Originally Posted by
rdwalker
Front hub, eh?
I always thought of this as the least-desirable option, because of added inertia to front steering and likely more complex wiring.
Was I wrong? Could you elaborate on your experience? How is the wheel removal procedure with that hub (in case of flat - my big concern with rear hub)?
Any pictures?
Robert
For us, the choice of the front hub was the easiest solution. I converted a late '90's santana tandem which has a non-standard rear drop out spacing and a 6 speed free wheel. Finding a rear motor hub to fit here limits my choices There are also challenges fitting a mid drive, so the front hub was the path of least challenge. I went with the eZee hub, Phaserunner controller, and eZee 36V 24Ah battery with the matching rear rack.
I have not found the extra weight in the front wheels to affect steering at all. It's not a high performance bike to start with and we are not a high performance team, so I did not notice any loss, or negative impact to our normal riding regimen. We are a heavy team and I did not want all the weight on the back wheel (Stoker, Battery, and motor) and I was not comfortable with the strength of the tubing or the water bottle cage bosses holding a heavy battery.
I can't comment too much on wiring as I designed and implemented my own head controller and made all the cables to interface to the ebike hardware. The controller is on the center down tube right at the head tube, the head controller mounts to a garmin out front mount just a few inches away and the motor is right below on the front wheel. I had to custom make the battery cable to reach the battery in the rear. I have both PAS and throttle. Overall all a lot of wires but not unruly. I 3D printed several clips that hold the wiring to the frame tubes so overall routing management was straight forward.
Removing the front wheel is where the big negative is. It requires real crescent wrenches and a socket wrench for the torque arm. Fortunately for us, we transport our tandems in a van so I don't have to remove the front wheel to transport, but I did fashion a simple ramp out of scrap wood to be able roll the bike on and off the vehicle without having to lift the bike.
One advantage of our set up is that by replacing the front motor wheel with a standard wheel and leaving the battery off, it converts back to a regular tandem with just the Phaserunner and some wiring still present. This allows us to have the option of both a regular and an eTandem when we travel somewhere by car and all we have to bring is the extra front wheel.
I can post some pictures if folks are interested.