Advice needed on which conversion kit to buy to make my bike electric

[pappajohn]

The kit includes the motor, battery, brake leavers, thumb throttle, visual display unit, lights, cabling and tools

I think you'll find the thumb throttle is limited to 4mph, it's actually a walk assist function to make the bike easier to push if needs be.
Mine has a handlebar twistgrip which serves the same purpose.
The blurb says it can be used as an initial assistance for setting off but mine hasn't the power to get 17st moving

 

[ManTheVan]

+1 for the Brompton and Swytch kit. Waiting for another Swytch kit to be delivered to convert Brommie no.2.

 

[RustyRuss]

Thumb throttle does what it says on the tin. I can stop pedalling and use the throttle to climb a long steep hill without any problem. Don’t really care if it’s legal or not, I want the bikes to suit our idea of a fun bike ride, cycle into nearest town and have a mooch round, do a bit of shopping, have a nice lazy lunch and then mosey back to the MoHo having had a bit of (assisted) exercise and a lot of fun. Or find a nice flat cycle route that Kathryn can cope with, (she has a replacement hip) and be able to do around 15 miles without her being crippled for the rest of the holiday. I’m not really all that concerned about keyboard warriors giving me a hard time about legalities etc.etc. I converted the bikes to give us access again to something we enjoyed doing together before Kathryn’s very necessary hip op. The TongSheng TSDZ2 comes with computer, motor, new pedals, lights, brake lights, indicators & the thumb throttle, so why not fit it? No brainier really. In my opinion our bikes are for having fun and a bit of low impact exercise, they are not for scaring the bejesus out of other people. End Of!

Cheers!

Russ

 

[ED O'DARAC]

Another vote for the Swytch Kit Brompton.
We have tried the Brompton Electric and the Swytch Kit Brompton. The Swytch kit is more powerful and tunable.
We liked the Swytch kit Brompton so much we sold the EBrompton and bought another Swytch Brompton.
Electric front wheel gives you power to both wheels. Really good....and simple. The optional throttle is excellent as you can assist yourself with the start offs .

 

[Garfields]

Been looking at options recently
For normalish road use I think front hub motor is a simple solution
Once you go for rear hub or crank conversions you have to be careful with stress on chain etc
Some of the kits out there can put out a fair bit of torque
Probably not an issue if you are careful but having the power available I would likely put it to the test
Having hired a couple of mountain bikes recently they are well capable of accelerating up hill with my weight on slopes I couldn't tackle with my conventional mountain bike
I think longer term we are going to head the electric bike way just not ready to part with current bikes and not wanting to mess them up with a conversion

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[tonyidle]

A lot of the 'cheap' electric bikes are cheap because they use the most basic components, entry level brakes, basic gear components, dubious wheels and tyres etc. A conversion kit can be an upgrade to a quality bike and be far superior.
If you want to cycle a few miles to the shops on a nice tarmac path then an £800 bike will be fine. Mine will go 50 miles on the roughest trails with no problems. You need to spend thousands to buy the equivalent new.
It really depends on how you intend to use your bike.

Couldn't agree more. I'd already rebuilt a Giant alloy framed bike with decent brakes, gears, and pedals. I bought an old abandoned electric bike and used the motorised front wheel, a controller of eBay, and a new battery.

 

[tonyidle]

Some of the kits out there can put out a fair bit of torque

None of the legal kits can come anywhere near the torque output of a human being standing on a pedal .

 

[Garfields]

None of the legal kits can come anywhere near the torque output of a human being standing on a pedal .

True but they can do it over a period of time that I couldn't
Not sure I could do more that a minute or two standing on the peddles now

 

[Itsmcb]

I've got say I've had my conversion over a year now and done nearly a thousand miles in that time. The original bike is a specialized epic nearly 15 years old but one of the best off road bikes you could by at the time. Some of the components have been upgraded over the years but it's had nothing new since fitting the mid drive kit. I've been going out regularly with mates on their ' proper' 3and 5 grand E-mountain bikes and mine does EVERYTHING theirs will. I can now ride up tracks that I could only ever ride down before, it's ridiculous. I'm impressed and my mates are really impressed. Especially when you consider the comparative cost. This was a couple of weeks ago, rated 'Hard' on viewranger

 

[Itsmcb]

Oh, and I'm still on the same chain

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[busby]

Was looking at Swytch to fit to our bikes..We are in the Gers in s/w France and the hills are serious..Bloody killing me cycling around here.76 at the end of the month so think I will treat us..BUSBY

 

[Itsmcb]

Was looking at Swytch to fit to our bikes..We are in the Gers in s/w France and the hills are serious..Bloody killing me cycling around here.76 at the end of the month so think I will treat us..BUSBY

Go for it, you wont regret it

 

[The Lord Squid]

Was looking at Swytch to fit to our bikes..We are in the Gers in s/w France and the hills are serious..Bloody killing me cycling around here.76 at the end of the month so think I will treat us..BUSBY

Since my previous post on this thread I've fitted a Swytch kit to a Brompton. The most difficult bit of the fitting was swopping the tyre and tube from the old wheel (small wheel and stiff tyre walls). It's hilly where I live and I was disenchanted with my first ride. The bike sailed up hills effortlessly, I didn't feel as if I'd been cycling at all and took the view that if I wanted power on two wheels I'd be better off on my motorbike and going a lot faster.
However - I now use as little assistance as possible, but with full power on the steepest hills, and find it enjoyable. I work from home and it enables me to get further afield in my dinner hour when I want to eat out.

 

[LesW]

Well, after reading this thread watching stuff on YouTube and looking at several e-bikes at the Newbury show, I bought two Bafang 250w kits, along with two 36v 17ah batteries to fit to our hybrid bikes... (from Elcipse Bikes).

Fitting was straight forward, tidying up the wiring took as long .. only done a few miles round the village including a short sharp hill I would never have done before, and am very pleased with the result, still got the eight speed derailleur on the back and gear changing is very smooth with the sensor fitted.

Nearly finished Mrs W's bike, so looking forward to extending our days out.

Also bought a 12v-36v charger for when off grid (most of the time) though I suspect it'll be quite slow to charge, but better than none at all... total cost nearly £1600, the batteries were £400 each ... some of the (cheaper) bikes at the show started at £1500, so all in all not a bad price for two bikes.

 

[Itsmcb]

Nice one.
Those batteries will give you a decent range, not like some of the cheap bikes.

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[two]

Good choice!

 

[Vipar]

I love my old bike. It’s in the classified. But I now think that I ought to electrify it. I think that I only want to spend a max of £500 on a kit that I could fit myself. I won’t be doing more than 20 miles round trip. Any suggestions for now a basic diy er?

 

[68c]

Plenty on eBay. I fitted a Yose Power kit recently. Works well and easy to fit. Price varies on eBay of course, but expect to pay around £200 for 36volt 250watt (road legal) kit. Then you need a battery, I suggest a 36volt 15ah battery at around £200 also. You will probably use a 'bottle' battery, the mounting is screwed to your water battle points. Alternative is to fit a luggage rack kit, handy if you want to use panniers. We regularly ride 25 miles and have not flattened the battery yet. Of course that assumes you do pedal a bit. We set level 2 of five which takes you up to about 9mph, you will find you easily pedal faster than that and go 'over the top' of the motor but as you slow for the hills it seamlessly steps in to help. Level 5 is limited to 15.5mph to be legal, of course it is quite legal to pedal harder to go faster. We usually go onto level 5 when getting near home, just for the fun of it.
I now find my bum gives up before my legs.

 

[Phill D]

I love my old bike. It’s in the classified. But I now think that I ought to electrify it. I think that I only want to spend a max of £500 on a kit that I could fit myself. I won’t be doing more than 20 miles round trip. Any suggestions for now a basic diy er?View attachment 525623

You should get a front wheel hub kit for around that money. Neighbour bought one off fleabay for his wife for under £400 and he is over the moon with it.

 

[68c]

Oh, here are some photos.

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[Vipar]

You should get a front wheel hub kit for around that money. Neighbour bought one off fleabay for his wife for under £400 and he is over the moon with it.

What make? There are so many. And what power do I need?

 

[Phill D]

It is difficult to give a make as they are likely to be mostly the same. But I would go on the best and most positive reviews.
Get the biggest ah battery and motor you can afford.
Mine is a 36v 15ah battery and the motor is a rear wheel 350 watt.
It climbs most things and I have yet to run out of battery when out.

Front wheel is the easiest option to fit.

I can't ask my neighbour at the moment his mum passed away yesterday.

 

[Itsmcb]

I recently bought a bike off another Funster (redsonya) with a 250watt front wheel kit and it's really very good. As mentioned get a decent sized battery to give you a reasonable range.

 

[RustyRuss]

Having ridden my converted bike reasonably regularly now I can strongly recommend the TongSheng unit that i mounted on the pedal axle. Batteries last for at least 20 up and downhill miles and gear changing with my 8 derailleur set is seamless. The bike feels like the pedals have a turbo fitted and when you get a little fatigued the throttle thumb switch is fantastic for additional assistance. We were in Cornwall recently and cycled from St Austell to Mevagissy, we have two lazy dogs so they spent most of their time in the wheeled dog trailer attached to the back of my bike, I cycled up a gravelled track around a mile long and at a gradient of around 1:20 with the dogs on board, I made it to the top without getting out of the saddle! The trailer weighs around 25KG and the combined weight of the dogs is 45KG. Totalling an extra 70KG! The ride back to St A included around a 1/3 mile up a 1:4, still with trailer but no dogs, that was quite hard work but I don’t think I could have even pushed the bike to the top pre-motor.
I have also fitted a fat saddle as the sharpened razor blade that came with the bike meant I never cycled more than 5 miles without being in extreme discomfort. Check out YouTube videos on saddle size and “sit bones” (how to measure how HUGE your ass is!) before you buy that comfort enhancing saddle.
So all in all I’m very pleased with the conversion, you do need some mechanical nouse and a couple of specialist tools for removing the pedal cranks, but I have transformed our bikes for around £550 each.
Just a quick postscript, I’ve ridden a Bofang equipped bike recently and the assistance doesn’t kick in until the pedals have rotated around 1-1.5 lots of 360* when setting off, which I found unsettling, the TongSheng units give instant assistance, and they’re cheaper.

Cheers!
Russ

 

[busby]

Plenty on eBay. I fitted a Yose Power kit recently. Works well and easy to fit. Price varies on eBay of course, but expect to pay around £200 for 36volt 250watt (road legal) kit. Then you need a battery, I suggest a 36volt 15ah battery at around £200 also. You will probably use a 'bottle' battery, the mounting is screwed to your water battle points. Alternative is to fit a luggage rack kit, handy if you want to use panniers. We regularly ride 25 miles and have not flattened the battery yet. Of course that assumes you do pedal a bit. We set level 2 of five which takes you up to about 9mph, you will find you easily pedal faster than that and go 'over the top' of the motor but as you slow for the hills it seamlessly steps in to help. Level 5 is limited to 15.5mph to be legal, of course it is quite legal to pedal harder to go faster. We usually go onto level 5 when getting near home, just for the fun of it.
I now find my bum gives up before my legs.

Just fitted a Yose on my bike and started fitting one on my wife's.Tried mine around the block and it seems fine.Tidying the wiring up is the hard part.Its good that they include most of the tools you need.BUSBY.

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[68c]

It is difficult to give a make as they are likely to be mostly the same. But I would go on the best and most positive reviews.
Get the biggest ah battery and motor you can afford.
Mine is a 36v 15ah battery and the motor is a rear wheel 350 watt.
It climbs most things and I have yet to run out of battery when out.

Front wheel is the easiest option to fit.

I can't ask my neighbour at the moment his mum passed away yesterday.

Over 250watt cannot be used legally on the road.

 

[busby]

Over 250watt cannot be used legally on the road.

Who checks? Make no odds to us we don't ride in the UK.BUSBY.

 

[Puddleduck]

Thumb throttle does what it says on the tin. I can stop pedalling and use the throttle to climb a long steep hill without any problem. Don’t really care if it’s legal or not, I want the bikes to suit our idea of a fun bike ride, cycle into nearest town and have a mooch round, do a bit of shopping, have a nice lazy lunch and then mosey back to the MoHo having had a bit of (assisted) exercise and a lot of fun. Or find a nice flat cycle route that Kathryn can cope with, (she has a replacement hip) and be able to do around 15 miles without her being crippled for the rest of the holiday. I’m not really all that concerned about keyboard warriors giving me a hard time about legalities etc.etc. I converted the bikes to give us access again to something we enjoyed doing together before Kathryn’s very necessary hip op. The TongSheng TSDZ2 comes with computer, motor, new pedals, lights, brake lights, indicators & the thumb throttle, so why not fit it? No brainier really. In my opinion our bikes are for having fun and a bit of low impact exercise, they are not for scaring the bejesus out of other people. End Of!

Cheers!

Russ

If you are using off road they don't have to be road legal (as long as they are safe of course).

Ours are older bikes and have a throttle which I love for getting the initial push (especially when starting out) without any wobble. Like most things the throttle needs to be used correctly and can be dangerous if it isn't. Without electric assist we wold not cycle.

Love the electric so much that we are thinking about getting electric motors for our kayaks!

 

[Toady]

Big shortage of 250W Bafang kits at present. Many dealers waiting for a container delivery from China.

I have just ordered a Bafang 250W kit with battery direct from China via Amazon. Hopefully, delivery will be by the end of the month.

Good reviews

 

[Phill D]

Over 250watt cannot be used legally on the road.

I am aware of the legalities of ebike motors.

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