What is the best wheel size for ebike via your experience ?

bahaa.zahika

10 mW
Joined
May 23, 2015
Messages
21
What is the best wheel size for e-bike via your experience ?
Share you ideas and thoughts.
I've started with 26 inch wheel and I really think it was a very bad choice.
 
Okay, that last sentence makes a great point: WHY were they a bad choice? Someone who wants a small folding bike will like the 16" wheels a lot better than some of these people talking about topping 40mph. Tell what the purpose of the bike is and it's easier for people to offer opinions. Which is largely what they'll be.
 
I want to reach high speeds, and I want them to bare a high load 26 inch rims break so easily and spokes get lose easily too I've heard the small sizes are better
 
For high speeds, which I define as above 35mph, you should be looking towards a motorcycle rim and tire. Or similarly, high speed scooter tire if you choose a smaller wheel.

Sure, better bike rims, spokes, and tires can go faster than 35 mph, but long term durability is needed if you will ride that fast regularly, on trashy bumpy streets.

At sub 35 mph, I found suspension helps a lot with rim and spoke breakage. So does making the rear of the bike longer.
 
Perhaps you need moto stuff but you haven’t stated any actual desired speeds??? 20, 30, 40mph?

At any speed, I’ve yet to see a Chinese hub motor wheel build worth the difference in money it costs to ship it.

I would advise anyone to not make a final judgement about rim/spoke longevity until they’ve tried a decently built hub motor wheel.
 
My first and third bikes were 29ers. I found the large wheel rolled much better and gave a great ride. But everything else has been on 26" with fatter tires. I've found they work better over a larger range of situations.

But none of that has anything to do with your problem. If your wheels are breaking at higher speeds, it has nothing to do with their size. Bicycle wheels were designed to handle human power at speeds humans can power them. Anything more will over stress the wheel. A well built, high quality wheel will take more abuse than some walmart toy bike wheel, but no bicycle wheel will do as well as a motorcycle wheel, if you're powering your bike to motorcycle power levels.

Tell us what you're riding and how, and what kind of failures you're having. Someone here has probably been there and done that, and can tell you how to make what you have work better.
 
bahaa.zahika said:
I want to reach high speeds, and I want them to bare a high load 26 inch rims break so easily and spokes get lose easily too I've heard the small sizes are better
Sounds like another China built wheel just like what I was saying to this guy.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=71099#p1128252
Its not the wheel size but the rim/spokes and build quality of the wheel, you will find people here with 700c/29er wheels with 1500w motors on them doing 100km/h with no problems to people with tiny wheel builds with no problems, but they all take the wheel build very seriously.
When I took my China built wheel to my local Trek store to see if they could fix it their eyes popped out of their head like I never imagined possible, wish I had a gopro strapped to my chest or something as it was the closest thing I have ever seen in terms of some ones eyes really popping out in natural pure shock, they were not putting any acting on. They said my wheel had serious liability issues, I fully rebuilt my wheel my self, but I had to use new rim and spokes.
 
My experience is that the smaller wheel is better. Here's why:

My first E-bike had 28" wheels, because this is the size that I use for a normal bike too. And I though it will be faster than a small wheel. And yes it was fast, at 48V, the max. speed was around 50km/h with a 500W controller. Then I tried a stock 300W E-bike which looks like a scooter, it has 18" wheels and damn, even with the weak stock controller, it had much more torque and had better throttle response, because smaller wheel has better torque. So I started using the E-scooter instead with the 500W controller, it pops wheelie from standstill and from 52V 33Ah, it gets me up to 40km/h in a few seconds. You can still go fast with small wheels and still have great torque if you increase the voltage. I did some test with that E-scooter, I bought a 108V controller, so I was able to test those 18" wheels with 96V. It had impressive torque even with those heavy SLA batteries and the max. speed was 70km/h! The 28" wheel with from 84V got me up to speed 70km/h too, so the voltage was lower, but it was really weak and the motor got warm, because the large wheel is really ineffiecient. If you use ebike.ca's motor calculator, you can find out, at around 75km/h, the larger wheel will actually be slower, when everything else is the same. But the smaller, 16" will be slower too, the optimum is the 20" wheel.

So that's why my new E-bike will use 20" wheels, all suspension frame and a 104V 33Ah battery pack.

Also, higher voltage requires less current, and it will be better for the battery pack and for the cables too. If you double the voltage, you will only need half current to maintain the same speed so you will have a better range.
 
Back
Top