You may have heard of an electric bike before and asked yourself, “what the heck?”

I must admit, it sounds like an odd contraption, adding an electric motor to a bike.

If you are like most people, when you first heard of it, you may have had a reaction of “I don’t need that, I wouldn’t get exercise.”  Or “it would be cheating.”  Or “people would think I’m wimping out.”

I had a reaction like that the first time I heard about them, way back in the early 90’s.  But then the idea wouldn’t leave my mind.  I eventually called up to order one, because I thought it would be nice to have a bit of extra help in my every day commute.  Plus I like trying bleeding edge contraptions.

And I was most surprised by one thing: how fun it was.  Once I was on the bike cruising around with a human-electric hybrid, I quickly lost the notion that it was an odd contraption.  I really liked it.

The thing I realized is that it was so fun that it encouraged me to bike more often.  I started biking lots of places instead of driving, because the bike had become so much more fun.  Especially in the hills.

Many people who come in the shop have the same reaction as my first one (and perhaps yours): what the heck?

But for those that overcome the reaction and try one out, they almost always come back from their first e-bike ride with a big smile on the face.  It is a transformational experience.

I don’t know what it is.  It is more than a decade later, and I still have trouble explaining why it is so fun.  It just is.

Maybe it is because I can readily cruise up the hills, even if I’m tired or it is hot outside.

Maybe it is because I feel like a much stronger biker (sort of like being bionic).

Like you may have, sometimes I’ve wondered whether I get enough exercise.  But I can spend months only riding the electric bike (no gym, no other exercise to speak of), then get on my road bike and ride very fast.  I seem to stay in good shape.

I know a lady who bought an e-bike kit to put on her bike, and enjoyed it so much that she rode every day, loosing 80 lbs.  She must have been getting some exercise.

It seems to encourage me and many others to ride their bikes so much more, that we get a lot more exercise than we would otherwise.

When you buy a car, do you look for the most spartan, uncomfortable car possible?  Or do you go for a car that will transport you around with plenty of power and in comfort?  If you are like me, you prefer having a bit of power and comfort.

But people are funny.  When it comes to buying bikes, I encounter many people who think they should buy a bike that forces them to work hard all the time.  Maybe that’s why a lot of those bikes sit in the garage unused.  If you have to work hard every time you get on the bike, you might not be so inclined to use it.

But if it is always fun to use, you might be more likely to use it.

That’s why I think electric bikes are great.

If you are someone who goes out and rides 50+ miles on your bike on the weekends for fun, you don’t need an electric bike.  But if you think that 10 miles is a long distance to go on a bike, then you may be the perfect candidate for an electric bike or hub motor kit.

Electric bikes

Electric bikes are made from the start to incorporate the electric features.  The main difference from a regular bike is that they usually have a spot for a built-in, lockable battery, like on this bike:

That’s the battery behind and under the seat.  Looking at this bike, you might not have even realized that it was electric.

You can control the power with a throttle on the handlebar.  If you just want to pedal, you can leave the throttle in the off position.  If you want full power, you just twist the throttle all the way.  If you want just a bit of power, you twist it a bit.  You can use any combination of pedaling and/or motor power that you want.

Electric hub motor kits

Electric hub motor kits are meant to be added onto your own bike.  They come in front wheel and rear wheel versions.  They are great if you already have a bike that you like, but want it to be electric.  The work just like a regular electric bike after installation, with the same kind of throttle activation.  You can still ride it just like your bike, or you can turbocharge your ride using the throttle.

With either the electric bike or the e-bike kit, when you get to your home or office, you just plug in the battery for a charge.  It only costs 1 to 2 cents to charge up, and usually takes about 3-4 hours.

Most of these can go around 20 miles per charge, though if you like to pedal a lot, you’ll probably get more than that.  If you’re really not into the pedaling thing all that much, then you might get just 17-20 miles.  That’s still a pretty good distance.

If you’d like to check out some of our offerings, you can have a look at our pre-made electric bikes in our online store.  Or if you are more interested in an electric bike conversion, have a look at our electric bike kits here.

Installing freewheel (this one is a six speed, but it can take up to eight):

Freewheel installed with the three washers: dropout positioning washer (a rudimentary torque arm), flat washer, and lock washer:

Installing rim tape to prevent spoke holes in tube. We like cloth rim tape.

Bike with Xtracycle upside down, ready for BMC hub motor:

Tightening down the axle bolts. Make sure to get them very tight, or spinouts can occur, which can tear the phase wires. Also, make sure washers are totally flat against the drop-out area. If not flat due to some protrusion, you’ll either need to use a different/smaller washer, or use a tool (e.g. Dremel) to grind down the protrusion on the dropout

This shows the derailleur side, with a six speed freewheel (up to eight are usable with the BMC):

Controller, taped to the stay of the Xtracycle. It is good to mount the controller outside, against the frame, because the frame acts as a heat sink:

Plugging everything together. This shows the primary motor phase wires being plugged in. There is only one way this connection will fit together (the right way!):

Installing the thumb throttle. The BMC kit comes with a standard thumb throttle that includes a power light and basic battery charge indicator light. The install is pretty straightforward, though with certain types of shifters, there can be interference issues that need to be worked out. Picture shows tightening down the set screw with a 3mm hex key:

After putting a new wheel on, usually it is necessary to re-adjust the rim brakes for correct alignment and toe-in. If you ignore this step, the pads may squeal, or worse, rub on the tire and destroy it. This step does not apply to disc brakes (there’s a different set of issues with those). The BMC does come ready for disc brakes, though we haven’t yet tried that feature.

The installed BMC 450W Puma motor in the Xtracycle Freeradical:

The bike put back together. Note that it still has my original (large) Crystalyte controller as well. I took that off later after confirming that the BMC controller did indeed work:

I’ve now used this on my bike for several days, including daughter carrying, and other moderate loads. I have about 40 miles on it so far. I am powering it with some Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFEPO4) batteries at present.

Overall, I am impressed. It has good torque and good hill climbing. It is very efficient, and quiet. My watt-hours per mile are pretty low using this – around 13 wh/mi the first 20 miles, then around 16 for the last 20 (when I was carrying my daughter and in a hurry). It is very similar in overall “feel” to the eZee, though perhaps a bit more quiet. I’m not so excited about the thumb throttle, just because I prefer twist throttles. But installing a different throttle should be straightforward. Anyway, I didn’t measure the weight before putting it on the bike, but it feels very similar to the eZee, which is around 10 lbs for motor + wheel (significantly lighter than Crystalyte motors). I will measure the weight of the next one we build up.

Top speed was actually a bit better than expected, depending on the voltage of the battery pack (i.e. whether it was just charged, or not). At 38V, the top speed was around 23 mph, and at 34V, it was more like 21mph. The power curve “feels” fairly flat (a good thing). For two days’ riding over hilly terrain, on the Xtracycle, carrying my daughter (45 lbs) half the time, I averaged just shy of 18mph (including a fair number of stop lights and signs). That is a respectable number.

It does have a “soft-start” feature, meaning that when the throttle is activated, it takes 1/2 second to start going, and then ramps up a bit slowly at first. This was apparently implemented for safety reasons (and it also helps conserve battery). Some customers will like it, others will hate it. For those who don’t like it, we’ve been informed that it is a simple modification to the controller to get rid of it, and let the motor just “take off”.

The only issue I noted on the first day was that when the battery voltage got low (< 31 V), the motor seemed to "chug" or struggle. I think this was the low voltage cutout happening to protect the battery. It only happened at higher currents (> 13A). It was possible to avoid it by taking it easy on the throttle. That’s probably a good idea anyway when the battery is getting low (especially NiMH or lead acid, which can be damaged if over-discharged).

For the technical crowd, peak Amps from the controller was ~21, and peak Watts was about 790. This is a nice mid-power range.

We are building these up with beefy 2.0 mm spokes, brass nipples, and Sun Rhyno Lite wheels. We like these wheels because they are pretty solid and cost effective.

Now, for those patient or interested enough to wade through all that, here’s the scoop on availability. We will be selling some in limited quantities at an introductory price of $550, for wheel/motor, controller, and throttle. After we are happy that all is good with these, we’ll raise the price. To get one at this price, you’ll need to convince us that you can handle a “beta test,” meaning that until we have more experience with reliability, there could be down time or other issues. We’ll of course back up problems with warranty, but we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to Fedex you the fix by the next morning. You’ll also need to be technically inclined enough to do installation and basic troubleshooting (or, if you are a local customer around the Triangle, we can do that stuff).

Right now, we have 3 of the rear motors available, two being built into 26″ wheels, and one into a 700C wheel. If you want to get your hands on one, please drop us a line. We’re pretty excited about having another nice, lightweight geared hub motor to offer. And if it stands the test of my use, that’s saying something… (I am pretty abusive on gear, and also picky).

Morgan