Newbie needs advice

[steveindenmark]

My partner Jannie and I live in Denmark. We are both cyclists and experienced our first ride on electric bikes this weekend at a local bike show. We were both very impressed and would like more information.

Our workshop is full of bikes and we both have almost new and very nice TREK roadbikes so we have decided that we do not need more bikes but a kit that will fit our road bikes with 7ooc wheels.

We would like to keep the use of our normal gears and think that a front hub kit would be preferrable. We have also decided that we do not need a throttle but just to be assisted when pedalling.

I am sorry I do not know all the technical terms but I hope you are still following.

Could someone point me in the right direction for a dealer who could possibly provide what we are looking for?

I have found one bike who`s water bottle is the battery, but they only sell this with the bikes and not in kit form. Are these type of batteries available anywhere else?

We are interested in purchasing a kit as soon as possible and any help would be gratefully recieved.

Steve and Jannie

 

[kitchenman]

I have a Cannondale CX700 with a front hub motor and a bottle battery. I bought the bike from Cytronex. I'm very happy with the configuration which suits my needs very well. My commute is 15 miles. I have done over 3000 miles in 9 months ...
Cytronex do not provide kits yet (unless i've missed something! ) but they are in development.
There are other options which I'l let the other members tell you about!

 

[steveindenmark]

I contacted Cytronex over the weekend as I saw they had a very nice Canondale CAAD9 roadbike. We were actually considering buying one each at a little over £2000 each.

They replied to me telling me they only had one bike of this type left and credit to them they advised me against buying it because their warranty does not extend beyond the UK.


They told me they are releasing the kit form for the international market in "late summer" this year. I thought it was a strange time to release it, surely spring or early summer would have been better.

Theirs is the battery bottle I mentioned in my first post.

I am still looking and would appreciate replies with anyone who has a road bike with electric power.

Steve

 

[wharfitude]

Heinzmann are considered to be high quality (and expensive). Looking at their website (heinzmann.de) they seem to have a distributor for Denmark - who is in Norway, just to confuse things. Their batteries are rack-mounted, not the water bottle type.

I've got happy memories of cycling in Denmark, using a rented Winther bike with one gear and back-pedalling brakes. These may be second nature to continental cyclists but they're really weird for us English! Still the countryside is wonderful and the bike lanes (and considerate motorists) make it a magic place to ride a bike in.

 

[steveindenmark]

Wharfitude...I am "us English" and you are right it is weird.

The Batavus I tried yesterday had one of those pedal backward brakes and I think I would end up killing myself, one way or another, if I had to have one of those.

Denmark is one of the most biker aware and friendly places on the planet. Cyclist certainly are not second class citizens.

One of our MPs even put a bill before parliment which insisted that all wind on cycle tracks had to come from behind cyclists and all cycle paths went downhill.

The same MP also asked for telephones to be placed at all Danish border crossings to be used by potential invaders. There would be an ansaphone message in several languages and would simply say.

"We surrender, we surrender, we surrender" (The Danes, very sensibly, considering their size and geographical position, always capitulate)

Oddly enough, neither bill got passed.

Steve

Steve

 

[Cyclezee]

Hi Steve,

My personal recomendation would be an eZee kit, but if you click the link under my name you see why it would be

Oh, by the way, I am a very big fan of the Danish TV serial Forbrydelsen. The first series has just been shown recently and was very popular.

 

[Hansen]

Hi from a fellow countryman.

If you are looking for a front hub kit with a water bottle battery, have a look at this German page.

Akkus für Elektrofahrräder, Pedelecs und Ebikes

You can order the water bottle option as you specify the details of the kit. They also have some nice looking batteries for mounting on the frame. Unfortunately the bottle batteries are in backorder. Delivery in about 4 week’s time. Their kit uses the Bafang 8Fun motor, which has a good reputation. And particular attention has been made to wires and connectors, looking very neat.

Another possibility is this Austrian dealer who sells what looks like identical batteries with his kits:

Fahrrad & E-Bike Zubehör, Batterien, Ladegeräte: - RFTEC Trend Fun Multimedia Elektrofahrrad Umbausatz

The advantage of this kit is that no cut-off handbrake levers are necessary. The controller cuts off within half a second or so they claim. If your bikes have integrated brake/gear levers, this is a bonus. And the Chinese made brake levers do not work very well with V-brakes.

Both these pages are in German, but I’m sure Jannie will be able to navigate her way through it.

My own experience with pedelec kits is confined to a Sunlova kit which I installed on my cheap city bike over the winter. It’s last years version of the kit and Sunlova seems to have improved it a lot this year. Lighter aluminium rack, console with adjustable assistance and on/off button and a much slimmer pedelec sensor. I’m very happy with mine and ride it a lot. I think this is the cheapest option if you order within the EU. And the Sunlova people have provided super support.

Sunlova Product Page

Hope this helps

 

[steveindenmark]

Thanks for all that information Hansen.

I am still talking with Cytronex in the UK as Jannie and I both like look of the Cannondale CAAD9 roadbike which gets very good reviews even without the electric drive. If you click the Cytronex link you will see the bike we are interested in.

If we do not manage to come to some agreement with them we will be looking at the kits for our TREK road bikes.

Cytronex Powered Cannondale Caad 9 Tiagra Electric Bicycle

Steve