Electric kits vs. new bike

[Lordylordy]

Hi
Another Newbie here!
I occasionally cycle to work through Richmond Park, London, but I say occasionally as the hills can sometimes be a real killer! (Well, long but relatively steep inclines might be a better description.)
I have been considering an electric bike - to help me out with those extra strenuous bits - but noticed that conversion kits are available.
As I already have a decent bike (a Trek hybrid) - hardly used! - a kit strikes me as an ideal solution.
I think someone mentioned the Currie kit (in a thread), though one of the retailers I contacted says a decent conversion kit will cost £2000 - a bit more than the £350 for the Currie kit!
Anyone got any views on conversion kits?
Or would I be better to just start with a new electric bike altogether?
Which bike I start with is another question altogether??!!
Thanks all for any advice...

 

[flecc]

That retailer was suffering from delusions! Kits run from around £300 to £800 including battery usually, and up to around £500 buys a good one. The problem with kits is that as the bike isn't intended as an electric, it's never quite right. In particular, the heavy battery usually ends up on top of the carrier or hanging from the crossbar with it's weight high up where you don't want it.

Ignoring the junk that's around, a proper electric bike is a better and neater way to do things, especially as good ones start around £500, little different from kits.

A lot depends on how much you want to spend, and remember that these are electric assist, not mopeds, so your assistance will still be required, on hills especially. Some are fully equipped with carriers, mudguards, lights etc.

A £499/£599 fully equipped Powacycle Salisbury with six speed derailleur gear will climb the slopes, but fairly slowly, average journey speed around 12 mph.

A £695 fully equipped eZee Liv with 3 speed hub gear from 50cycles is more powerful and will climb well despite less gears. Average journey speed around 15/16 mph.

A £799 minimally equipped Wisper 905e with 6 speed derailleur is similarly powered to the Liv.

Between £1000 and £1450 there are a number of top grade fully equipped bikes, but their powers vary widely, some more biased to luxury than performance. The eZee F series bikes are the most powerful and fast, while a bike like the Gazelle Easy Glider is beautifully made but quite slow. This last from various dealers, so use a search for one in your area.
.

 

[Leonardo]

On our Italian forum we have discovered a quite good kit on ebay: it is the "nine continent" hub motor sold by a German seller, which is exactly the same motor sold by Velectris in France with the name "phantom" (two o three times the price!). Another seller from Hungary sells the bigger one, called "superphantom" in France.

Compared to a good electric bicycle those kits (provided whitout batteries and front hub only) have of course all the disavantages that Flecc says, but at the moment they are still very cheap and our experiences are not disappointing. May be an useful information for someone having already a good bicycle looking for a first 'electric experience' with a little budget .

 

[danieldrough]

Hi Leonardo.Come va? Have you bought/electrified a Brompton yet?

Is there any chance you could post a translation for the kits you mention?

Regards

Steve

 

[Leonardo]

Hi Steve.
No Brompton yet, but a friend of mine is trying to buy the kit: strangely enough Castles&Mills are not answering to our mails... to much demand maybe?
On the bottom of the Germany eBay page you can find something like an English translation...
I don't have this kit myself, but if you have questions I can ask to the members of our forum who own it.
You can find a bit of discussion about it on the French forum CYCLURBA, LE SITE DU VELO ELECTRIQUE and CYCLURBA, LE SITE DU VELO ELECTRIQUE as well.

edit: You can also read something in English about this motors on the Velectris web site... they offer them with quality control and service and light batteries and modified controllers as well. But at that price, as Flecc says, "a proper electric bike is a better and neater way to do things".

 

[Lordylordy]

Thanks Flecc - have been trawling around the forum this morning and you appear to be the elected master of electric bikes - your advice is very much welcomed!
Reading between the lines, I'd probably be better off statrting afresh with a new bike - I could always sell my existing one.
There seems to have been some very hot debate as to which models are best, but being a great believer in 'you get what you pay for', I'm tempted by one of the more expensive models, rather than be dissapointed by a halfway-house. Would this be the right logic in this market?
Being just over 6ft - and probably around 14 stone, for now! - the Torq seems like a good buy, particularly if I do it on a company cycle scheme. Or then there's the Wisper 950.
I'm not quite sure I understand all the terminology yet, but I think I'd prefer a bike with an accelerator-type grip. I travel about 8 miles each way every day, on a mix of undulating parkland and London traffic, so would feel safer with something that would perhaps allow me to avoid traffic 'mishaps'!
Equally, I potentially have a monster of a hill the minute I leave home, driving up to Wimbledon Common, so I'd need something that could cope with hills.
So many questions, so much to learn - makes me feel young again!
Thanks again for any advice Flecc,
Simon

 

[easycommuter]

Hello

(This is a first posting for me). I converted a normal "sit up and beg" hybrid 12 speed deraillier Raleigh (Jaguar) bike to electric, using a Heinzmann motor, quite a few years ago. I enlisted the help of a local cycle shop, eg. to create a spoked wheel around the hub motor and for getting the throttle mechanism on the handlebars.

A couple of things to bear in mind with taking the conversion kit route, it is relatively easy to convert back again if you need to. I haven't needed to in terms of the Heinzmann motor, which has been excellent, but there are occasions, like taking part in a Charity Bike Ride, when I couldn't get any sponsorship unless I took the motor off Also I don't have space for #2 bikes.

I visited 50 Cycles in Loughborough and was able to ride on a few proper electric bikes there. The thing that made me think twice was that ones I could try, all felt like they were mountain style of bikes. I hadn't realised how comfortable I had got with what I had been using. Obviously this is very subjective and depends on what you get used to.

I keep an eye on the cost of Heinzmann kits (eg. Electric Transport Shop Electric Bike Sales - Shop Online for Electric Bikes, Electric Vehicles and Cycle Accessories) and I know they are not cheap, but their reputation for reliability, in my experience, is well justified.


(Ps. After having been using a throttle for years, I was very impressed with the pedelec option on the 50cycles. I tended to look down on this, but it meant you didn't have to have your hand permanently at angle on the throttle)

 

[danieldrough]

Dear Leonardo

Bene, grazie. Your links were most useful. It would appear from the French sites,that as usual, one doesn't get "something for nothing", the Velectris hub being a selected version of the German one on ebay. Still interesting though.

Steve

 

[Lordylordy]

Thanks Leonardo. All the way from Italy - wow - this is quite a widespread forum!
Must admit, that kit looks fantastic - certainly at that price. However, it looks like it may be a little complicated to fit? And as my German or Italian is non-existent, I could become even more frustrated with the instructions trying to fit it!
Still, as I said, at that price I wouldn't expect the very best, so maybe it's worth a try? I could always sell it on to someone with better engineering skills than me.
Thanks very much again, Leonardo - much appreciated!
I'll let you know how I get on if I buy it,
Simon

 

[Lordylordy]

Thanks Easycommuter - the Heinzmann kits look very professional.
Have now clogged my head with so much research, it's hard to know which way to go!
I think, though, that as I'm prone to messing up even an Ikea construction, it's highly likely that I'd do even more damage with a kit!
I'm interested, though, in your comment about a throttle and a pedelec? Without wishing to sound like a complete berk, what is the difference between the two?
Thanks again!

 

[Leonardo]

My feeling Simon is that fitting a kit properly may require some engineering skills, or at least some fun in technical problem solving... lacking of the first I've never tried to do that, so I cannot say anything about the fitting. As far as I know the people who did it didn't complain about particular troubles though. There are also some illustrated fitting instructions on Velectris web site.
Anyway I think that this kit is valuable as a cheap introduction to electric bikes, but if you are looking for an efficent utilitary pedelec you should follow Flecc's piece of advice, not understimating the problem of the batteries and the question mark about the behaviour of this kit with rain... Actually in Italy we don't have a similar range of mid-price good quality pedelecs, that's why we have to deal a bit with the kits.

 

[Lordylordy]

Sorry to bother you again Flecc!
I've just read in another thread that you say...In this forum alone we've seen a succession of people who've bought a Torq and then been extremely disappointed or very angry about it's hill climb failings, invariably then selling the bike at a substantial loss. Worse still, some spend small fortunes on changing chainwheel, cassette, rear mechanism and other items and still find it unsuitable, so sell at an even greater loss. It's the statement by one magazine that the Torq also created their "Mountain Course" record, when it was their powerful rider who did it in a very flat area anyway, which misled many of them into the purchase, and unwise statements like that need counterbalance if people are not to be caught out.

Looks like you (and many others) wouldn't recommend the Torq. A shame - I thought I may have 'cracked it'! Would you recommend anything similar though - good on hills etc., as per my previous post?
Thanks again!!

 

[flecc]

Hello Simon

The Heinzman kit is indeed a good one, a dated design, but very high quality and expensive.

On the eZee bikes, the Torq is not the way to go for you, due to the hill that you mention. I own one and am in a very hilly area so know it's strengths and weaknesses. The Torq has very high rider and motor gearing, so steep hills are not it's strength, it's geared for speed instead and you would be very disappointed with the assistance on steep hills. A bike with standard motor and rider gearing like the Sprint or one of the F series is best for that.

From the F series, the eZee Forte has one the most powerful motors available combined with the twistgrip control, and can also be switched to pedelec. It has an 8 speed hub gear and would give you the best performance on the hills that you could expect from an electric assist bike.

P.S. Our posts crossed Simon, so as you'll see, your query is already answered!
.

 

[Lordylordy]

Thanks again Flecc.
I rather liked the Torq, but it's obviously no good on hills. I could avoid the hill outside my house by going around it, but this would involve some slightly heavier traffic. The speed and responsiveness of the Torq would be quite good in this, wouldn't it?
Or what if I derestricted it? Would it handle hills better? Do you know what happens if you get caufgt with a drerestricted bike?
Otherwise, I prefer the look of the Forza, but still not sure about this throttle v. pedelec issue. Could you expand at all?
BTW - apparently a new version of the Torq has just arrived in. Do you knoew if this delivers any better hill performance?
Finally - sorry! - how could I measure the gradients of hills? Is there a map source soimewhere?
Thanks again Flecc!!

 

[flecc]

The speed of the Torq is indeed good, but if by responsiveness you mean acceleration, it's not so good initially due to the motor's high gearing. It gathers pace more rapidly from 12 mph upwards, where most bikes do that from about 8 mph upwards. Derestriction doesn't alter the power, it just bypasses the limiter at 15.5 mph, so it doesn't improve the hill climbing.

The latest Torq version (The Trekking) is based on the same arrangement as far as I know, so the hill climbing might not be much better. If it has smaller 26" wheels with the same motor and lower ride gearing it would be a bit better, but still overgeared against other bikes. We'll need to wait to find out the final details on that.

The Forza uses the EAF control which presets the power delivered when you pedal, with nine levels under the rider's control. You can choose low power for economy or high power for performance, and that's what you get when pedalling.

The Forte has the twistgrip OR full power pedelec as two choices.

Here's how to check a hill's incline, my way.

You need a spirit level, you may have one already in a set square or separately, but if not, buy a cheap one from a DIY or tool shop. If you haven't got one, also get an extending rule with centimetres on it. Then get a strip of straight metal or wood and cut it to exactly 50 centimetres long. Tape an expanding rule on one end so that the tape extends down against the end of the 50 cm strip. Tape the spirit level next to it on the top surface of your straight strip and secure it firmly with tape or rubber bands. Here's my one illustrated:

That's your measuring apparatus complete. If the hill you want to measure isn't at home, you can tie that strip to your crossbar to ride to your destination.

Now on a representative sloping part of the hill, rest one end of your strip on the road surface with the spirit level above and the bubble kept centralised. With the other hand, hold the rule extended and vertical against the road directly above the other end of the strip and note the number of half centimetres measured where it meets the underside of the strip right at the end. Thats the percentage measure of your hill, it's as easy as that, just the distance from the road surface vertically to the 50 cm point on the underside of your strip. If it's 5.5 cm, there's 11 half centimetres so it's an 11% hill. Just make sure the bubble is central as you read the measurement.

If you give me the road name on that hill, I can assess it online with Google earth etc.
.

 

[Lordylordy]

Remarkable! I assume you are an engineer, I've also just read about the Qando (I think) that you adjusted. Anyway, can't wait to go out and start measuring hill gradients!
The hill opposite my house is a road called Arteberry Road, in London SW19 or SW20. Any of the roads that go up from Worple Road to the Ridgway in this area would be much the same.
Anyway - the Forza is sounding like my best bet I think. Thank you yet again!
Simon

 

[langtry]

Hi,

Reading from the posts by Lordylordy,I am prompted to add my own thoughts on the subject of which bike to buy,I am most certainly not able to offer anything based on great experience,having only had my Ezee Liv for just over a week,but the comments about weight and height was an interesting one,so maybe just a few details that might prove of some small relevance???

I have been riding my Raleigh classic bike for some years and loved every minute,but with advancing years there seemed to me to be too much puff required,and that has been proving a bit difficult to say the least,

I am 76 years old,6 feet 3 inches tall and weigh 14 stone,(a bit like lordylordy apart from the age maybe/)I am over the moon with my liv,and for a mid priced bike,it is proving to be a powerful and comfortable bike to ride,and not to leave out an important bit,it goes up the inclines,(short or long like a dream,should have had one years ago)as for the hills I am finding that with a little peddle assistance,again,a dream.just love passing the othe bikers standing on their pedals and puffing their lungs out,and wondering to themselves where the heck this old dodger had come from.
I never did get a chance to try an elecric bike before buying,but I have to say that at this stage in the game could not be better pleased,and on a final note,I have to commend the service from 50 Cycles,very quick and efficient,and friendly to boot.


Regards,

langtry

 

[flecc]

Yes Simon, a lifelong engineer in many disciplines.

Those hills aren't too bad and will be easy with the Forza.

Edge Hill will be very easy.

Just the middle steep bit on The Downs will be not quite so easy, but as that's so short this might be your best for sheer ease since the Forza would fly over it on the run.

The dogleg middle section on Arterbury Road eases the climb quite a bit, and it's only the last stretch at the top that will make the Forza work at all.

Certainly no problems though.
.

 

[Leonardo]

Off topics... Flecc, could you please tell me how do you manage to understand the gradient with Google Earth? Is it just looking at the "elevation" figure or is there some kind of trick? (Unfortunately the "elevation" is rather inaccurate in the Google Earth maps of Italy)

 

[flecc]

Hi Leonardo. What I do is use the three times Elevation Exaggeration in Tools, Options in a particular way. As you know, this distorts by putting curvature up at both ends, but what I do is compare it in Google Earth with hills that I've manually measured. From that I can roughly assess the general slope and nature of the hill.

It's a rough method, but it's good enough to assess what it's like for any given e-bike.
.