Advice appreciated

[badgerdad]

Hi all,
I spent most of the weekend reading this forum, following many threads and making a lot of notes and I stll dont have a clue on what to do.

Here is the situation. I am a 56 YO clyde who rides a bit for enjoyment. This year I am going to do my first RAGBRAI across Iowa. I am looking forward to it and have already started training. I love my wife of 30 years dearly, and while I know she will not do RAGBRAI, i would love to have her with me and my friends for some of our midrange training rides. (20-40 miles). The electric assist motors would be perfect i think to keep her involved.

I have a couple of good hybrid bikes I could convert.

Money isnt really an issue. A front drive is the way I want to go. Can anyone recommend a good turnkey motor/controller kit to get? I have some connections for batteries , so i would get those separate.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Abneycat]

If money isn't an issue,

In my opinion the Ezee is probably the best front-drive kit out there. Ebikes.ca will have those available. These kits have no rolling resistance and are a joy to pedal with, their only weakness is that due to being an internal gear reduction motor instead of a direct drive motor, they make a small amount of noise. Ezee kits also climb well and are available disk brake ready.

There are cheaper choices in Crystalyte and the like, if that option doesn't appeal to you. These kits are heavier, less appealing to a cyclist due to a small amount of additional rolling resistance, and overall just not as nice. They're designed to simply propel the bicycle, and that they do well.

In rear drive or frame mounted drive, more options would open up.

Edit: Here you go, Ebike's informational page on the Ezee

http://ebikes.ca/ezee/

Seems to be $750 for the Ezee without battery.