I've seen plenty of electric bikes, but they're usually cruiser bikes, designed for short distance riding. I wonder if there's a market for a road bike with an electric motor? I would think that mounting the battery and motor to as light and efficient bike as possible would result in longer range and faster speeds, right?

I think an electric road bike with a range of 40 miles or so would be a great idea, but is there a market for it?

ah, there is the issue..
I saw a mention of a small drive motor that could be fitted into the seat tube .
and drive the special crankset,, which has the other half of the 90 degree bevel drive.

But small probably means little torque , so a headwind assistance on flat lands maybe..

at a premium price ..
the wheel hub motor schemes are more common..
and miles of range is all about Battery Amp/hours.. and battery weight.

god i hope not.

Recumbents are more aero than a standard road bike. You'll find that there are electric assist options available for that type of bike. Electric assist would seem to run counter to the roadie ethic.

In my head I have a design in mind for a winter bike that would appeal to a larger group of people than the crazies that currently commute in the winter. It would be an enclosed recumbent trike and I think that electric assist would be almost required for your average person to get a beast like that up a hill in several inches of snow.

Battery range is the issue. The same as electric cars. I've thought it might be cool to have an electric assist bike that you could use to tour but unless you just want to use it for help now and then, like on the big hills, you'll run out of juice.

I've seen some really nice looking recumbent trikes that have solar panels that run the electric assist, no battery. So if it's cloudy you just pedal. That could work and would eliminate the hassle of battery charging.

long-distance touring is much more popular over here (my soon-to-be mother-in-law ... 73 yo ... did a 50k ride with us on sunday and didn't even think twice about it)

and GIANT offers several hybrid bikes (hybrid really means hybrid, as pedal or battery power) not shown on the US web page

https://www.giant-bicycles.com/de-de/...evel=lifestyle

here a few pics of what they offer ...



seems that they have up to 576Wh battery capacity and the ROAM XR looks quite nice. the drivetrain is quite good and it's first 29er "hybrid" over here.

depending on how fast it's driven it has a range between 35km and 70km (about 45 miles.)

costs 2199€.

these are the specs for anyone interested...

two last photos:

one of the system control panel and the approx distances (pretty good if you ask me, if they are honest)




and one of the rear axle/hub configuration

https://www.designbuzz.com/entry/pg-b...electric-bike/ 100kph max, 200 kilometer range. price $77,000. Electric motorcycles are a fraction of the price with better performance, but you can't pedal.

I would love electric assist just to help me on hills, because I hate hills. I'll pedal otherwise, or just to give me a break if I get really tired. But yeah I could never afford it.

Wimp

Hills are good for you.

Only thing a hill is good for is coasting on the descent.

IIRC, Giant offered the Liberty and Freedom for 2010 and 2011 here Stateside. Looks like they pulled the plug on 'em for 2012 in the U.S. Kona also killed their American e-bikes: Ticket, Token, and an electrified Ute.

Fixed that for you.

Isn't there an Electric Bikes forum on BF?

40 miles is possible; but, it is on the outside of e-bike range. As you have undoubtedly seen, even those with advanced batteries have a normal range of 20-30 miles. It comes down to normal use. As these articles state, in places with declining sales of conventional bikes, but growing sales of e-bikes, such as The Netherlands: Even paying close attention to the various e-bike focused forums leaves one quickly seeing that the dominant use of e-bikes, outside of experimentation by hobbyists, is commuting; something that some here seem to want to be treated as a taboo topic in the commuting sub-forum.

In commuting, the 20-30 mile range is generally seen as sufficient. To commuters looking at bicycles as transportation, not a sport of purists, 20-30 miles on a vehicle that is generally limited to an average spend of, or below, 20mph, is sufficient. Beyond this distance begins to look impractical, to most people, for commuting. Further, most e-bike users are reporting that employers are generally positive to recharging at work.

Note, this does not address the question of cause and effect . . . Are e-bike riders finding employers receptive to recharging at work; or, are riders only using e-bikes in places where employers are receptive?

When one gets beyond the current 20-30 mile norm, which seems to exist at the present, for e-bike range the batteries tend to get large and expensive. Further, there does not seem to be much demand.

As I see it, at the present the e-bike should be promoted as an alternative to automobile use. However, the unique niche filled by the e-bike is short range use. I realize that many cyclists feel that this an answer to a question that no one asked; after all, nearly any person can easily hop on a bicycle for trips up to 7 or 10mies. However, even a small bit of intellectual honesty would cause them to see that this is not the normal thing that happens; instead, people choose to drive. They even drive for what most here see as short commutes. The e-bike can help break that habit and lead to a better environment (be your concern noise, air quality, or just traffic congestion) and a healthier population as people spend more time outside.

Instead of extreme range the e-bike development focus, for US e-bike usage cycles, is better placed in lighter weight and normal cycle dimensions. This would better allow e-bikes to fit in commuter trains and on bus racks, allowing e-bikes to fill the last mile question that keep so many from making use of mass transportation instead of private automobiles for medium distances and commuting.

Do any of these e-bikes have any sort of regeneration circuitry, whereby your time spend pedaling also helps recharge the batteries? Or is pedal power just not enough to make a significant recharge? Or would that add too much pedal effort where otherwise the effort would be acceptable at a given speed, gear, and grade change (i.e. make it feel like you're pedaling uphill when you're on flat or even downhill grade)?

At this point we really are getting into e-bike specific stuff that may be beyond the general topic of commuting; However, I can still answer some of your questions.
Some e-bikes do allow regeneration; however, it does not work well. First, it requires the use of direct drive hub motors instead of, the more efficient, geared hub motors; or, the even more efficient, chain drive motors. Second, it is not linked to the brakes. Most regen in hybrid automobiles comes from using the electric motor as a generator when the brakes are being used. The e-bikes simply do not weigh enough for this to be practical.

As far as pedaling on the flats to regenerate, I would not even consider it. Even if the system were 100% efficient, it would require tremendous input to get any meaningful amount of power stored.

I will add that while I have used an e-bike I have not used one with regenerative capacity. That being said, unless you live on a route with long downhill runs, it has been reported by others to be impractical to plan on using.

BionX manufactures direct drive ebike kits that feature regenerative charging (via a magnet sensor mounted on the rear brake lever or engaged directly through the console).
Over a two year period I rode a BionX equipped bike and another with a similar system from eZee (that freewheels and thus cannot perform regenerative charging). I found that at the end of the week the BionX battery often required less charger time than the eZee.

A descent is your reward for climbing.

I have seen this e-bike ad a few times. looks good till you see the price.

VORTEX 2012 ---38 volts 20 amp hour 60--86 miles a charge


Item# vortex-mountain-ebike-6086-m6086

Regular price: $2,490.00

Sale price: $2,190.00


Product Description

Super heavy duty Busettii mountain bike with center mounted motor, real transmission (auto 3 speed) chain pedal integrated drive train for smooth pedal assist at very high speeds, Comes with both pedal assist and throttle mode,(also see www.biyadii.com) 500 watt motor plus real transmission = 1000 watts of equivalent torque but just using 500 watts of power. Comes with 2 x 38 volt 10ah batteries (= 20 amp hours) with the high efficiency motor and trany can go 86 miles in pedal assis. mode or 60 miles with no Pedaling at all. Unlike most other e-bikes, Vortex Rider can pedal with motor even at 30 mph because of integrated drive pedal train system. Most other E bikes don't have high enough pedal gearing to stay up with motors at high speeds but Vortex solves this problem. Your pedaling always has a big contribution at any speed. Top speed 32 mph.

People who must commute down long straight roads everyday will LOVE the VORTEX because of the High top speed cruising ability and the fact that it uses much less power than other bikes to stay at a high cruising speed. Many high speed bikes we tested at 30 mph will use up the entire battery in just 8 miles ! The Vortex is the only bike under $5000 that can cruise at 30 mph for 32 miles on one battery charge. If you cruise at 15 mph it can run 86 miles on one battery charge.

I've seen the e-bike kits on that end of the forums where you just add a rear wheel w/ a motor on it and stuff a gigantic battery on your rack. $500~$1000 to install it on any old bike it sounds like. I'd like to give it a try but the price tag is a little steep for what'd essentially be a toy for me -- not enough hills nor distance to make the investment and troubleshooting necessary worthwhile. Still might consider it if I get another upgrade itch, though!

It's a hard urge to suppress, I have to admit. Many of us pride ourselves on being able-bodied, and to add a mechanical boost feels like it would be cheating.

That said, there are times when I'm riding in traffic, up a hill, into a wind, and wishing I had a little more power to keep up with cars. From what I know of electric-assist bikes, the battery life is dependent on how much/often you use the assist, so a strong rider may be able to save up that boost for rare occasions when it's absolutely needed. The problem, of course, is that you're lugging around that weight the rest of the time, and for long-distance or fast riding, you want as few things robbing you of energy as possible.

- Scott

I think that Robert C hit most of the points I would make, plus some, but just to throw in my $0.02. I have an eectric bike, a Trek FX+. I consider it to be on the sporty end of electirc bikes (as opposed to the cruiser one of things). the range is up to the mid-40 miles, using assist level 1.

It's a great bike & I use it to ride places where I would normally drive, or for commutes when I get up late, or have to be home early. It's nice to use on hills for sure, but they suck up the battery life. The regenerative stuff never seens to work well for me. I have a pretty big downhill on the way home. A few times I've set it to regenerate, but it seems to only give an extra bar of power. Since I don't use the whole battery anyways, it's not worth my time to switch it into regenerative mode for that downhill.

All in all a great addition to my stable of bikes & I really enjoy using it instead of taking the car sometimes.

I have a friend who has a bike which can do about 60 miles if he keeps the speed down. He's very adept at electronics and has been toying with it for years. The current iteration runs a 96 volt pack of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries, and has a controller he custom built and programmed. In the "street legal" mode where speed is limited down to whatever the legal limit is, 20 MPH or something like that, he can get between over 50 miles per charge. If he pulls out the stops (flips the "light speed" button to remove the legal limit) he can do about 50 MPH but the range goes way down, to something like 20 miles.

In fact he doesn't really know how far his range is in the low speed range, he live in the UK and took the bike out in that mode and went on the circle drive around his town for over an hour, but he eventually got bored and went home. He figures maybe 60 miles or so given the number of watt hours he burned during that time.

Just the raw batteries that he bought to make the battery pack for the thing cost something like $1500.

I was looking at the VSF Fahrradmanufaktur bike catalog today (looking for a nice touring bike) and I came across their E-bikes (pedelec in german).

It seems that they get roughly 150km (90+ miles) out of one full charge.

FYI: