ezee or bionx? I'm a noob

[rsq1]

Hello everyone,

I'm brand new to the forum and don't know much about electric bikes.
I'm looking into a pedal assisted motor. I was told to look at ezee or bionx.
Just wondering how do they compare with each other and any pros or cons to each system?

My goal is for commuting to work as fast as I can.
I'll spend up to $2000 if it's worth the money.
Normal bike pedalling time is about 1 hr with hills.
I also have my motorcycle license so I'm going to be taking off any speed limiter control.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I'm pretty new at this.

Thanks in Advance.

 

[deardancer3]

those are both good systems. Bionx is more bicycle like, Ezee is better on hills.

but start with some basic info; how long is the ride, what type of bike frame, how big is the load, what type of hills, speed and type of traffic, ability to recharge at work?

And where are you located? any local ebike service?

 

[rsq1]

The ride is almost an hour.
I'm putting it on a mountain bike.
I weight about 190lbs
With some moderate hills, don't know exact grade.
through city and residential traffic.
And yes I can recharge at work.
I live in Vancouver, BC, and there are a few ebike shops around.

I've heard good things about both systems and I'm just wondering what might be better for me or more popular?

 

[docnjoj]

I'm no expert on either motor, but I have noticed an inescapable trend in service and aftermarket support. To put it simply, BionX has little or none, and Justin at ebikes.ca (E-zee) has some of the best support in the industry. That would make my decision really easy! Just MHO!
otherDoc

 

[dogman dan]

I agree with that! If the hills aren't extremely steep, you might get a faster ride out of a direct drive motor, like the crystalyte 406 run on 48v. How many miles? I do 15 miles in about an hour with a motor. For a really long ride, it's hard to beat a 20 ah lifepo4. And its a good size for hills too, since the hills put a strain on batteries.

The ezee is a nice motor though, It's on my wish list.

 

[Drunkskunk]

welcome to the forum.

the Bionix and the Ezee are radicly diffrent systems in many respects.

The Bionix is a sealed system ment to augment your abilities, but nothing more. It adds power to your effort by a preset amount. For example, If you set it to add 100% your effort, then you will find it is twice as easy to pedal.... untill the lack of effort reduces your ability and 6 months later you need to add 200% to get the same speed... then 300%.. then 400%, as you slowly get out of shape.
It is a seamless system, and workks well, but if anything goes wrong (and eventualy, something will with any Ebike system) you can only replace the part with a propriatory Bionx part, including the battery.

The Ezee is not as seamless a system. it has a throttle, although a pedal sensor can be added to make it function similar to a bionx. However, the Ezee is more powerfull, better at climbing hills, has a better battery, and isn't propriatory in nature, meaning you can change the system to suit your needs, mixing and matching diffrent parts to get the system best suited to your needs. If later, after using the system, you decide you want to upgrade for more power, speed, range, or operation of the system (i.e. diffrent throttles, or changing to PAS), then its only a matter of swapping the needed parts.

If you get the Ezee, i recomend going through Ebikes.ca. Also known as The Renaissance Bicycle Company there in Vancouver, BC. Probably the best Ebike retailer worldwide for customer support.

 

[deardancer3]

If you are in vancouver, then do some test rides. the feel of these two systems can be entirely diferent.

(I for one find that Bionx dealers are very good about supporting their products. Bionx is not "open source" so you cannot order just anyones parts, only their stuff works, except there are some ways around the battery if you are commmitted)

I support Bionx and EZee among others.

If you want to maintain a bicyle like feel to your ride, it is hard to beat a Bionx 350w 36v Lith kit. But if you have big hills and are not a strong rider, Bionx wont give you the most assist.

If you want speed, power and the ability to modify, stay "open source" as much as you can. This means independantly wired and public interconnect/ specification components. NOT Bionx.
and certainly not Giant. But if you want turnkey and dont want to work on the bike -- these two are worth considering.

As an example if you go with a crystalyte brushed hub motor, you can use almost anyones controller, batteries, throtle etc, as long as they meet minimum specification. want more power- then add a little higher voltage pack. so if you bought a maximum 72v controller and started with a 36v pack and found it a little wimpy, it is not too expensive to add another 12volts and see how you like that.

but do some test rides and see how you like the weight and feel of different philosophies.

I like chain drives, but that is a topic for a different thread where we debate things like red versus green chili .

 

[morph999]

if you want speed and you have hills, you might want the crystalyte 5305 which is a big motor and will need either a big SLA battery or an expensive lipo battery.

If you not many hills or don't mind pedaling up the hills a little, the crystalyte 5303 is one of the fastest hub motors on the market. I just ordered one myself. The crystalyte 5000 series all take a lot more power than the 400 series, though so it's something to consider. You can build a bike for a lot cheaper than you can buy one readily made and it will be a lot faster too in most cases.

I got my 5303 hub motor from http://ebikes.ca

I paid about $780 for everything except the battery.

the 48v crystalyte 406 tops out a around 30 -32 mph so I'm told
the 48v crystalyte 5303 tops out at 36 mph

I think the bionx and ezee tops out at around 25mph but the ezee has great torque and hill climbing ability for less amps/drawing power.

 

[rsq1]

Thanks for all the input and I think I'm starting to understand the different systems a little better now.
I didn't realize that such a popular ebike seller is right here in Vancouver.
I'm going to go by there and pay them a visit this week and see what they recommend.

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

also in Vancouver, u should check out JVBike.
i've ordered stuf from there, tho i've never been in person but they seem to have the widest selection of pre-builts as well as kits i've seen anywhere.

while it's double ur budget so not suggesting it as an alternative, but if nothing else go just for a test ride on the E+ & A2B.
i'd like to know ur impression of how they compare with bionx & ezee, which you can take for a spin as well, so the contrast will be fresh in memory.
i gather part of their business is renting bikes & ebikes, sometimes u can get a good deal on a used one.
so make sure to ask or check in regular with their website if ur taking ur time shopping around while learning what's available out there.
for the battery tho i'd say definitely go with ebikes.ca since they have more experience & do in house assembly & testing.

Actually Vancouver has been leading the nation in ebikes for nearly a decade (as the most mountainous of any metropolitan center of the country, go figure).
there are several other bikes shops that have expanded into electric, but these two would be the largest & most established in the province if not the country by far.

 

[Fishmasterdan]

I live just south of you. North end of Washington state. If you want to ride nice geared system give me a shout. I personal am not a big direct drive fan (like the crystalite stuff). I run the puma stuff. I will be in bellingham today.

Dan