Drunkskunk is right about the lawyers, but wrong about the handling. When a front tire skids, you are much more in controll if you can power up the front wheel and grab traction. But there are definite differences in how fronties and rear hubs handle on different bikes, different riding etc.
For example, on the street. Say you lock up your front wheel braking and lose traction and skid. You are screwed, pretty much. You can't steer, and nothing is going to get that wheel back in controll. You are either layin it down, or at least gonna skid in a straight line till you hit something or stop. It won't matter if you are front hub or rear in this situation.
Again on the street, say you are cornering, off the throttle, off the brakes, and hit something slick like a sand patch or water. Chances are you are screwed again, but if you are badass, you might peg the throttle and grab enough front wheel traction and get back in controll. Better still, had you cornered correctly, braking on the straight, and grabbing throttle as you enter the corner, you would never have skidded in the first place. More likely you would have just had a squeak of slippage and then regained traction. Don't misunderstand, unless you rode a lot of two wheelers for decades, you may still shit your pants when the front wheel skids, but you may have no problem with the slick spot since the front wheel is pulling you through the corner. It just works, but not if you corner stupid, and use the front brakes during the cornering. The same situation with rear hub, you may be able to power out of it, using the rear tire, but it will require some badass riding skills.
Now on the dirt, a front hub is gonna act very differently. It's dirt, breaking traction and regaining it is only part of the fun. With a front hub, on flat terrain, you can spin that tire through all the corners and just enjoy it. Just like you do with a rear hub. Sure it feels different, buy drifing is drifting, and if you know how, it's just not that wierd to do it on the front wheel.
Once you get on steep dirt hills though, then the front hub gets very disadvantaged. The weight all shifts to the back wheel, and you start spinning the rubber off the tire pretty fast if it's rocky. You get some assist, but you have to really charge your body onto the handlebars to get the wheel to grab. On a moderate slope, it kicks ass to have the rear wheel grabbing from pedaling and the front wheel grabbing from the motor. But get above 15% and you will start just spinning the tire getting nothing out of it. On the other hand, both the rear hub bikes I've taken on the same trails would wheelie me off the thing on a long enough 15% grade in the rocks. Nowdays when I ride those toughest trails, I just take the Giant, and pedal it. The lightness of the good fs mtb is better than a motor.
Back to the forks discussion. Pete may want to replace his forks with a mtb, or bmx type fork if his are very petite. Surly makes a good one I hear. Just something with big flat plates of steel for dropouts instead of a lightweight cup typical of a good road bike. If he's using a tourqe arm and has filed away some of the washer or some of the lawyer lips, or filled the gap with a c washer he's got little to worry about, but I like to use a beefy looking dropout when I mount a frontie for peace of mind.
When I broke my collarbones it had nothing to do with the motor, so you guys with rear hubs aren't exacty 100% risk free either. But I do agree, an axle spinout, or nuts working loose on a frontie is a nightmare. Frequent pre ride checks are mandatory no matter where your motor is mounted.
I would love to see the bike industry wake up and make a front hub motor specific suspension fork. Something with 80 mm travel and steel lower sections. All they would have to do is take an entry level fork, and make a set of steel lowers for it. RST could then sell a million of em to put on wallbikes. I got lucky one day at the flea, and found an old mongoose with steel suspension forks. It has about 50 mm of usable travel, vs the 20 -30 mm of usable travel on my comuters cheapo suspension forks. One thing about the cheap steel suspension forks though, they do have a stout dropout. I never once had a nut work loose on those forks.
:? 8) :lol: 
:wink: 
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