morphix
I'm a keen cyclist and became an e-bike enthusiast after discovering this forum in 2010 and meeting some talented and motivating people here, it's a great community to be part of.
I successfully built my first e-bike with the encouragement and support of forum members in January 2011! It was a 26" mountain bike (a cheap clone of the Dahon Espresso) and one of the first self-builds to have a fancy LCD panel!
In October 2012 I purchased a Mezzo D9 to convert as a second smaller and lighter e-bike. I had by then (completely unknown to me) developed a rare bone disease (PVNS) and had a large tumour in my knee which made carrying my MTB up and down the stairs quite painful and was actually worsening the condition to the point my knee stopped working properly and I needed major surgery which took many months to recover from. Unfortunately at the end of 2014 life dealt me another bad card when I had two grand mal seizures back to back, and suffered massive neurological damage which took a year to recover from.
I'm self-employed and have various business interests which take up a lot of my time so forgive me if I'm often absent from the forum for long periods, however I do return and will usually reply to private messages quickly.
In addition to working full-time, I'm studying part-time for a business degree and BSc as an undergraduate student with the Open University. I absolutely love the OU and studying. I do a different course every year and have been a student for 6 years now..I started out with short science courses and now I've moved to level 1 and 2, degree level course, mainly in business and management. It really has been a great life-changing experience, plus learning new stuff is always good if you want to get on in life!
I'm co-founder and director of CycleCharge Limited (the other being Lynda Graves - her humour, motivation and amazing effort really drove this project forward, as well as all the volunteers and generous forum donators).
About the project: CycleCharge Ltd started in 2010 as an idea, and gradually took shape over the proceeding years. In 2014 it was incorporated into a community-interest non-profit company (limited by guarantee). The aim of CycleCharge is primarily to give e-bike owners access to free public charge points in conjunction with local businesses across the UK. CycleCharge's secondary aim is to promote e-bikes as a sustainable and eco-friendly and community-friendly, affordable means of transport. It's free to join CycleCharge, and anyone is welcome to join as a member, Charge Point, or volunteer! The board of trustee directors is selected by member vote and members help run and make decisions for CycleCharge. It's a kind of social-enterprise experiment! Another aim of CycleCharge Ltd is to design, develop and manufacture a "smart" ever-lasting end-user servicable e-bike battery, which will not only have significant environmental benefits, but will also dramatically lower the cost of e-bike ownership making them accessible to far more people than at present.
To find out more about CycleCharge or join visit: www.cyclecharge.org.uk
My personal hobbies and interests include: art (drawing and painting), creative photography, watching films, antiques collecting, computer programming and forex trading when I'm not building and riding e-bikes of course!
UPDATE: 30 April 2016. It's been over a year since my seizures and recovery has been a slow process but I'm starting to feel back to my old self and able to take on challenges once again! I kept away from the forum last year partly due to my health problems, and partly because I was studying an intensive OU business degree final course which I needed to focus on to score well on. I would have graduated this June, but unfortunately I had to drop out of the course mid-way as I just couldn't cope. Now I'm fully recovered, I will be restarting the course in October, and hopefully graduating next June. Until then, I have lots of time free to return to my passion for building e-bikes so I'll be once again active on the forum!
Before I became ill I was in the process of setting up an e-bike kits and parts business as a side-line to my eMezzo's I began selling. A lot of people on the forum expressed an interest in the idea of "crowd buying" that is, pre-ordering stuff from China which could then be purchased cheaper at trade price and delivered much more cheaply
via sea freight.
Sorry to those who did pre-order or needed items and wondered where I went! I completely forgot about that and meant to post an update. The marketplace (for DIY kits and parts) has grown massively in the year or so I've been away and stuff is now more readily available in the UK at reasonable prices. However, if anyone is interested in buying more specialist stuff, or saving money, I'm still interested in and able to facilitate "crowd buying" via some good manufacturer contacts I established in China. They have sent me their product inventory (which stands at close to 1,000 product lines) which I have meaning to turn into a web-store for them. However with so many products, and so little English information about them, it's quite an undertaking! I think it will take a while to get a fully functional store with pictures. I will start by offering a simple downloadable list of products with prices, and based on demand, I'll add the products gradually one by one to the store so people can see the products. Obviously the custom-made kits and batteries will be of most interest I expect.
MAJOR UPDATE 15/05/16: I'm now launching my own e-bike discussion forum with a DIY/kit conversion focus. There will also be an exclusive "buyers club" giving members a discount card and access to high-quality cheap kits and parts via my new not-for-profit company Pedal Electric Ltd. Work on the site is still underway but you can visit it for updates at www.pedalelectric.com and www.pedalelectric.co.uk.
Cheap Lithium-Ion batteries (custom-made to practically any size/capacity) along with compact laptop-sized chargers are available to order via www.cyclecharge.co.uk / Cyclecharge Ltd, my other not-for-profit company. This new site is a separate commercial spin-off run by myself and Lynda Graves alongside the existing free to join and use Cyclecharge E-bike Charge Point network which you can find at www.cyclecharge.org.uk.
We are in the process of updating the Charge Point website and plan to launch a mobile app further down the line after the site is updated, to make finding and accessing Charge Points easier for members. We also now have key-ring fobs with QR codes for members which you will require when visiting Charge Points. If you're a member and haven't received yours yet, you can request one via the website or just send me an e-mail to paul@cyclecharge.org.uk with your name and address.
I will no longer be very active on the pedelecs forum. As I'm not a trade member on pedelecs and do not wish to upset the site owners, I cannot quote prices for items or arrange sales here, so please direct any inquiries to the sites mentioned or just e-mail me directly if you have a query.
I successfully built my first e-bike with the encouragement and support of forum members in January 2011! It was a 26" mountain bike (a cheap clone of the Dahon Espresso) and one of the first self-builds to have a fancy LCD panel!
In October 2012 I purchased a Mezzo D9 to convert as a second smaller and lighter e-bike. I had by then (completely unknown to me) developed a rare bone disease (PVNS) and had a large tumour in my knee which made carrying my MTB up and down the stairs quite painful and was actually worsening the condition to the point my knee stopped working properly and I needed major surgery which took many months to recover from. Unfortunately at the end of 2014 life dealt me another bad card when I had two grand mal seizures back to back, and suffered massive neurological damage which took a year to recover from.
I'm self-employed and have various business interests which take up a lot of my time so forgive me if I'm often absent from the forum for long periods, however I do return and will usually reply to private messages quickly.
In addition to working full-time, I'm studying part-time for a business degree and BSc as an undergraduate student with the Open University. I absolutely love the OU and studying. I do a different course every year and have been a student for 6 years now..I started out with short science courses and now I've moved to level 1 and 2, degree level course, mainly in business and management. It really has been a great life-changing experience, plus learning new stuff is always good if you want to get on in life!
I'm co-founder and director of CycleCharge Limited (the other being Lynda Graves - her humour, motivation and amazing effort really drove this project forward, as well as all the volunteers and generous forum donators).
About the project: CycleCharge Ltd started in 2010 as an idea, and gradually took shape over the proceeding years. In 2014 it was incorporated into a community-interest non-profit company (limited by guarantee). The aim of CycleCharge is primarily to give e-bike owners access to free public charge points in conjunction with local businesses across the UK. CycleCharge's secondary aim is to promote e-bikes as a sustainable and eco-friendly and community-friendly, affordable means of transport. It's free to join CycleCharge, and anyone is welcome to join as a member, Charge Point, or volunteer! The board of trustee directors is selected by member vote and members help run and make decisions for CycleCharge. It's a kind of social-enterprise experiment! Another aim of CycleCharge Ltd is to design, develop and manufacture a "smart" ever-lasting end-user servicable e-bike battery, which will not only have significant environmental benefits, but will also dramatically lower the cost of e-bike ownership making them accessible to far more people than at present.
To find out more about CycleCharge or join visit: www.cyclecharge.org.uk
My personal hobbies and interests include: art (drawing and painting), creative photography, watching films, antiques collecting, computer programming and forex trading when I'm not building and riding e-bikes of course!
UPDATE: 30 April 2016. It's been over a year since my seizures and recovery has been a slow process but I'm starting to feel back to my old self and able to take on challenges once again! I kept away from the forum last year partly due to my health problems, and partly because I was studying an intensive OU business degree final course which I needed to focus on to score well on. I would have graduated this June, but unfortunately I had to drop out of the course mid-way as I just couldn't cope. Now I'm fully recovered, I will be restarting the course in October, and hopefully graduating next June. Until then, I have lots of time free to return to my passion for building e-bikes so I'll be once again active on the forum!
Before I became ill I was in the process of setting up an e-bike kits and parts business as a side-line to my eMezzo's I began selling. A lot of people on the forum expressed an interest in the idea of "crowd buying" that is, pre-ordering stuff from China which could then be purchased cheaper at trade price and delivered much more cheaply
via sea freight.
Sorry to those who did pre-order or needed items and wondered where I went! I completely forgot about that and meant to post an update. The marketplace (for DIY kits and parts) has grown massively in the year or so I've been away and stuff is now more readily available in the UK at reasonable prices. However, if anyone is interested in buying more specialist stuff, or saving money, I'm still interested in and able to facilitate "crowd buying" via some good manufacturer contacts I established in China. They have sent me their product inventory (which stands at close to 1,000 product lines) which I have meaning to turn into a web-store for them. However with so many products, and so little English information about them, it's quite an undertaking! I think it will take a while to get a fully functional store with pictures. I will start by offering a simple downloadable list of products with prices, and based on demand, I'll add the products gradually one by one to the store so people can see the products. Obviously the custom-made kits and batteries will be of most interest I expect.
MAJOR UPDATE 15/05/16: I'm now launching my own e-bike discussion forum with a DIY/kit conversion focus. There will also be an exclusive "buyers club" giving members a discount card and access to high-quality cheap kits and parts via my new not-for-profit company Pedal Electric Ltd. Work on the site is still underway but you can visit it for updates at www.pedalelectric.com and www.pedalelectric.co.uk.
Cheap Lithium-Ion batteries (custom-made to practically any size/capacity) along with compact laptop-sized chargers are available to order via www.cyclecharge.co.uk / Cyclecharge Ltd, my other not-for-profit company. This new site is a separate commercial spin-off run by myself and Lynda Graves alongside the existing free to join and use Cyclecharge E-bike Charge Point network which you can find at www.cyclecharge.org.uk.
We are in the process of updating the Charge Point website and plan to launch a mobile app further down the line after the site is updated, to make finding and accessing Charge Points easier for members. We also now have key-ring fobs with QR codes for members which you will require when visiting Charge Points. If you're a member and haven't received yours yet, you can request one via the website or just send me an e-mail to paul@cyclecharge.org.uk with your name and address.
I will no longer be very active on the pedelecs forum. As I'm not a trade member on pedelecs and do not wish to upset the site owners, I cannot quote prices for items or arrange sales here, so please direct any inquiries to the sites mentioned or just e-mail me directly if you have a query.
- Birthday
- March 30
- Website
- http://www.cyclecharge.org.uk
- Location
- Worcestershire
- Gender
- Male
- Occupation
- Self-employed
Signature
eBikes: eMezzo, Sinclair C5
Co-founder of CycleCharge Limited
A non-profit community-interest project offering free to use charge points, promoting e-bikes, and providing affordable battery solutions.
