Jeremy Harris
100 MW
*** Title edited - this will now be the build thread ***
Some background. I use my full sus folder ebike more than any other, it lives in the back of the car and gets used a lot, mainly for fairly short trips around the local city, never more than around 10 miles, mostly trips of maybe 4 or 5 miles. It's great, but despite having an alloy frame it isn't as light as it could be, due to the full suspension, gears that I don't need and a larger than needed battery pack. This makes heaving it in and out of the car a bit of a nuisance.
For some time I've been toying with the idea of building a really light, short range, folding ebike, probably still using a Bafang/8 Fun hub to get a decent bit of performance, but with no gears and no suspension. 20" wheels are a must, anything smaller is going to give a rougher ride than I'd like and make getting a fast enough motor and crank gearing difficult. Ideally I'd like to just buy a bare frame, preferable alloy so I don't have to worry about rust from dings, and then fit just the parts I need. I'll go with a small battery pack, maybe just 5Ah of LiCoO2 LiPo at 10 or 12 S. I'll build up a custom 6 FET controller for it, like the one I have on the existing folder. The idea is to get the weight down from the ~19 kg (~42 lbs) of the existing bike to maybe 12 kg at most if I can do it.
Anyone got any suggestions as to a good, lightweight, but not too expensive, frame choice, ideally in Europe, rather than further away?
Some background. I use my full sus folder ebike more than any other, it lives in the back of the car and gets used a lot, mainly for fairly short trips around the local city, never more than around 10 miles, mostly trips of maybe 4 or 5 miles. It's great, but despite having an alloy frame it isn't as light as it could be, due to the full suspension, gears that I don't need and a larger than needed battery pack. This makes heaving it in and out of the car a bit of a nuisance.
For some time I've been toying with the idea of building a really light, short range, folding ebike, probably still using a Bafang/8 Fun hub to get a decent bit of performance, but with no gears and no suspension. 20" wheels are a must, anything smaller is going to give a rougher ride than I'd like and make getting a fast enough motor and crank gearing difficult. Ideally I'd like to just buy a bare frame, preferable alloy so I don't have to worry about rust from dings, and then fit just the parts I need. I'll go with a small battery pack, maybe just 5Ah of LiCoO2 LiPo at 10 or 12 S. I'll build up a custom 6 FET controller for it, like the one I have on the existing folder. The idea is to get the weight down from the ~19 kg (~42 lbs) of the existing bike to maybe 12 kg at most if I can do it.
Anyone got any suggestions as to a good, lightweight, but not too expensive, frame choice, ideally in Europe, rather than further away?