Originally Posted by
veganbikes
Nope luck has a big thing to do with it. We have had excellent mechanics who have been around e-bike tech for a long time. I get it you cheated "the man" and built up a bike with a kit and it has worked. That is great, glad you are enjoying it. Not complaining here but a larger sample of people we have built bikes for and a lot of other kit style bikes we have seen come through our doors for 6+ years says a little different.
Please explain to me how putting a kit on a bike that is not designed to be an e-bike is a great idea? I am not being sarcastic in this one or anything I am actually asking the question?
My interest is in reliability, durability and something with support behind it. I would be fine selling regular bikes or e-bikes doesn't matter to me. I would sell kit bikes if I could actually stand behind them knowing I have support from the manufacturer way down the road. Bosch isn't going anywhere and has service all over the world. These random companies probably don't and certainly many of the ones we have dealt with didn't and trying to get them to support their product was a pain. It is rare that Bosch, Brose or Shimano takes a lot of effort to get in touch with.
When companies with hub drives tell you 10-20 spokes broken is not an issue...uhhh that is not good in my eyes. Generally once you break 2 spokes you are going to be looking at a new wheel so when you hit 20 out of 32 that seems really bad. We had all the spokes come loose on a brand new wheel on an R+M and instead of saying "just rebuild it" they sent us a brand new wheel no problems. Granted this was not a hub drive but a Enviolo but on a new Bosch equipped bike.
I have built several bikes. The weak link is the batteries.
That said, I have a lot more confidence in the mid-drives. My experience with hub drives has been 50/50, yes, I have only built two hub drives. Neither of them broke spokes. The first was probably because it didn't have the power. It was built purely as a commuter to help deal with the 20+mph winds that I was facing almost every morning. My second was intended to be a new touring trike (velomobile) and I wanted to get the regen feature. It was a total failure, quite literally, the motor didn't work out of the box. while the vender
https://www.ebikes.ca/ has an excellent reputation, the response was still "you buy, now go away." It is now receiving a bafang mid-drive.
So, yes, there is an element of luck. However, my experience with Luna has been very positive and I don't expect them to leave customers with something non-functional (unlike their previously named competitor). Further, it isn't as much "luck" as you are seeming to expect. Once ina while you will get a bad product or a bad vendor. The problem is when it happens at the beginning of a learning curve. For this reason, thee is some value in starting your building with a simple mid power motor, not some big spoke-breaker.