Freway E-bike on Kickstarter

[bikeyMikey]

Hi, Has anyone here seen the Freway E-bike on Kickstarter? I was hoping to get some professional advice regarding whether the specs on this bike are realistic. They are quoting 30MPH speeds and 70mile range on a 36v/5.2ah battery and a 36v/250w motor rear wheel drive. I do not own an e-bike but I would like one. I am not mechanically minded so would purchase off the shelf but good bikes seem real pricey beyond my budget. This one seems like a good buy your thoughts and opinions will be considered and appreciated.

 

[rojitor]

Don't forget the link pal.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ifreway/freway27-speed-pedal-assist-smart-ebike-at-499

 

[amberwolf]

They are quoting 30MPH speeds and 70mile range on a 36v/5.2ah battery and a 36v/250w motor rear wheel drive.

Specs sound like outright lies, far past exaggeration, unless you're riding downhill in a hurricane and are a hell of an athlete to pedal it for nearly all of the power, for both that max speed and that range.

I can't imagine it could possibly get either that range or that speed unless the rider is doing most of the work--certainly couldn't do it by just motor power.


You might want to look at the ES wiki (linked at the top of each forum section) for some links to simulators that can help you understand how much power it takes to go different speeds.

There should also be some info there on efficiency, usually listed as "wh/mile" or "wh/kilometer", that can help you understand the range you might reasonably expect to get for a given battery pack (at a given speed, in various terrain/traffic conditions).

There are also threads about that, but I don't have a link and I'm not sure what search terms you might use that will actually pull up, so the wiki is the first place you might check out.

For a bike with much more realistic numbers, you might look at the Maxwell EPO (Grindz, Troy Rank) thread and kickstarter project.

 

[dogman dan]

Please show me where they say 30 mph. I don't see it at all.

I see where they say 60 mile range, which can be done. Simply a matter of riding with the motor off.

Way too many vendors use stupid tests to get their range claims. FWIW, the company I work for used real world tests I did myself, riding up and down short but steep hills. So we don't go around claiming 60 miles from any of our stuff.

So lets postulate you pedal about 100w. and then use 250w on the motor. Speed will be 18mph ballpark. 36v 5.2 ah is about 190 watt hours. So you won't quite run for one hour at 250w. Call it about 15 miles max on the flat.

On any kind of hill, or headwind, 250w won't do shit, so riding in most peoples real world, call it about 6-7 miles of range. 6-15 miles is what that bike will really do, if you actually use the motor at full throttle.

 

[bikeyMikey]

Here is a link to the freway web site where they give the 30mph stats http://www.ifreway.com/ebike. I am really disappointed to hear they fudged the figures.
I was getting my hopes up that I found an E-bike that could get me the range I need and that was within my budget, as before your thoughts and opinions will be considered and appreciated. Thank you.

 

[DAND214]

The bike looks ? ok ?
Throw away the rest and start over.
That is the only way to get what they claim.

Dan

 

[Miles]

I used to work in a very congested place, the daily commute is a kind of torture. One day, one of my colleagues recommended me to ride a bike, trying a few days later, I found that it is easy to cross congested and the feeling was fantastic, so I fell in love with bike.

Many years passed,although I had not worked there. But the city is more and more crowed, I has no way to use bike as transportation within the city. Because of this, I want to add the installation of the motor to the traditional mountain bike, now we realize our dreams and created Freway. I think, even if the day I am too old to ride the bike, I will not forget the fantastic feeling of riding a bike beyond traffic.

English is obviously not their native language.......... I wonder if this is a Chinese company marketing through Kickstarter?

 

[dogman dan]

Or it could be from Uzbekestan, Nigeria, etc. No telling these days unless you do business with those you know. Which is where a site like ES comes in. Be a cold day in hell when you see the top guys on ES recommending this offer. Fairly obvious that something is put in a box in china, and drop shipped.

But in their defense, I still see no claim that it goes 30 mph on motor only. Or that it goes 60 miles at 30 mph. You said that, not them!

Obviously any bike geared as that one is can be pedaled to 30 mph. They don't say 30 mph on motor only at all.

This is not unique to these guys with a 500 buck crowdfund ebike. READ THE ADS CAREFULLY. Though we (E bikekit) never claim that kind of range, it's not a lie. We could easily put our kit in level one assist, which is about 50 watts, and ride it 100 miles on a 48v 10 ah battery.

It would be stupid as a bag of rocks to do that though, because the added weight of the motor and battery takes about 100w to move down the road at 15 mph. Level 2 is reasonable though, because it cancels out the weight of the motor and battery on the flat, and then full power is available to help you up hills. You can ride any ebike unbelievable distances if you are willing to use only 100w or so on the flats, saving the battery for the hills. But if you have rolling hills, then about 25 watt hours per mile for 15-20 mph is the norm.



Good deal for just the bike? No, but just about bike shop MSRP for something similar.

 

[amberwolf]

I see where they say 60 mile range, which can be done. Simply a matter of riding with the motor off.

If the motor is off, it's not part of the "range" of a motor kit or ebike.

It's just part of your regular pedal range, which is completely up to the individual and their terrain, traffic conditions, weather, etc. :/


As soon as one starts claiming *any* range tested without the motor, or with insufficient motor use to *more than* cancel out it's existence, allows one to claim infinite range...because now they are just talking about a heavier bicycle that has the potential to help the rider out in some situations for a limited time...but said time no longer has anything to do with the "range" and the specs become irrelevant and unusable to judge usefulness / suitability of purpose.

I would cry foul for any ad for a motor system on any bike that includes as "range" anything that isn't having the motor provide at least enough power to be greater than that required to overcome it's presence on the bike under the conditions tested (and that doesn't state the test conditions).

 

[DAND214]

It's just part of your regular pedal range, which is completely up to the individual and their terrain, traffic conditions, weather, etc. :/

AW, we all know most of us can't pedal 100 miles! Maybe a few miles for me and a few more from another ES member is how we could do 100 miles.

Dan

 

[The fingers]

It's just part of your regular pedal range, which is completely up to the individual and their terrain, traffic conditions, weather, etc. :/

AW, we all know most of us can't pedal 100 miles! Maybe a few miles for me and a few more from another ES member is how we could do 100 miles.

Dan

Even in my 30's, a 50 mile pedal outing was about it for me, on the trusty old High Sierra. Now at 60, a 10 mile pedal outing would be a major undertaking, even with few hills.

 

[amberwolf]

And I myself presently have a pedal-only range (even on a normal bicycle) of perhaps a few yards to a few hundred, much of the time. :/ (If I feel better than normal, I might make it a few miles with enough rest stops and enough time (couple of hours, probably). )


So there is part of the point: each person is different in their capabilities, so you can't count their contribution as part of teh "range" of the bike for specification claims.

That's *the person's* range.

An ebike motor/battery system has a definite range under whatever conditions are chosen, that would be repeatable with each bike of that same design/setup.

That's *the bike's* range.


Speed is similar. I can't pedal hard enough much of the time to go a few MPH, if that, on a regular bike (regardless of gearing), even for the time I *can* pedal. So I can't really add anything significant to the motor's own speed, so I'm limited pretty much to whatever speed the motor can reach.




So in my case, the bike would have just the range and speed of the battery/motor alone.

If the "specs" of the bike don't state what that is, then people like me wouldn't be able to know if they could even use the bike...and since almost none of the bikes I've seen spec pages for ever actually state things in a clear honest way that does *not* include the rider's input (hidden or not) somewhere in there, most ebikes would be out of the running for any consideration for purchase for those of us that need to know what it can actually do.

(that's assuming the buyer isn't knowledgeable enough to figure that out just from the motor capability, battery type and capacity, and controller capability, etc...a fair assumption since few potential ebikers can do that outside of forums and groups of DIYers like ES).

 

[bikeyMikey]

Thanks all for steering me in the right direction.
I think you have all saved me a lot of angst and $. For that I am very grateful .
I will spend some time looking over the links you gave and try to learn more about batteries and motors, power and range so I don't go in all blind and gullible :?

Kind Regards bikeyMikey 8)

 

[kimboviper]

another alibaba bike on kickstarter/igg the same as sondors/wave..... more noobs falling for it... i think im gonna go to china and find me a $400 bike and sell it for $550