed an installation, and DW has performed one too. One thing: it's worth the effort.

CVT

Good to know, I installed hub motors but never mid drive.

2old

Look at some YouTube videos (I think Luna Cycle has good ones) to familiarize yourself with the operations, and we'll always try to assist here.

CVT

Sure, Thank you.

cat0020

IME, style usually comes with compromise in function.

Cycling experience is not easily translated into something that you can read about, especially when it comes to how a ebike perform for your specific riding.
What specific king of riding do you do?


I don't follow any social media celeb, for good reasons, too. They may be good at being a celeb, but do they know about specifics of your riding?


It makes sense to me that preference comes with actual trials, if you've never tried to ride one type of ebike vs another, do you honestly know your preference?

Broctoon

Yes, we tried a few. Not enough to become experts, but we’re pretty happy with the gamble we took. I appreciate your concern, and I believe my wife will do fine with this conversion. So far no regrets at all.

When we think of larger diameter wheels and mid drive motors, we picture something like this:



Fat little wheels and hub motors call to mind something more like this:



Maybe this is unfair, but regardless, I’d say it’s a big part of why we set our criteria the way we did. Also, there’s a vastly bigger selection of 26 inch tires available. And we have more options if we ever have to replace a wheel or borrow one from one of our other bikes. (The critical part isn’t integral to a wheel). More reasons too, but I’ll leave it at that.

kwantani

Took me about 10-15 mins to installed the conversion kit, no wiring required.

cat0020

With recent development in ebikes & pricing..

7up

Kits equal unparalleled savings and most bang for the buck if you do considerable due diligence while stock e-bikes are a IMHO a considerable expense for the upper tier of the spectrum.

2old

Turned out I derived more enjoyment from my BBS02 converted hardtail than a similar Haibike even after adding some expensive suspension components and wheels to the latter (which is a good bike that I ride now since I gave the BBS to my son).

PoweredByVeg

Another thing to consider is whether you can get what you want from an OEM.

I bought a R&M Superdelite ($$) and don’t want to thrash it on rough trails too much. So I will probably do my own build as I can’t find a hub emtb to my specs - Shimano Allfine, Bosch, etc. That’s the usual formula isn’t it, you trade your time/effort for getting exactly what you want, and maybe you have fun along the way?

2old

For me, the construction process is a blast; I look for opportunities to build a bike for myself or others. But, as they say, to each his own.

cat0020

Hopefully you will still enjoy it as much after 10 years like I have been; but you know better than me, right?

late

[QUOTE=2old;22584809]I keep our batteries in a military surplus ammo container.

Sheldon Brown was really something, I second that.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/