andychrist

While it’s not especially heavy duty, I built up my ecumbent cargo bike “Blutus” from a [sparkle blue] RANS Stratus XP incorporating dual Bafang 500W hub drives. So it kinda exceeds the legal limit but as I’ve got the cutoff set to 16mph and only ride on the shoulders of public roads, doubt I’ll ever be hassled. Am currently putting together a red Stratus LE with a TSDZ2 OSF and 20” Bafang 500W front hub, “Redundo” (because that model supports wider tires as well as a front fairing) whose speed I’ll similarly restrict.

Even unloaded, when climbing some of the steeper hills around here on Blutus, the 860C displays will occasionally report over 700W each, if only for a fraction of a minute. Once though, while attacking a wall in Catskill, a loose XT60 caused the rear hub to fail, and the front’s display hovered over 800W for the couple minutes it took me to reach the summit and address the electrical connection. Not a big deal I guess, but worry that should I ever venture beyond a 25mi radius from home, might encounter hills both equally steep and considerably longer than encountered locally. In which case, dunno how long Blutus could sustain the output needed to maintain a cruising speed of 12mph. So my ultimate ecumbent build will likely entail 1500-2000W continuous power, through some combination of hub/mid drives, not sure yet which. Preference would be dual 750 or 1000W hubs, but AFAIK front wheels of that power are only available fat, D’oh!