Elation kit joke
 

Hi there, I am a newbie and well I must say thanks to the numerous threads I have read while being painfully introduced to the ebike fraternity. Without all the good advice and costly lessons I am reading about and absorbing, I would have chucked the bike in a ditch and said 'elation' was a dirty dirty word.
Painful because a badly designed chain drive unit will cost you money and whats worse, time off your bike! There are I suppose 3 main proponents in the chain drive market, being CYCLONE, ECLIPSE and ELATION. The latter has been my starting point for all manner of grievous wastes of time and money and correction in my garage with mucha mucha tools... Now as a newbie and paying bicycle owner I understand this is not a forum to burn or denigrate those in business. How ever, I would save precious time for the reader who is ignorant (like I was) of these contraptions. Any bike is a joyous high maintenance craft, rather like a woman only a little cheaper...perhaps. One wily old bike techie the other day said his racing 'habit' was costing less than her handbags!!! anyways....

There is no trouble free motor kit. Sure I believe they are soooo much fun - when they are going and you are truly backed up by the vendor/inventor.Something I am only just experiencing with PACO from Taiwan! If the vendor is cranky (like a slipping square spindle) and only wants to burn bridges in the conceit of thinking his invention is so good and that sales magically appear from the magical land of internet, then you will pick the 3rd 'name' of the three big proponents I listed above.I do not endorse that elation kit, and when people ask me what I use I say it's the first name of the 3 mentioned above. Why the cryptic references? Because, as another thread put 'THERE IS CLEARLY NOT ENOUGH UNBIASED INFORMATION ABOUT THE ELATION MOTOR KIT- and MOST OF IT FROM THE OWNER HIMSELF!!' - I do not need to 'burn' this guy really.he has done it to himself.

The rule of thumb is 'SELF RECOMMENDATION IS REALLY NO RECOMMENDATION AT ALL'

I'm 3 months into a battery warranty and I have not used the battery for the last 6 weeks because the owner (Oh I know his name alright *I spits sideways*) decided that was how long it would take to repair .No description of the problem.No apparent remedy. No 'elation' here folks. SHOP AROUND.SERIOUSLY.

Never trust vendor "testimonials" , opinions have to come from real everyday users of any kit or ebike who has no connection whatsover with USA/cANADIAN vendor or Chinese manufacturer.
THERE ARE TWO KIND OF BICYCLES; MADE IN cHINA AND NON-MADE IN cHINA.
I really never understood why people would think $500-600 el. bike kit put on say $500 bike frame would make reliable commuter to work everyday of summer say 200 days a year.
Even traditional good quality bicycle easly can cost $1000, I mean build from first class components.
Wen you add electric partrs it must cost more than $1500.

ULTIMATELY IT DEPENDS WHAT DO YOU NEED EBIKE FOR!!
For occasional pleasure trips in the summer only or do you need ebike for everyday commuting**********
BIG QUESTION..
You cannot make a choice of ebike before answering this question.
If you need reliable transportation and WANT your hands keep clean from constant tightening, udjusting, etc. you need serious kit like E+ or Tidal fORCE, FOR SURTE KIT WHICH COSTS MUCH MORE THAN JUST$500.
I am not connected to them in any way all I know E+ is made in USA and it makes tremandous difference in quality. 2500dol for 750W kit is not too much if you consider how durable and well built it is.
You will get back this 2500dol as gasoline savings in no time.
MC

[QUOTE=miro13car;10668481
Even traditional good quality bicycle easly can cost $1000, I mean build from first class components.
Wen you add electric partrs it must cost more than $1500.
[/QUOTE]

I would disagree you need to pay that much for quality.
$300 can buy a "quality" entry level bike. (aka no walmart stuff.) $500-600 will get you a fairly well equiped bike most places. $1000 is a pretty top shelf bike.

Same deal on the electric kit. You can get into the game for $500-600 for a competent, but slower, heavy, and short range kit. That's from well regarded dealers with generally well received motors. Of course you'll be running SLA and not LiFePo4.

All depends on your expectations I guess.

I roll with a 450 watt E-Zee hub motor w/LIPO4 10AH batteries. I paid <1600 complete from a reputable (highly recommended) online vendor (with a brick and mortar shop in North Carolina). It is installed on a Kona Fire Mountain Xtracycle ~ $500 for the bike + ~400 for the Free Radical attachment.
I have been very happy with their service. I would highly recommend them. I didn't mention the shop by name cause I am not sure if that is allowed. I am not affiliated with them in any way, other than as a satisfied customer. I ride it every night.

famicodo,

First, I hate to burst your bubble--there are women in the e-bike community just like the larger cycling community. It's not a fraternity.

I installed a Currie conversion kit on my mountain bike last July and absolutely love it. It's affordable (cost me $279 from the superkids, that's still their price and they still have free shipping). This 450W non-hub motor in this kit has lots of torque, which I need living in the far northern US Rockies. Since installing this kit, I've put more miles on my bike than my truck. I've actually done other mods to make my bike a little more of a cargo bike, adding a front rack that I can load a basket and panniers on, bi-pod kickstand (love it), fenders, etc.

Like any major purchase, one needs to do their homework before buying. As far as consumer opinion goes, I tend to check multiple forums to see what the general consensus is among a broad group of people. I don't trust ebay ratings, in fact I don't tend to buy things on ebay.

I just built a 24V 20AH LIFEPO4 battery using Thunder Sky cells. I'm extremely happy with this battery's performance and suspect I'll build a second one in early summer since my original SLA is beginning to lose capacity. All-in-all, I'm very happy with my e-bike., then I want it to function as a bike. Those who want a motorcycle experience on an e-bike are likely going to be disappointed.

I think the price on most ready-made e-bikes is too high, especially since most are manufactured to a lower spec for the world market. (The EU and parts of Asia have set significant limits on the power and speed of street-legal electric bikes and these are the specs the big manufacturers build to--you'll get much better performance and probably be happier converting a bike on your own.)

I think electric bikes actually get more people on their bikes and out on the road. The reason is that most people can't pedal a bike at 25 mph. I can get to my mom's house in 15 min where as if I was pedaling on a regular bike, it'd probably take me a good 40 min to get there. Not everyone wants to pedal a bike across town to get somewhere. I'd much rather use electrical power to do it.

Ok
90% MADE in China.
But there is difference between reputable manufacturer having suprvised factory in China and shdowy native low standrts production.
MC

So for $280 I can put this on some 26" bike and have a decent Ebike for the Significant Other, who otherwise won't join me on rides? I know, not legal in NY but I'll take that risk. How much does it weigh?

Probably about 20lb for the 10ah of SLA batteries, and another 9 lbs for the kit as a guess? I didn't see the kit weight listed in the specs, but that's probably in the ballpark.

I agree 100%
It took me a year to decide which kit to buy and when I finally decided to go with Cyclone I knew I had made the right choice. Paco was always willing to answer my questions and when there was a mistake at the factory and I was sent the wrong bottom bracket he fixed the situation and sent me an upgrade along with it. I have never, NEVER, had that kind of service from any other company. If you ask me, Paco has a customer for life and I will refer all my friends to them. Sure I had to tweak the kit to fit my bike a bit, but I was expecting that since obviously they can't make a perfect universal mount.