Local e-bike shops

[Alan B]

Yesterday I made my first visit to a local e-bike shop. I thought it might be fun to share descriptions of similar shops from others.

In my case the shop was HighTekBikes.com in Rohnert Park a bit over an hour away from my home. Terry's shop is open by appointment and he greeted my son and I when we arrived. The shop is small but he had about 20 different e-bikes on display, and various related projects that he was working on. He keeps his inventory elsewhere. I was surprised by the range of bikes he had. He took the time to discuss pretty much each one. I'm no expert on prices but it seemed to me that if one was in the market for a complete e-bike that he had some very good deals. He also has a number of those 155mm wide hub motors that need homes.

We talked about torque arms and the fact that none of the commercial e-bikes (even with aluminum frames) had them. He was interested in possibly making some torque arms so we discussed what I've learned from ES on them and some ideas I had about products that aren't in the marketplace.

All in all it was an interesting visit and my son bought a new helmet for a good price.

Thanks to Terry for taking the time to show us around.

 

[USAEBIKECO]

Local ebike shops is the way to go!

Large corporations don't have quality customer service and their prices are extremely high.

 

[neptronix]

My first experiences with 2 local eBike shops in San Luis Obispo, CA: ( this was in 2008 )

Shop A. was owned by a fuddy duddy guy who seemed to not know much technical stuff & basically parroted the factory specs, trying to sell pre-built bikes. He had no kits for sale. They were all heavy and mostly lead acid. He showed me a bunch of his old hub motors with broken spokes and warned me about modifying the bikes. It gave me a bad impression of eBikes for sure.

Shop B. was owned by some college student with money from his family, he had a somewhat fair grip on the hobbyist stuff but didn't know about geared motors or BMSes. He tried to sell me a large lithium battery with no BMS on it and told me that i didn't need one. Now consider that i was a complete newbie at this point!! .. he also shorted the lithium battery on accident a few times while showing it to me. Yeah - real confidence inspiring, dude!!

He had no eBikes to actually show off & wanted to order me something instead. I got to spin a 9c motor wheel though and didn't like the drag. He said that's just how eBikes are.

So i gave up on eBikes for another year until i found endless sphere. Thank god..

 

[pdf]

Yesterday I made my first visit to a local e-bike shop. I thought it might be fun to share descriptions of similar shops from others.

In my case the shop was HighTekBikes.com in Rohnert Park a bit over an hour away from my home. Terry's shop is open by appointment and he greeted my son and I when we arrived. The shop is small but he had about 20 different e-bikes on display, and various related projects that he was working on. He keeps his inventory elsewhere. I was surprised by the range of bikes he had. He took the time to discuss pretty much each one. I'm no expert on prices but it seemed to me that if one was in the market for a complete e-bike that he had some very good deals. He also has a number of those 155mm wide hub motors that need homes.

Thanks to Terry for taking the time to show us around.

Alan,

I have been dying for a report on the mid-drive bikes they have on their website for a long time. They have a small motor that directly drives the bottom bracket. If you get a chance to check one out, I'd like to hear a report. For my situation, low speed torque is everything and speed is not at all important. Specifically, how much of a hill will one of these go up at any speed with a 160 lb person on board?

 

[Alan B]

Alan,

I have been dying for a report on the mid-drive bikes they have on their website for a long time. They have a small motor that directly drives the bottom bracket. If you get a chance to check one out, I'd like to hear a report. For my situation, low speed torque is everything and speed is not at all important. Specifically, how much of a hill will one of these go up at any speed with a 160 lb person on board?

That's fascinating. Terry asked me if I was the guy interested in the mid-drive. He had one bike that would fit that description that I remember. It was flat black, he said it also came in a brushed aluminum finish as I recall. It had a right angle drive system from the bottom bracket so the motor was angled forward and up under the down tube. It had dual freewheel setup to pedals and motor. I think he said it would climb 18% with 150 pound rider, but I'm not certain about that. The battery was in the rear rack and very compact. I think he said 36V 10AH. He mentioned he was working on more battery capacity for it.

I also spoke with Terry about dual drives. He has had experience with them and he likes them. He set one up (at some point in the past) with a direct drive motor in the front hub that he added to a rear geared drive ebike. Two throttles. He said it worked out very well. You could have the speed of the direct drive, all the pedal gearing that the smaller rear hub allows, and dual e-thrust for those big hills.

 

[pdf]

That's fascinating. Terry asked me if I was the guy interested in the mid-drive. He had one bike that would fit that description that I remember. It was flat black, he said it also came in a brushed aluminum finish as I recall. It had a right angle drive system from the bottom bracket so the motor was angled forward and up under the down tube. It had dual freewheel setup to pedals and motor. I think he said it would climb 18% with 150 pound rider, but I'm not certain about that. The battery was in the rear rack and very compact. I think he said 36V 10AH. He mentioned he was working on more battery capacity for it.

That's the bike. They make a full suspension model and one without a suspension. I don't care about the suspension part. On the website, the black one that is shown is a suspension bike. The website says 18% but it didn't say for what weight. For a hill climber, that bike seems to be a great value. I am perplexed why more people don't have them, unless hill climbing at a crawl is not the main function people want. It typically costs a lot of money to flat out buy or equip a bike that can climb 18% grades motor-only at any speed. I am amazed that he is offering them at the price so I have been curious to see someone with actual ride data. There was a post on here earlier from someone who was looking to convert one to a much bigger motor but for me, I don't need to go 30 mph. Steep hills are my problem.

 

[Alan B]

The other option for steep hills is a dual geared hub drive system. Geared hubmotors are lightweight and climb well, and two of them would be able to handle about 20% I would expect since this would be like each motor handling 10%.

The black one at the shop is full suspension, perhaps it is the one pictured on the site. There isn't much around the shop in the way of hills to test it on, as I recall. It is pretty flat there.

 

[MadRhino]

...There was a post on here earlier from someone who was looking to convert one to a much bigger motor but for me, I don't need to go 30 mph. Steep hills are my problem.

It was me, and I am still interested for their crank drive. The problem is that it is not adaptable to a standard bottom bracket, and their frameset is not suitable for any serious mountain riding. I'd consider building a bike with this crank drive, when they provide a kit. Buying a whole bike, only to cut the bottom bracket and solder it on an expansive DH frame, not even knowing if it's strong enough for a bigger motor, makes no sense.

One guy here on ES has one, NEWB if I remember well. You might want to pm him, to know if it would suit your needs.

Edit: I might as well give my opinion about local E-bike shops here in Montreal.
I visited 3 local shops before building my own, none of them were interested about performance, and they all tried to sell the standard crap, even after I explained my specific needs. Then I found the info here, and I have to thank all of those who took the time to explain and help. Even if you end up buying a ready-made E-bike, the info that you can gather reading here is infinitely better than any E-bike shop sales pitch.

 

[pdf]

One guy here on ES has one, NEWB if I remember well. You might want to pm him, to know if it would suit your needs.

The post I was remembering was by waxman123:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=21129
Don't know if he ever finished it. Felt that the original motor was "gutless" but no particulars. Maybe no top-end, but again, for me, top-end is not a problem. Not sure why bottom bracket systems haven't been more popular. Seens like a good way to go. I really wish I was close to hightekbikes shop. I'd like to give the mid-mount bike a ride. I've designed a dozen mid-mount bikes in my head. I really like having the torque go right into the bottom bracket where you still have the gears.

So in the spirit of the original thread (LBS), in my location there are no LBS that deal with electric bikes in a serious way; the standard underpowered front hubs from a manufacturer, Giant I think. However, I had seen Cycle9 on the web and although they are hundreds of miles from me, I was on a business trip once that took me close. I stopped by and was impressed with the extent to which they embraced ebikes. They sell and service them and can tear down motors, controllers, and batteries to fix them. I was surprised that their actual shop was so small but it was well equipped. They had several set-ups to try. I went in thinking I knew what I wanted, a geared BMC and I did get to ride one, plus a 9cont and an eZee. While I was waiting for them to switch out the 36v battery for a 48v, they asked me if I wanted to try an Xtracycle with a Stokemonkey. I was not enthusiastic about it but I had 10 minutes to kill so I took it out. Unfortunately for my wallet, this was exactly the motor/gearing system I was looking for. So 3 months later (it took me that long to convince myself it wasn't a crazy use of money) I ordered first the Xtracycle conversion, installed it, and rode it about 100 miles. Then I ordered the Stokemonkey and installed it. Cycle9 has supported the product right from the beginning. I can't imagine any business doing better. Since I was hundreds of miles away, they had to deal with me on the phone and via email a lot, which wasn't ideal at times but they've solved every problem I've had. Since I am now out of the warantee period, I'll have to see how I fare but so far, I have no complaints. If you are near Cycle9, which is near Chapel Hill, NC in Carrboro, and are in the market for an ebike, I'd suggest you go by and try some of their tester bikes.