I have been experimenting with e-bikes over the past few months and converted a standard BMX to an e-bike over the last weekend. They are unbelievably good. You have to try one to understand how much fun they are.
E-bikes have the potential to revolutionize urban transportation, particularly in European cities but we are being stopped here by heavy regulation.
To be road legal in most European cities an e-bike needs to
1. Be less than 250 watts, and:
2. Only work when you are actively pedaling, otherwise it should come to a halt and,
3. Stop powering the user once it reaches 25kmph.
If you break any of those rules you need to have a motorbike license and have the e-bike licensed (which is practically impossible). These restrictions are unnecessary and heavy handed. There should be some flexibility in the law allowing someone to use a low to medium power e-bike without being forced to pedal and being let drive at a reasonable speed. Every bike used is a car off the road. I've written to my local transportation minister who replied to say that they have no intention of changing the law anytime soon which is a real shame.
As a regular rider of a non-ebike, I like the restrictions. It's unnerving to be passed by a silent 25mph (40kph) unlit e-bike on a trail at night. 25kph sounds more reasonable, about the same speed a typical human can bike on a flat road.
Easing the restrictions too much results in near-motorbike performance in trails and bike lanes shared with human powered riders.
At some point, it's a motorcycle. California sets that point at 28mph.[1] There's a continuous range of electric two-wheeled vehicles from 5mph kiddie bike to track-ready electric motorcycle. So there have to be arbitrary cutoffs.
This is a perfectly good lightweight electric motorcycle claiming to be an "e-bike".[2] It doesn't belong on a sidewalk or bike path. That's a motor vehicle.
Well there we got a easy-to-fix problem. I never turn of the light, and its not like a led bike light is going to A), decrease travel time, B) ruin the environment.
Is there a good reason why the light isn't always on when the ignition (ie key) is turned?
IMO this is evidence of the problem with bikes and ebikes in general. They're not an integrated, complete solution where (like cars) you just turn them on and go. At the moment ebikes are preassembled kits with a standard bike, electric battery and motor, and (if you're lucky) lights added, but most people will have to add their own lights powered by separate batteries, locks, and other accessories.
For the market to really take off there should be a maintenance free, complete solution. One of the many things would be that the lights are integrated to the rest of the electrics.
Also one could imagine removing most of the moving parts of a bike: No chain or gears (use a dynamo and a motor). Steering wheel is probably not needed if you have some kind of electronic self-balancing mechanism (like the Segway). You could arrange the wheels side by side instead of front and back to make the whole machine much smaller. Integrate the bike lock into the bike so you don't have to carry a separate lock, with lock/unlock controlled by your cellphone. Integrate the lights into the chassis and make them work automatically. Fewer moving parts => less maintenance => cheaper to buy and operate.
If you still want it to be reasonably human powered, replacing the chain with a generator+motor is a bad idea. A chain has less than 2% loss, while a motor-generator set will have 10 times or greater losses. Even a few watts of loss from a generator hub is noticable... losing 10 - 20% of power would make the bike nearly unrideable for any significant distance.
I'm not sure how you'd remove the handlebars and still allow steering, one key piece of bicycle steering is counter steering -- you actually steer left to tilt the bike over so you can go to the right. (for gentler turns you can shift your body weight, but if you need to make a sudden turn to avoid an obstacle, you use countersteering)
Likewise, I don't see how you'd have 2 side by side wheels on a "bike" that's designed to go 30mph+, how would you stop quickly without cartwheeling?
I should say I'm envisaging an electric-assist bike so (some) losses would be fine since they are made up by the battery. Of course if it's 10x the loss of a regular bike that could be a problem - I've no idea if your figures are correct or represent the state of the art.
> Likewise, I don't see how you'd have 2 side by side wheels on a "bike" that's designed to go 30mph+, how would you stop quickly without cartwheeling?
I guess you'd stop the motor and the electronic self-balancing would do the rest (in a very hand-waving way, but Segways are an existence proof that something like this is possible, although perhaps not at 30mph).
Here's a chart of a typical electric bike motor efficiency -- peak efficiency is about 85% at 30mph. At 15mph, efficiency is closer to 50%. (that doesn't mean you get greatest range at 30mph since wind resistance increases with the cube of the rider's speed, so is 8 times greater at 30mph than at 15mph)
And that's just for the motor, ignoring losses in the generator.
Electric bikes don't need perfect efficiency, the Specialized Turbo S has a 700W-hour battery and gives 30 - 60 miles of range (2 - 4 hours at 15mph). A human pedaling at 15mph puts out around 100W, so even if the motor is only 50% efficient, the bike can still travel for 50 miles at that rate on one charge.
With a Segway, you stand well over the wheels and can shift your butt (and center of gravity) as far to the rear as possible to make an emergency stop. I don't see how you'd do that with anything resembling a seated bicycle.
I agree about the top speed, 25mph on a trail is dangerous for everybody involved.
I want more than 750w of power, not to go faster, but to get up to speed faster after a stop sign/etc. If we could more quickly accelerate up to the limit, we won't be impeding traffic as badly, and it's less of a burden to actually come to a complete stop.
I bike every day, and I generally always make it through the intersection before any of the cars at the light. You've got much more torque on a bike, starting up in a low gear shouldn't be an issue.
Yes, I wouldn't mind the police just going ahead and pulling PIT maneuvers on the speeding delivery salmon in NYC... except that would require them to drive their cars on the sidewalk. Joking, mostly: the police have no problem driving their cars on the sidewalk already.
But the real fix for that is bidirectional bike lanes on as many streets as possible, even if they're single-direction for cars.
The Specialized models activate the LED headlamp and rear lights when the electronics are engaged, period. There is no separate off switch, day or night.
Not to mention the slight differences between UK law and European law which the UK government has consistently refused to clarify or fix. At least in theory (although not in practice) many e-bikes imported from Europe are illegal in the UK.
Its a Felt BMX and the motor is a 20 inch hub kit with 36 volt battery and 18 amp controller that I bought of aliexpress. Let me know if you want to know something more specific.
I have no affiliation but I bought the hub, battery and controller from here https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1413140?spm=2114.10010108.0...
(it a full kit but I didnt realise it doesn't include a PAS sensor so I have one on order). The bike cost 150 second hand and it fits together easily.
I built an e-bike last weekend, I have just 35 miles on it so far and I've convinced 1-2 friends to get one already. I love riding but my enthusiasm in winter is severely diminished; this has rekindled it for me.
Anybody here who is interested in an e-bike should strongly consider building up an existing bike rather than dropping $4k on one of the ones mentioned in this article. All the ones mentioned in the article are underpowered and overpriced.
I built a front-suspension mountain bike with a mid-drive motor called a BBSHD. Setup of the bike with the motor kit took about 3 hours and there were no major issues. Some custom tools might be needed to remove the bottom bracket, a bike shop would likely charge less to do it for you than the tools cost.
Last bit of advice, if you do get a DIY kit, make sure to get a high-quality 18650 battery pack. Don't go LiPo and certainly don't go lead-acid. Your battery pack will last longer if you don't always charge it to 100%, but you should charge it to 100% the first half dozen cycles to balance the batteries.
I've ridden a few converted bikes and a few purpose built e-bikes. In my opinion the purpose built ones are far better than any conversion I've ridden. In fact I now own a Gazelle.
In my opinion the current generation of mid drives are better than the vast majority of hub-drive motors, whether we're talking about the Bosch or Yamaha or Bafang etc... "Better" is a very slippery word. The Gazelle bikes have the Bosch mid-drive system which has torque sensing, but only puts out 250 or 350 watts and your bike cost $3 or 4 thousand dollars. Considering the moderate range and instantaneous power, while it's in line with similar bikes, I feel that it isn't a good value overall. Once bikes with this kind of performance are readily available for, say, $1200, the world will bend around them. But not before.
The folks that made that video are probably the biggest DIY kit sellers and a big (and controversial) force in the e-bike community. I bought my kit from them including the battery pack.
First: remove the front derailleur (you'll likely have to break the chain to do this, your chain may have a quick-link, otherwise you'll need a chain breaker tool, check YouTube for instructions), remove the shifter cable all the way up to the handlebars, remove the shifter from the handlebars. This mid-drive only has one sprocket on the front, and you retain the stock gears on the back.
Next: remove the pedals, crank arms, and cranks aka front sprockets. Then remove the bottom bracket (special tool may be needed here).
The motor slides right in the hole, you cinch it down on one side, re-attach crank arms and pedals and chain, and from there it's a matter of plugging everything in and a little cable management. Zip ties will be needed.
it should be noted that the motor installed in that first video is 1000 watts which makes the bike legally a moped by federal law in the US which means you must register it with the dmv and get a plate for it, some states outlaw mopeds completely. It must be 750 watts or lower and max speed under 20 mph to be still be considered a bicycle which does require registration or drivers license. Lots of people put the 1000 watt motors because they have little to no markings saying they are 1000 watts so as long as you are not caught going above 20 mpg you will never get in trouble for it.
But they sell 3000 watt motors that can easily reach 50 mph. If you get clocked by a radar gun going 50 mph on a bike there is no amount of reasoning that will not get your bike impounded as an illegal/unregistered moped. To understand the equivalence 750 watts is approximately 1 horsepower so a 3000 watt motor is 4 hp. The average 49cc moped/scooter outputs 2-5 hp so it makes sense they would make you register an ebike with that much power as a moped
The law in my state defines a bicycle as a "device having two or three wheels with fully operable pedals and an electric motor of less than 750 watts (one horsepower), whose maximum speed on a paved level surface, when powered solely by such a motor while ridden, is less than 20 miles per hour". So you are allowed to go faster than 20 if you're pedaling.
Bonus fun fact: in my state, you can't get a DUI on an e-bike because it is not a "motor vehicle".
While true, not many casual cyclists can maintain 250W for more than 10-15 minutes. And 750W is an all-out sprint for many casual cyclists. 1000W-1500W is a sprint for trained cyclists.
So, that 1000W motor is, in theory, as fast as my sprint, but for a much longer time period. And also in excess of the speed limit on a residential street.
The power output (watts) is a function of (volts * amps) so if you have a 48v battery, you can output ~15 amps and get 750 watts. The amperage output is controlled by software, and these mid-drives are programmable. When you buy the kit, you can have it programmed for 750 watts or 1600 watts for off-road use only.
FWIW, on the bottom is a sticker that says "750W".
How much range do you get on yours? I am interested in this one because it has 30 mile range and replaceable battery. Price is pretty decent at less than 1500. Link: http://www.genze.com/e-bikes/
That bike has a 36v, 8.7ah battery. I have a 52v, 13.5ah battery. Watt-hours is volts times amp-hours, so you're looking at 313wh and I've got 702wh, so more than twice.
That bike has 1.75" tires and I've got big 3" wide tires, and I'm only running about 10-12psi, with front suspension sucking up what feels like half of my pedal power, so rolling resistance is much higher and efficiency is much lower for me.
The "efficiency" is calculated as watt-hours per mile. You'll see different numbers depending on all sorts of factors (pedaling, speed, terrain, tires), but we can just hand-wave it all away (science!) and say 20wh/mile. That gives you about 15 miles and me about 35.
I've only run the battery down once so far, and that was only from a 90% charge, with a lot of mud, snow, and general screwing around. The battery cut out at just over 25 miles.
Thanks for detailing it out. Really appreciate that. I will mostly be using the e-bike for daily commute. I was looking for something that is good battery life, cheap, comfortable, long life. Your analysis helps a lot in figuring out the a big part of it.
A bit more info on the 20wh/mile number that I totally made up.
The bike you linked has a 250w motor. Running it at 100% for an hour, if you were able to average 12.5mph for that time, that gives you 20wh/mile.
Based on the watt-hours we calculated earlier, and the manufacturer's claim of 30 miles, we have to assume they're figuring 25mph at 250w of power. This is technically possible according to (http://www.analyticcycling.com/ForcesSpeed_Page.html) but clearly we're in "best case scenario" land.
Nice comment! Just a things I'd figure I'd add, cause I know a bit about batteries and this is HN after all:
- LiPo cells are really LiIon cells, the name is misleading. There exist true LiPo cells but unless you're a battery researcher you probably don't have one.
- 18650 batteries _are_ LiIon batteries (just as LiPo batteries are) they're just a specific form factor: a 65mm long cylinder with diameter 18mm. (Technically, 18650 is just a form factor, so you can have a non-LiIon 18650 - and I have two non LiIon 18650 cells - but it's exceedingly rare for an 18650 to be non-LiIon and I don't believe you can buy them.)
- Pretty much all batteries are only made in extremely large amounts and sold to large companies for either industrial, automotive, or consumer electronic uses. 18650s are made for industrial and automotive uses. RC, e-bikes, vape pens, etc are just a blip on the radar compared to the enormous battery consumption by industrial, automotive, or consumer electronic uses. This means that none of the battery companies make cells for these uses. This means that the companies that make battery packs for RC uses or e-bikes are making packs out of leftover cells from larger companies. If you buy, for example, a pack online for your quadcopter, it is probably made by a factory that takes 10 cell-phone, or laptop, or power drill cells and puts them together.
- Because there are space/weight losses associated with getting the reaction to happen in a cellphone battery sized space, and there are losses from packing ten cellphone packs together, "LiPo" packs are generally a bad idea.
- However, 18650 cells are relatively space/weight efficient to begin with, and there are a bunch of large companies pouring many billions of dollars into improving their 18650 format battery processes, so they're by far the best thing to use when you're concerned about weight/power/capacity.
- Lead acid packs are, like you said, a horrible idea, unless you have strange constraints. If you need the ability to treat them horribly, or need high power, get lithium ferrophosphate cells. If you need to treat them horribly, need high power, AND need extremely low cost, then lead-acid cells may be your best bet.
- Building your own battery packs will save you an enormous amount of money. If you don't like working with electricity, hiring someone else to build your packs will save you a bit less money, but it's definitely worth it. When you build your own packs, you know what you're getting, as the vast majority of these pack websites overcharge you for fake cells. I build very large packs occasionally. If anyone's curious on how to build their own, or wants sources to find good cells cheap, my email's in my profile.
My favorite sources of information about e-bikes come from endless-sphere.com, electricbike.com, electricbike-blog.com, and the /r/ebikes subreddit. Also I've obsessively watched almost every video with "BBSHD" in the title on YouTube in the last several weeks. I will say that the technology is moving pretty quickly and the state of the art today will be the underpowered overweight crap of tomorrow. There is a LOT of room for better technology and the price can come down further as well, all it'll take is an expanding market and competition to bring new innovations to market.
My girlfriend bought an electric bike four years ago, but that was a little too early, and when we moved to a place with stairs the electric bike had to go. But the person who bought it on Craigslist loves it and rides it to drop her kid off at daycare, then to work.
If you haven't ridden a pedal-assist electric bike, you should stop by your local bike shop and try one out. They're quite remarkable, but in a way that is difficult to appreciate over text. I personally don't need one and ride a Novarra Gotham (https://www.rei.com/product/888337/novara-gotham-bike-2016), but I see the appeal and think that these will eventually take off, maybe sooner than is widely expected.
There are various problems or trade-offs, which I'm sure people will point out in this thread, but the cost-benefit is there or getting there.
I wish items like this got more attention. It's my opinion that all the hoopla over self driving cars is masking other really important modes of transportation. If the cost was low enough, it would be far more efficient to ride an E-Bike to your destination if it was in close proximity, especially for community to work. Of course there are trade-offs, but I can't help but think about how much this would alleviate traffic congestion, how this could contribute to someone living a more healthy lifestyle, and the impact on someone's happiness of riding a bike instead of being in a car.
I think e-bikes are going to have the same issue that scooters and mopeds have (and even bikes too) - safety. If you live in a city, you are going to have to be riding near cars, and it is simply a fact that a collision is much worse when you are on a bike or scooter than when you are in a car. A minor fender bender in a car could be serious injury on a bike or scooter.
Everyone I know who commutes to work on a bike has been in an injury accident, ranging from bad cuts and bruises to broken bones and brain injuries. When you combine the basic lack of courtesy from car drivers, the inability to see bikes compared to cars, and the exposed nature of a bike rider compared to a car, the danger is simply too great for many people (myself included) to take.
Unless we get lots of dedicated bike roads where you never have to interact with cars, I don't see how this problem is solvable. As ebikes get faster and more powerful, the danger is going to increase rather than decrease. This is the same reason I don't ride a motorcycle; while it would be efficient and quicker to commute on one, they are simply too dangerous.
More power is not always more dangerous. When I have to share a lane with cars, I feel much safer doing 28mph on my illegally powerful custom e-bike [0] than I would at 16mph, because my speed is better matched to the cars' and they have less desire to pass me.
But I agree, more dedicated bike lanes would be great.
ETA: Oh! I see California now (as of last Jan. 1) allows 28-mph pedal-controlled bikes under the new "class 3" designation. Unfortunately, my bike still doesn't quite fit in this category, as it's throttle-controlled. Hmm -- it's not clear to me why that distinction is that important.
> dedicated bike roads where you never have to interact with cars
We desperately need more of these. They exist in many places, but not nearly enough. They're also far cheaper to build & maintain than regular roads, needing less width or thickness, as well as zero paint, curbs, stop lights or most other things city streets require.
I commute to work 15km each way on an e-bike and I do almost all of it on bike paths away from cars. It's a very pleasant way to commute. I don't need to use any special "bike roads" - the existing bike path infrastructure in Melbourne (Australia) works for me.
Yes, there are cities where the existing structure works for bikes safely. In my city (Los Angeles), there is simply no way to get anywhere without going on streets with cars.
> I can't help but think about how much this would alleviate traffic congestion
Especially given that I do not see how self driving cars could decrease traffic congestion problems. A self driving car takes as much space as a "regular car", so only ways I can imagine autonomous cars reducing traffic are:
1. People ride less with cars.
2. People share rides more.
3. Autonomous cars are significantly more efficient finding free parking spaces, so they reduce the amount of cars looking for a free parking spot.
4. They do not need to be parked, so parking space is given to moving cars (and this actually helps, not increases, congestion).
5. Autonomous cars can drive in less space and/or are smaller.
Of course, any of these claims being wrong attribute to increased congestion due to autonomous cars. And to be honest, I find it unlikely that any of those claims would be correct in the sense that it would materially reduce the congestion problems.
(Well, maybe one more option came to my mind that might actually help. If the autonomous cars would be able to increase the capacity of crossroads by somehow communicating with each others like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pbAI40dK0A )
> (Well, maybe one more option came to my mind that might actually help. If the autonomous cars would be able to increase the capacity of crossroads by somehow communicating with each others like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pbAI40dK0A )
How do cyclists and people walking handle that type of intersection?
Most trips during high traffic are single passenger. Self-driving taxi services will right-size the vehicles for the task, which will reduce congestion some amount, and the vehicles themselves will drive in a more uniform fashion than humans, which will alleviate traffic waves and congestion due to accidents.
I have difficulties seeing people who now drive 5 series BMW to change to self-driving Renault Twizy[1] just because a self-driving taxi service decides the it is big enough.
And there is a limit how far uniform driving helps. If the capacity is full, it is full.
Why? The experience of not driving or looking for parking at all and doing absolutely anything else while you are transported is significantly better than driving a BMW. That's why the really rich people have chauffeurs. There will likely be taxi services that cater to the elite with better interiors, just like there are private plane services that cater to them. The vast majority of people driving mere 5-series BMWs will be happier with merely slightly upscale right-sized taxi services.
They will then have to find a place to park the car, handle maintenance, etc. The cost premium of offering luxury vs. no luxury is in line with the cost premium of owning a 5 series vs. owning a Toyota. The premium of owning a car vs. not owning a car is not.
They are getting cheaper and yes, they are great. I have a e-twow scooter. It has a 450w motor. I think that an e-bike would be better because the wheels are bigger, but for some reason there are only 250w bikes.
250 watts is the legal limit in the EU, whereas most states in the US consider e-bikes providing up to 750 watts of power (about 1hp) as still "bicycles" (meaning no registration, license requirements, insurance, etc). A lot of the retail bike manufacturers are designing motors for the 250 watt limit unfortunately, and although I have it on good authority that many bikes actually exceed their reported power limits, they're still dinky compared to DIY kits.
I truly hope to see many, many more of these on bike paths and roads in the near future. They bring the joy of bikes and motorcycles (two things I love dearly) to a whole new audience, are ecologically sound, and extremely efficient.
However, as an avid mountain biker I hope we can keep them as far from our local trail systems as possible. They're destructive to the trails, and allow people to end up on trails far ahead of their skill level. Running out of battery 3 miles from home on a city street where you hop on a bus is one thing, running out 3 miles down a steep hill away from civilization with the sun going down is how inexperienced people get killed.
Ebikes are mopeds by another name, have been around for decades, and have never been allowed on trails. Lets keep it that way.
It's worth mentioning that used electric cars offer a lot of these benefits too, for folks who live in more affordable regions and/or otherwise can't bicycle for whatever reason.
For about the price of two e-bikes, you can pick up a used Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi i-MiEV that will do 50+ miles, seat 4+ people, is comfy and safe in any weather, and is clean / silent / zero emissions.
And for folks who want something more transit-friendly than a bike, you can buy electric scooters for jumping between bus stops and home and save a little bit of cash. Products like https://ecorecoscooter.com/why/
Electric motors are great, and offer up lots of different affordable middle grounds between "pure bicycling" and "burning lots of gas".
My dad owns a small chain of bike shops in Texas. I've posted about him before and some of you may remember the stories. He's been in business since 1971 and has seen it all. I was back home for the holidays last week and stopped by dad's store to see what's new. He had a bunch of e-bikes on the floor. I chuckled when I saw them--they're so antithetical to the sport of cycling--but my old, crusty former-bike-racer dad loved them and raved about their benefits. He's been selling a ton of them! The ones he sells have German-designed (maybe German-made?) Bosch motors and batteries. They're well-built and perfect for a quick run to the grocery store. I can't say I'd ever buy them but after seeing how many they're selling, I'm confident that they're here to stay and will be a mainstream product for most bike shops next year.
There is an explosion in evoke sales right now. Almost every bike shop in California now carries them. The ones I've been to anyway. The Bosch motors are very popular.
In the Bay Area, with traffic, an e-bike can be just as fast as driving.
I used a Specialized for about a week, the level of effort was the same as walking, and almost as fast as driving (rush hour).
Due to the rate limiter, it was <10% faster than I could achieve myself on a bike.
I would wholeheartedly recommend it to _anyone_ currently driving to work, it's a LOT cheaper than a car.
Personally, I went back to a regular bike, I wanted the exercise and found the rate limiter (19mph without a motorcycle license) to be too frustrating.
It's interesting that ebikes are rate limited to 19mph but electric skateboards are sold which exceed this and I haven't heard of people having issues regarding traveling too fast on a skateboard.
It's not something the police are going to typically enforce, but it's something that will increase your liability in an accident (not to mention that the faster you go the more serious your injuries are likely to be).
If you're riding a 30mph eBike on a bike trail that doesn't permit it and you have an accident with someone, you can expect to shoulder most of the liability, even if the other person did something like step in front of you. The same holds true with a skateboard, if you run your 20mph skateboard into the side of a car, you can expect to pay for the damages to the car (after you get out of the hospital) -- even if the car driver pulled out in front of you because he wasn't expecting a 20mph skateboard on the sidewalk.
this is a federal law passed a couple years back. As long as the bike is 750 watts or less and cant go faster than 20 mph it is not classified as a motor vehicle but just like any other bike
Loved my e-bike. Hated the constant maintenance required. Is there a relatively maintenance free bike (electric or otherwise)? I don't spend my weekends tinkering with my car, so I don't see why I should have to with my bike either.
Some things which went wrong with the bike before I abandoned it: punctures, chain falling off (3 times), rear derailleur completely destroyed itself, loose joints (everywhere and needed tightening almost every journey), left crank fell off (apparently very common on all bikes). I ended up riding with a complete toolkit.
This question could probably be better answered on, say, an appropriate subreddit.
There is a serious difference between the sort of bike you get at a department store and the sort of bike you can get at a bike ship in terms of component quality. Good components can last a ridiculous length of time. You can get puncture resistant tires if you are willing to pay the price.
Chains are still a maintenance weak spot for bikes (they shouldn't fall off). There are belt driven bikes that are supposed to be more reliable than chain driven bikes.
Point taken, although in this case I didn't buy a "bike-shaped object", but something that cost about US$1200 (apparently that's not enough to spend for a decent e-bike).
That's dirt cheap for an electric bike. I don't think you get good quality parts for that price.
My human powered bike is in similar price range (should be a bit cheaper in the US) and I've had to do some maintenance on it. It has quality parts but chains and sprockets get wear and tear and needs to be compensated by small adjustments (derailleurs, chain tensioner, etc) and the occasional spare part.
I get my bike maintained at a bike shop about twice a year and regularly oil it. But I get 2000+ miles a year.
I could do it myself for less but I don't have a space to work and store tools in.
For low maintenance, the cheapest geared option is to use a hub-geared bike. Since the chain never shifts, it's heavier gauge and experiences less wear. It's also fitted tighter, so is very unlikely to drop off.
As upofadown mentions, belt drives reduce maintenance even further - I have this setup on a hub geared bike I use for long tours. Before, I'd clean and oil my chain every 3 or 4 days on tour, now I just need to change the oil in the hub yearly. However, you can get a similar effect more cheaply by using a sealed chain cover, as seen on most Dutch bikes (it's no accident that these are the most popular commuter bikes there)
I find cable disk brakes to be another good low-maintenance option (compared to eg canti brakes constantly needing toed in, and changing pads is easy).
You can go tubeless to prevent punctures, but retrofitting that to existing wheels is messy and more work than I've had in a couple of years worth of punctures. For tour/commute I just rely on tyres with kevlar protection (eg Schwalbe Marathon Plus). They cost a little more than standard tyres but you save on tubes in the long run.
All of this increases weight, but not a lot. If you're looking for low maintenance, you're not racing, and you can probably easily lose more weight by riding your bike than you can shed by changing parts.
I ride with just the usual tools - multitool, levers, pump, spare tube - but another option is using a folding bike. I also have a brompton and would often ride that on a city commute with no tools at all; if things go wrong (which they never did) my backup plan was always to fold it up and jump on public transport, fixing it later.
And a crank falling off is _very rare_ on all bikes.
I can't speak to ready-made ebikes but from building a couple myself I know that they can be made relatively maintenance-free (of course you'll need to replace brake pads and tires once in a while, and other standard bike maintenance).
For the punctures, get better tires. My personal recommendation is the Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires. They're made to comply with EU standards required for e-vehicles going up to 50km/h (i.e., ones that require a license and inspections). I had three punctures my first year, second year I switched to these and haven't had a puncture in the two years since.
The chain falling off sounds like bad workmanship. I had a similar issue with my first bike which was a mid-drive. The motor shifted the chain line slightly outwards, and that was enough to cause drops. I got a new front sprocket that cups inwards to correct the chain line and have had no chain drops since then (about two years also). It's surprising to me that an off-the-shelf ebike would have such issues, it suggests shoddy design work and/or insufficient testing.
Loose joints again sounds like a workmanship problem. I'm a software and electronics guy, not a mechanic, but I don't have any such issues on my bike. The first time I mounted the motor I didn't tighten it hard enough and it worked itself loose (still worked, I just noticed that it had a bit of play). Tightened it again and no such issues since.
The left crank coming out is not something I've heard as being common on bikes. It's never happened to me in the 15000km I've put on my ebikes, or the thousands I put on it before installing the motor. Sounds like it just wasn't tightened well enough, which again suggests shoddy workmanship.
All in all, it sounds like you got unlucky and either bought from a disreputable manufacturer, or you got a lemon. Either that or my amateur builds are much better done than the purpose-built ebikes being sold, but I doubt it.
You can get a "race face" front sprocket that has alternating thick-thin teeth. This holds the chain more tightly and makes it much more difficult to fall off.
I am an ebike freak. It's so nice to finally see some ebike enthusiasm on hn! If you have any questions about ebikes just ask me. If I can't answer I can at the very least put you on the right path. If you want to get into ebikes, check out the endless sphere forums. It's the defacto online headquarters for everything ebike. Doctor bass and live-for-physics-luke are two of the most formidable experts on there. Luke used to be in IT and now designs the battery systems for zero motorcycle. Great guy. If you don't understand why electric bikes or transportation is cool then Google "lightning electric motorcycle" and become converted. Cheers.
Great! Price is still restrictive for many. What are your recommendations on how to get a cheap starter eBike while steering clear of common pitfalls (and what are they)?
The highest power to dollar ratio is got by building a bike. Pre-made bikes as very expensive right now as you point out. If you just want to try one out, go to a bike shop and test drive one. If you want one for yourself and you want it to be fast or go long then I would suggest building a battery pack with headway lithium iron phosphate cells, a lyen high power controller and a solid hub motor, maybe a crystalite. Endless sphere has endless documentation on how to do it. I don't know what your background is so there may be a learning curve, but I can say that you should learn that stuff if you want to get into ebikes anyway. Unless you want to wait 5 years for prices to fall.
Somewhat related, the California Bicycle Coalition has started a petition to encourage CARB to offer bike and e-bike incentives as they do for electric automobiles:
I'd love to buy a tricycle version for a relative who would like a kind of motability aid but wouldn't like to have one of the typical electric scooters. Anyone have any experience with them? The ones I've seen seem to require manual gear shifting and it would be best if it's as simple as possible.
Checkout electric recumbant bikes. I believe a company called outsiders makes exactly what you are talking about for disabled vets. Name might be wrong but they are out there
I'm actually interested in pretty much the same thing, but for someone with walking and balance issues. I've pretty much figured that at some point I'm going to need to get a delta trike (balance issues) and find a way to cobble something together behind the seat.
$500 worth of batteries, $500 worth of motor, $500 worth of bike, and $2500 worth of R&D/marketing/CEO salary expenses.
Batteries have come down in price significantly, just in 2016, I'm sure due to the demand from electric cars. When e-bikes become more popular, and competition increases, the price will come down further. Right now, your best value for an e-bike is a DIY kit.
Hazarding a wild guess here that mopeds are produced in much larger volumes, which drives the prices for both their parts and assembly down.
The ebikes in that article did seem very expensive, unless dropping $3k-$4k for a bike is acceptable. Do any HNers know of any budget alternatives under $1k?
Also, many eBikes bodies I've seen are made from aluminum or even carbon fiber rather than steel, to account for the weight added by the battery I'm guessing.
As a bicyclist who can sustain >20mph for minutes at a time, I find the 20mph cutoff as implemented quite frustrating. It feels terrible to easily accelerate to 20mph, and then struggle mightily past the cliff of assisted pedaling. The assistance curve needs to (at least optionally) taper off as the rider approaches 20mph, so that the cutoff doesn't feel like a cliff.
At least in Seattle the trails mostly have a speed limit of 15 mph for ALL vehicles. It's real fun when they actually put cops on the Lake Sammamish river trail and bust (actual tickets) the spandex warriors who think 25 mph is a good idea on dead flat river trail (real hard there buddy) full of strollers and kids and dogs on leashes.
Technically the EU[0] limit is 25kmh+10%, so you can e.g. implement a progressive cutoff from 25kmh to 27.5kmh to allow a comfortable ride at a constant 25.
To anyone trying to work around motorcycle licensing in the US: don't. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation class is one of the most fun things you can do in a couple of weekends, and I highly recommend it. After that, getting the M1 is purely clerical (in California anyway) and reasonably fast.
I wonder how much of the popularity of bikes is connected with this horrible drought we've been going through in California.
For my uses, my non-electric bike plus BART is usually sufficient, so I've been looking around for what would be nice for rain or for trips outside the city. And I've found a bunch of promises and no available products. Most famous may be the Lit Motors C-1, always 5 years away from availability.
My brother just came back from Beijing, and he commented on how they have a lot more transportation options over there.
I love my ebikes, but I wouldn't recommend making purchasing decisions based on this article.
His complaint with the Trek bike is that it hurt his ass to ride on it compared to the one he preferred. This probably mostly comes down to the saddle, which is something you just change out if you don't like it. It's silly to purchase a whole bike just because you like a particular kind of saddle (though it's a common beginner cyclist mistake).
Also:
> BMW (yes that BMW) makes an Ebike ($3,430) featuring Bosch motors with a 400 watt battery
I mean, I realise that many people don't understand the difference between Watts and Watt-Hours, but it again underscores that the writer doesn't really understand the things he's reviewing and comparing, so how can his other information be reliable?
I'm a regular bike commuter, and I want to love eBikes. I like the idea that they enable longer commutes, and get people commuting who would otherwise be intimidated by the fitness requirements or afraid of arriving at work sweaty.
BUT...they're so expensive! A good scooter (eg a Honda Metropolitan) is like $2000. The cheap Chinese scooters I see all around town are probably about half that. I love electric and hate gasoline, but I don't really want to pay twice as much for less utility. I realize a comparable electric motorcycle is like $10k, but ugh.
Those prices are absolutely insane. I bought a $100 craigslist bike, added a kit like this http://amzn.to/2i8xhts for $250 and another $100 for some cheap lead acid batteries. (Similar lithium batteries would have been about $400). So I paid $450 total and it got me back and forth from work 7 miles away ever day for 2 years before I moved and sold it.
Ugh, lead-acid? There's a reason your bike was cheaper. The power density sucks.
Of course, if you only use it for trips of ~7 miles it's probably sufficient if much heavier than necessary. These bikes will go further than 7 miles without handling like a ton of bricks.
E-bikes have the potential to revolutionize urban transportation, particularly in European cities but we are being stopped here by heavy regulation.
To be road legal in most European cities an e-bike needs to 1. Be less than 250 watts, and: 2. Only work when you are actively pedaling, otherwise it should come to a halt and, 3. Stop powering the user once it reaches 25kmph.
If you break any of those rules you need to have a motorbike license and have the e-bike licensed (which is practically impossible). These restrictions are unnecessary and heavy handed. There should be some flexibility in the law allowing someone to use a low to medium power e-bike without being forced to pedal and being let drive at a reasonable speed. Every bike used is a car off the road. I've written to my local transportation minister who replied to say that they have no intention of changing the law anytime soon which is a real shame.