Electric Bikes - 27x1.25 Road Bike vs Best Metals

Greetings - I've got a Bridgestone 27x1.25 inch road bike that I bought a decade or so back. Can bike of this wheel size be converted to an electric bike? Seems most everything is 26 inch or less these days.

Secondarily, if I were to buy a new bike (due to not being able to convert my 27-incher) with the intent of converting it to an e-bike, what metals are recommended for the frame? I've read that I need to avoid aluminum since it's too weak to handle the torque, right? Anything other metals? Do bikes with rear wheel motors handle the torque better?

If the brake calipers have enough range to adjust the brake pads, you can probably put a 700C wheel instead of a 27". You can easily get hub motors built with 700C wheels.

A visit to a local bike shop can answer this question for you.

No reason you can't have a hub laced to a 27 inch rim saying you can find the spokes.

The bigger the diameter tubing and thicker tubing gives aluminum the advantage over steel. And it's still lighter than steel

With the same size tubing steel wins out.

The bike shop I go to the guy makes the spokes right there on the spot any size. If you want 36 spokes it'll take awhile.

later OM
ray

If you're not using an unusually high-powered motor then it probably doesn't matter that much what metal your frame is made of; however, if you use a front hub motor you really should only use a bike that has a steel fork (titanium is probably fine too) and no front suspension.

A good way to tell if you have a steel fork is to see if a magnet sticks to it - if it's anything but steel, the magnet won't stick.

I'm told many aluminum-frame bikes have a steel fork.

The reasons folks will suggest you use a steel fork are :

-if an aluminum fork fails, it's likely a piece of it will just pop off instantly. Steel tends to fail by bending so you get a little bit of warning.

-the stress that a hubmotor puts on your bike means that the dropouts are the most likely place to break. So large diameter tubing doesn't really help there. When using parts like dropouts that have approximately the same size dimensions, steel will normally be heaver and stronger.

Aluminum frames are fine. As the previous poster mentioned a high torque motor in a front hub app would be better off in steel fork. That being said any average 36v front hub motor (like an eZee) will be fine in an aluminum fork.