front wheel hub vs Rear wheel hub motor

[oznav]

Hi guys,

i hope i am posting this in the right place.

i am watching this wonderful board for some time and learning a lot .

I am considering placing an order for the Motor Kit - magic Pie 1000W .

I am living in an area with many hills some of them may be even considered as "steep" .

Before clicking the button i am not sure whether should i go for the front wheel kit or the rear one ?

what will be the difference in performance and general feeling ?

(The reason i want to go for the front wheel is it seems much easier to install without destroying the original rear setup of my specialized mountain bike)

 

[torker]

Usually a rear kit will only fit 6 or 7 speeds. A front kit is ok if you have steel lowers. You can put them on alum. or magnesium but you MUST have a good fit AND run torque arms. Welcome to the forum. Do a search for this subject and you will get lots of info.

 

[ajtest]

I had a front Golden Motor clone on a hybrid bike and it was OK with 36V and a 24A controller except that up steep hills - say 10-12% the front wheel motor would soon start to spin resulting in quite a lot of tyre tread loss. I reckon I went through one every 500 miles or so.

In the end, having read a lot of the posts here, I felt that the possiblity of a short on the phase wires resulting in a sudden breaking of the wheel, whilst bad on the rear wheel, was something completly to be avoided on the front. Hence I have gone for a rear wheel setup on my most recent build.

Andrew

 

[ebikes-sf]

I generally prefer rear vs. front hub motors, especially for 500 Watts + motors. My view:

Front hub pros:
- better front to rear weight distribution
- allows to have rear gearing system unchanged, big plus for bikes with rear internal gear hubs
- will not pop wheelies on sudden acceleration (this should actually be under 'cons' )

Front hub cons:
- interferes with steering, adds feel of heaviness most noticeable at lower speeds
- less stealth, front motors stand out more than rear; wires running along front fork usually to the back of the bike
- not enough traction going up steep hills especially on wet and/or loose pavement, especially true for high torque motors like BMC
- need of a torque arm
- more frame vibration compared to rear, and more stress on fork legs and bearings

ilia

 

[dogman dan]

Front hubs are my favorite for pavement riding up to 10% grade. Steeper than that, wet, or on dirt, then I demand rear hub. But they can be a bit trickier to install, if the dishing is not quite right, or disk brakes are involved.

It doesn't bother me if a front hub starts to slip, it just means I have lousy throttle use for the situation. Wheel spin on a front hub is no harder to controll than on a rear, but a front hub may spin more if you use too much power. But in dirt, the wheel does tend to spin a lot less with a rear hub, since the weight shifts to the back wheel on a steep hill.

 

[Spacey]

Hi guys,

i hope i am posting this in the right place.

i am watching this wonderful board for some time and learning a lot .

I am considering placing an order for the Motor Kit - magic Pie 1000W .

I am living in an area with many hills some of them may be even considered as "steep" .

Before clicking the button i am not sure whether should i go for the front wheel kit or the rear one ?

what will be the difference in performance and general feeling ?

(The reason i want to go for the front wheel is it seems much easier to install without destroying the original rear setup of my specialized mountain bike)

Hi,

I have a Magic Pie wheel... loads of torque and about 23 to 24 mph on 48volts. If you are expecting to get up hills unassisted then I suggest getting one from the Canadian distributor wired up for an external controller as the internal one that comes with it is a bit weak to put it lightly.

I use a 40amp Infineon controller but to be honest the Infineon 30amp will do just fine up the largest of hills. It is a very torquey motor for sure when you throw some amps at it. It has given my next door neighbour a hernia when I modded the original controller for over 70 amps, far too powerful.

 

[Drunkskunk]

Front VS Rear is a matter of personal prefrance most of the time. If you prefer frontwheel drive cars, you're likely to prefer front wheel motors.

 

[ronipozn]

Hi,

I've written a page about all kinds of motor configurations.
Here is the link: http://www.electric-bicycle-guide.com/electric-bicycle-motor.html

I hope it will be useful for you.