The Mini is a real blast. I cruised around on lunch today. To save money I park farther from work at a cheap parking lot. Parking is pretty expensive in downtown and I can save almost $100 (or more) a month if I just park at a more distant parking lot!

So based on the cost savings alone to park farther away, I can pay for the Mini in short order even if I just do it during the summer time. Winters are a bit severe here at times to ride and it can be -20F or colder and pretty windy. Still 7-8 months out of the year is a substantial cost savings. I’ve biked to work quite a few times on my folder and if it wasn’t for this one really big hill on the way home I’d do it more often.

At the end of the day the last thing I want is a 3.5 mile long hill when I am tired from work. The rest of the commute is very nice along a river and some quiet farmland. What makes the hill worse is the cars that are in close proximity spewing their gases out while they labor up the hill. So instead of the cars passing me quickly they are working hard, going slower and dumping out more fumes just as my body is working harder and trying to take in more oxygen. I practically choke all the way up the hill. If I try to avoid it, I have to ride about an additional 2.5 miles out of my way minimum.

So a little Mini or DT with a motor would be an awesome combo. I am currently doing the motor on one of my old DTs. It is not a great platform for it in some ways as I am gearing limited. Basically I have to work with the 14T sprocket of the motor working on the sprockets of the rear. This does give me the advantage of having the derailleur gearing help me out but my top speed is very limited by the 20” tire on the rear.

This isn’t an issue with the internal hub where I have a 1:1 ratio on first gear with the SA hub. So even though my rear sprocket on the SA hub is twice as big as the derailleur’s smallest gear, I end up with a taller top gear because of how the SA works.

So for me the SA is almost the ideal hub to use with an electric assisted bike that has a 20” or 16” wheel and using an external motor. I can keep my internal hub that I love and still have tall enough gearing so that I can cruise at about 20mph on the flats with the motor. Of course cruising speed and range are intertwined and I do give up some hill climbing ability because of the taller gearing but with the 500W motor that isn’t much of an issue. Running a SLA battery setup I can get about 25 miles between charges.