Northern California - electric bicycle commuters?

I lost my drivers license a couple of years ago, and found that an electric bicycle conversion is a legal alternative to get to work and back.

I have since gotten my license back, but I fell in love with going to work on the electric (I also have a fixie, and a S/S MTB) I built the electric up from a GT LTS-3 frame, marzocchi bomber fork, alex 32mm MTB rims, laced to the 600W electric hub, the rear has a deore XT hub, I run street tires (tioga "city slickers) a road cassette, and a deore derailleur, shimano 170mm cranks (49/36), and sealed BB, it has canti brakes front & rear, I use a WTB speed saddle (I love those seats), and 1" riser bars. (I'll post a pic later)

I use the widely available "crystalite" type electric hub motor, battery pack, controller, throttle kit, that you can find all over the internet for about $400, except I had the front (crazy cheap!) wheel rebuilt with the afore mentioned wide ass alex DH rims.

it goes about 23mph without peddling, and I can get it over 34mph peddling hard in high gear. with the (heavy=34lbs) 3 12ah SLA batteries (sealed lead acid), it goes about 11 miles, no peddling, and a little over 15 miles if you peddle and use the throttle sparingly. there is a lithium co-polymer battery available for $500 that only weighs 6lbs, and will go over 20 miles with no peddling, and well over 26 miles using it conservatively. if you ran 2 of the Li-Co batteries (still only 12lbs), with a switch (1 main, and 1 for "reserve") you could get about 40 miles on one charge,....but thats a grand for JUST the batteries, and I can't get my cheap ass to go that far yet,...but soon I'm sure I will.

the point is, I NEVER, EVER see anyone else on an electric bicycle, and I have been riding on it for over two years, nearly everyday all over the santa clara / san jose area, and have yet to see a similar set up.


anyone else doing this?

ok I guess not,......

anyway,..lets look back on this thread when gas hits $4.90 a gallon and see if I don't have some company by then

ride safe and aware

You're not really going to get much info here. Your best bet is to post this in the commuting forums. There has been a few riders/commuters over there that use electric bicycles for commuting. I'm a commuter myself and there are times when I wish I can go faster. But I never really liked the idea of placing an electric motor on any of my bikes. My commute is 11 to 15 miles one way depending on my mood.

ok I guess not,......

anyway,..lets look back on this thread when gas hits $4.90 a gallon and see if I don't have some company by then

ride safe and aware

There's one guy here at work that has an e-bike. Interesting but expensive, and it makes a loud whine noise that to me is very irritating.

There seems to be not much market for these things - most folks who would even consider commuting by bicycle would just use a regular bike.

What exactly do you love about your electric bike that's different from your others?

If I'm changing over from commuting on my road/MTB bike to electric, I'm going to use a hybrid electric/gasoline scooter instead of retrofitting an existing bike. I like to keep my bikes simple.

I have a gas motor on one of my bikes. ;) :p

my dad has a similar setup, but he uses the rear tire for the electric hub. He enjoys it, especially when somebody on a regular bike doesn't realize that he's on an ebike and they try to race him :)

I tease him about being a cheater, but I've ridden it once and it's really fun to ride. The best way to describe the sensation is when you're at the airport and they have the moving walkway, if you walk on the moving walkway you notice that everything is moving way faster than it should be - it's just like that with an ebike. You're barely pedaling, yet you're haulin butt.

for the record, I commute on my regular bike. When I'm lazy I commute on my gas powered bikes :)

The best way to describe the sensation is when you're at the airport and they have the moving walkway, if you walk on the moving walkway you notice that everything is moving way faster than it should be - it's just like that with an ebike. You're barely pedaling, yet you're haulin butt.


yup, thats pretty much it.

it's just FUN, oh and mine is TOTALLY silent, that whine would drive me nuts too. it's just a different sensation, and I like arriving at work NOT sweaty and tired.


the MOST fun I've had on it was a bicycle cop on the bike path was attempting to pull me over, but I pretended I couldn't hear him over my I-pod headphones, and took him on a 4 mile 27mph (average) little jaunt,...when he finally caught up to me, he looked like he was going to pass out! I apologized for not hearing him sooner (cracking up inside), he said "you know there is a 15mph speed limit on the paths", but since they JUST implemented that rule, he would let me off with a warning this time (hehehe)

people in cars trip out too and they ALWAYS try to race the bike, usually causing them to run up on the car in front of them (why do people in cars try to race bicycles?!) one lady actually spun out trying to make a right turn in front of me, and I guess she didn't realize she was trying to take a corner at 35mph! (and why they do THAT is also beyond me)

so it's 1) fun 2) people don't understand it and 3) I get some revenge on cage drivers.

thats why