electric bikes
 

does anybody have these here? or those electric bike motor kits you can install on your bike? if so, how do they work for you? do ya like them? i always wondered about these. if i'm wrong about this i'm sorry, but to me these seem like a waste of money. the range is useless if you ask me, & to haul all that weight around with you all the time just so you can use that occasional boost of power like when going up a steep hill seems to be useless too. i'm not buying any of these bikes, but i'm just curious if anybody uses them & how you like them. the whole purpose of bicycling is to get excersise isn't it? anyway, i would like to get a fuel cell powered bike when they come out as an alternative form of transportation. much more range & no re-charge downtime, but i will always have a place for my old pedal powered "traditional" bicycles in my life...

I guess it depends on what your uses are?

I have another online friend at a computer forum website. He has one...but he doesn't ride for exercise. His company did some goofy thing so that he has to park, literally, almost a mile away. Rather than walk it every morning and evening, he carries an electric bike on his car and rides it from car to building he works at. He's been pretty happy with it (only mad at company that forces him to "need" it).

I have a couple (see sig.) most of my riding is on the trike non electric.
The chopper has only a single speed (considering fitting a 3 speed) and the geared 200 watt electric hub allows me to climb hills that I would have to walk up other wise, the weight doesn't seem to affect level ground performance and as I only use the motor for hills and take offs the range is probally around 70 km's going of the battery drain after 37 km's. As for exercise I usually come back from rides dripping with sweat between the wiiide back tyre and the single speed (about 70 gear inches) which means you tend to ride fairly fast to maintain cadence including up hills
The moped (scooter) is 99% electric with assist from pedals only required on steep hills and is great to run erands on if I am knackered from riding the other bikes, my dodgy knee is playing up or if I'm going out for a hammer later in the day, the range is greater than 30 km's (longest ride I have used it on, still had power at the end) and I live in a hilly area.
They are just another type of bike and can be good fun, the scooter is great on really hot days for the breeze. :)

Also note that electric assist can be used to make you go FASTER, rather than replacing pedalling completely. So, with an electric bike you could go from 30km/h to 50km/h and be able to keep up with traffic.

I was concidering one due to health issues but undicided which to get. As we in the UK are limited to 200w motors I'm not sure how good they will be concidering the extra weight on the battery and motor.
Which do you think would be best out of the below list concidering 24v vs. 36v, 7.ah Ni-cad v.s 12ah Lead acid, etc.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...167359031&rd=1
Which 200w motor but the battery is a lead acid 36v 12ah and weighs over 40kg. It's around £300 delivered.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...167567617&rd=1
200watt motor and a 24v 7.2ah Ni-MH battery making it lighter than the lead acid type (32kg) so I could carry a spare battery and lift it in and out of back of my Land Rover or Shogun easily. £400 delivered.

http://www.electricbikesdirect.co.uk...216&category=1
200w Currie motor Ni-MH battery only 20kg seems better quality but £650 incuding delivery.

http://www.ebikecentral.co.uk/images/trident/index.htm
200w 36v Ni-MH weighing 35kg for £699+postage

I mainly want it for hills and non-paved paths etc. The climbing angle of the 24v NI-HH is stated as 10 degrees unassisted, does anybody know how steep this is in percentages because the steepest hill I know of is 12%. The range is estimated to between 15 and 20 miles but is this battery only or with some peddling? Would the higher voltage / amp lead battery be better or worse concidering the extra weight (20kg vs. 40kg approx).

i think the range on all of these is useless to me, but if i had to pick one it would be the last one. i love the disc brakes, lights, horn, & full suspension. very neat! these require pedaling, & the range would be much shorter if you don't pedal....

I purchased the 2nd one in your list (200W 24v) about a month ago and so far, I love it !

I commute just over 20 miles a day to work and back on it. We don't have showers at work so the electric pedal assist helps me get to work without breaking into a sweat. On the way home, I can pedal as fast as I like to get more exercise - it just means I can travel that little bit faster than everyone else for the same effort. They are supposedly restricted to 15mph but I can quite comfortably travel at 25 mph on mine.

The range is estimated at 20 miles or so, but as I have two chargers I charge it between journeys so I never get caught short.

I think these kind of bikes are more suited for the road. The extra weight you would feel on tracks and maybe the battery would clonk about a bit making an uncomfortable ride.

There are very few hills where I live but mine will pull me up a 10% about 10-14mph with just the throttle or more if I pedal with it.

The other bikes with more powerful batteries will pull away quicker and cope with steeper hills, but the trade-off is the extra weight. If the batteries run out, it would be a hard slog home.

cool! i would love to test ride on of these electric bikes just out of curiosity. i know the range of these makes them useless to me as i can easily pedal a regular bike much farther than the range of these, but for the elderly, or people with health problems, they are good. i really am lurking in the shadows & waiting for those fuel cell powered bikes that are right around the corner from comming out. i read they should have a range of around 100 miles per "charge", & to refuel, you simply re-fill them up with hydrogen. a neat thing is the fuel cell is removable & can be used to power other things while off the bike. i don't remember the name of the company that will offer this bike, but i think their from britian. i seen a pic of this bike in the newspaper, & it reminded me of a mountain bike with disc brakes. ah, life is good!

A company rep brought an electric bike to one of our club rides a number of years back. It had an electric motor that you could use as a power assist or just take over pedalling. You also had the option of pedalling without power.

The bike was very heavy something over 40 lbs.

The bike was pretty underpowered as far as the motor went. I think it went something like 15 mph for 20 miles. Since nearly anyone in any kind of shape can cruise at 15 mph why bother? I mean it might be good for elderly and rather frail riders but otherwise, it seems impractical.

What kind of range do they have on battery the alone?

The reason I'm asking is because I get Atrial Fibrillation, which is when the heart starts beating erratically.
I can go weeks with out it occuring but when it does it can take upto a couple of days before it corrects itself. At the moment I'm pretty much restricted to roads, so if need be I can get a Taxi. But as I prefer cycling in the country I was planing to just use it as a normal bike with no motor assist and then if needed I can still get back to civilisation using the bikes power.

The blurb on mine says up to 20 miles but I can't verify that as I use pedal-assist mostly.

I think the biggest problem you will have is the weight trade-off. If you have an attack while you are out, are you able to still pedal? If not, then you will need one of the more higher powered 36v bikes but the problem with these is they weigh a ton, so it would be tough to ride one around normally until you had to resort to battery power.

If you were able to still pedal, albeit at a reduced effort, then maybe a lighter pedal assist may work.

Another thing you need to to consider is the terrain - will you be riding on or off-road? I'm not sure any electric bikes are suitable for off-road..yet.

Hills are another important factor...a higher-powered bike will be able to pull you up a hill faster and steeper but again, without electric power I would imagine it would not be pleasant!

I bought mine for a very specific purpose - commuting to work. The ride is on main/country roads only, almost flat terrain and to arrive at work and not be sweaty. For other rides, my normal bike comes out the garage.

I think it would be very important for you to try several bikes out. I'm not sure where you live, but there are a couple of dealers in London who specialise in electric bikes and carry a variety of models.

cheers
Russ.

I am not trying to offend any of the members, but I would not touch one of these things with a 10 foot barge poll. It makes me sad to see people riding around on these fully suspended pieces of “you know what”. They are just loaded with cheap parts, weigh a ton (without the electric gear), and are terrible off-road anyways. Plus, I know full well that the vast majority of them never go off road. If you are riding around a city there is no need to a fully suspended ride, with an electric motor or not.

check out www.urbanmover.com

I saw one of these in my city about a month ago. Wasn't driven by a cop. Now perhaps there'll be some shower competition at work.

http://news.kypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll...510030374/1014
http://news.kypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll...R&Profile=1014

How is it selling for you?

You can convert your own bicycle into E-bike here. It can be replaced with many different size wheels. The price starts from $340.-

It works on hub motor, so you can still pedal your bicycle when the motor is not in use.

You can buy a complete E-bike but it seems to be built cheaply.

I've got one of these; http://69.6.223.90/1024x768/product.html
Now winters here I've been using it far more than my 'normal' bike. I've been doing approx. 20 miles a day. So far I have'nt managed to flatten the battery and when I put it on charge it only show about 1/3 flat.

I'm going to be putting a motor on a bike soon. My idea is since the poor range seems to be because of the small batteries, I get two big old 12 volt deep cycle batteries and put them in series. I already built a trailor for the 80 pounds of batteries, and when I don't want to use the motor I can remove the trailor of batteries and motor chain. This will mostly be used for long trips of over 40km, so that I don't need to replace the batteries much. I'm hoping for a 50km range from this set up.

Not really my cup of tea, yet. But I told myself that if I get seriously injured on a bicycle, I'd consider moving into the world of motorcycles. So far, I'm happy to keep off a motorcycle.