Noob needing a bit of a help with Ebike

[apmaman]

Hey im new to electric bikes and ive been reading this forum for a while and ive decided to sign up and ask a question.

I do a small daily commute of about 5 miles there and back, but theres a fairly short, but steep hill which is a killer!
With petrol prices shooting up im wanting to keep my car for when its really lashing it down and longer journeys.

I dont want to spend more than £500, but if a bike that is slightly over that but much better than the rest I might be able to strech

I've narrowed my choices down to these bikes.
CYCLAMATIC POWER PLUS

or

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/E-Bikes-Electric-Mountain-Bike-Yellow-Black-MEGA-DEAL-/110603574286?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item19c07c9c0e After looking around this bike it made by a company that make QuadZilla quad bikes, which are amazing quads, so I have high hopes.

or

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ELECTRIC-BIKE-MOUNTAIN-E-BIKE-BICYCLE-FULL-SUSPENSION-/310275926398?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item483de2e97e

I've read a lot about alien ocean bikes, particularly the Mistral and also the Auora but is it worth 2x as much?

I'd like something that has a rear rack so I can carry college work/waterproofs etc with me at all times.

So what is your advice? I'm not to keen on making my own kit because I'm not too savve with what looks like a very technical process to making your own Ebike conversion.

Cheers!

 

[MadRhino]

You'd have to be more precise, as how steep is the hill, and how long it climbs.

If it is steep as what I consider steep, no 250w hub motor setup can survive riding it. :|

 

[John in CR]

Disc brakes, more secure forks, rear suspension, longer wheelbase are worth much more than the extra 100 pounds, and I think that bike has a better and longer upgrade path. I'd only consider the cheaper one if the roads you will use are perfect. Keep in mind that you are looking at near bottom tier ebike pricing, so the potential for needing to trouble shoot problems is significant. Don't worry though, ebikes are very simple machines. If you don't already have them, you'll need basic bike tools and a multimeter.

 

[apmaman]

The hill is about 1/4 of a mile long which slowly rises for the most but then sharply gets to about 1:5 at the top within about 200m.

I'm pretty handly with a spanner,but reading all the customised bike builds it seemed like I'd need a degree in electrical engineering to get these things working! ( Although how hard would it be for a noob to string it all together? I see all these conversion kits on ebay, but I guess most of them are fairly rubbish. What would I need, and wheres the best place to go around getting a kit if I were to buy a normal push bike. It seems like a cheaper solution)

The roads I use are all good for cars with very little actual offroading. The bike will mostly just be used on main and side roads. Although I'd probably take it for a spin around cycle paths and that more often becaue i want to try and get a bit fitter without throwing myself into the deepend. (I still have a lazy mind set! haha)

The cheaper ones all have a 24v battery and motor, while looking at at Alien Mistral that uses a 36v battery and motor. More volts more power? so better potential hill climbing?

 

[neptronix]

Um wow, those are good prices, but the companies.... ???

You don't need to be an electrical engineer to figure out how to get a kit working, really. Some of the electronics gurus on here may be off-putting by responding with a rube goldberg machine explanation of a newbie question, but it is actually pretty damn simple. Spend some time reading posts..

My recommendation is to always build your own eBike so that when it breaks, you know what's going on with it. If you're going to buy a pre-built eBike, buy one from a trusted brand with a reputation for reliability.. ( guess what, there aren't many ) otherwise you are stuck trying to untangle something you don't understand.

You can find good recommendations here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=4

And vendors are always selling interesting stuff here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=31

Best of luck to you. I can't comment on those bikes or prices since i live in the USA.. but the best option is usually building your own.

 

[apmaman]

Where would you recommend is a good place to get a kit? so I can price up against buying a bike and sticking it all together.

Most of the ebay ones don't come with a battery which sucks. I dont think I'd need more than 36v, 350w to be honest. If it all came as one package that would be sweet!

 

[dogman dan]

Here is one good reputable guy to get a kit pretty cheap from. http://www.emissions-free.com/catalog/c5_p1.html Not sure what the shipping would be to UK. Many of the Ebay sellers ship from china, so that might be able to give you a clue what that would cost. His 250 watt kit is comprable to the bikes you linked to. The other kit, the direct drive one, is the one to get if you want more speed than is technically legal in europe. Just depends on the local cops which you can ride, and where.

Another place, is the best ebike kit dealer on the planet. A great guy with wonderfull customer support. http://www.ebikes.ca/ Based in Canada.

For commuter bikes, I still recomend ping for batteries. I have two of em, one three years old now. http://www.pingbattery.com/servlet/the-9/36V-15AH-V2.5-LiFePO4/Detail

 

[d8veh]

The problems of fitting the kits is not so much the electrical stuff, it's sorting out the mechanical stuff. When you install a throttle, you have to think about what you're going to do with the RH gear changer because only the thumb lever type fit next to it. Sometimes there's enough room to fit a thumb throttle, but it depends what type.If you have brake levers integrated with the gear changers, you need to think about how to fit the kit's brake levers with cut-out switches. Also, you need to figure out how to fit the battery. All these things can be easily overcome with a little bit of thought and spanner work, but you need to be competent in doing these sort of minor mods. To be honest, it's a lot easier to buy a ready-made bike for about £500. There's a few on Ebay with the 36v Bafang hub motor, which gives about as much power as you can legally have in the UK. Unless, you're very heavy (>90kg), they'll get you up most hills, but on a steep hill, you'll need to pedal fairly hard - not nearly as hard as an unassisted bike. The Alien Aurora is more powerful, but not legal, which doesn't bother a lot of people, who are quite happy to take the chance of riding them on the road with a low risk of being caught, The best thing for hill climbing(other than sheer power) is a crank/chain driven kit/bike, but these are mainly a lot more expensive

In summary, if you want a legal electric assist bike in the UK, you've got to be prepared to pedal hard up the hills. If you don't want to do that, get yourself a 50cc scooter or get an illegal bike or pay a lot of money for a crank driven bike (as long as you're not too heavy).

 

[neptronix]

Erm.. the mechanical stuff is quite easy. You can get various styles of throttles to fit your bike. I had integrated shifters / brake levers and basically just ditched my front crank shifter and went to a 1 speed in front. I could have got a grip shifter and that could have worked just as well.

Sorry tho, you will hear a lot of this.. this is a hobbyists board and pre-built stuff is not as interesting because it's potential and flexibility is often limited.

 

[apmaman]

Well I mulled it over and went for the yellow and black White Knuckle bike off ebay.

They are made by Quadzilla who make some of the best Quadbikes around so I thought they would be worth a punt. Failing that I can just come back here and ask for help about getting it to work again