Although I successfully used my mountainboard to commute this winter, there were 2 things I realized:
If the streets haven’t been cleaned, I can’t get through a foot of snow unfortunately
Why am I using a skateboard that takes up similar space to a whole-ass bicycle? If I had a bicycle, I could even lock it up outside of places to avoid carrying a heavy, muddy board through a multi-floor shopping center lol
Thus, I have decided that I want a bicycle to commute in snowy / unpleasantly rainy weather. And it has to be electric of course, because fuck getting sweaty.
I have a lot of options on my hands, and my budget depends on how fun / less pissed off I will be with the purchase
Electrify a junk bicycle I already own that uses a chain
Buy a new belt-driven bicycle, which I can then electrify
Buy a complete belt-driven ebike
Chop up a junk bicycle frame I already own for installing a belt
0voters
I already own a bunch of junk bicycles, but they don’t have any suspension. I’m pretty sure I want as wide of a tire as I can for riding on compacted snow + ice, but do I need front suspension too? I see that a lot of ebikes don’t have any, but if I set out to build a powerful ebike that goes 70km/h, surely I need a suspension just to survive on crappy roads, no?
Anyway, as is usual I want the shiniest toy, but don’t want to put in a lot of time and effort into modifying junk bikes not meant for electrifying anyway. If anyone has good belt-driven bicycle or ebike recommendations available in Europe, please share them!
Also, how hard would it be to DIY a mid-drive bike? a 2kW hub is fine I guess, but a 4kW outrunner with a torquey gear ratio would be way more fun
P.S. Turns out some belts snap in cold weather. So I definitely have to pay attention to that.
P.P.S. The reason I want a belt drive is because chains get rusty, stretch when I put a lot of force on them, and are noisy if I were to drive them at high RPM. I need this thing to still look like a bicycle.
im in the process of putting together an ebike, its just gonna be a stock trek marlin 5, get a decent 1000w or 1500w rear hub motor, build my battery and throw in the SV6 that i got, wire the throttle then its good to go…i think
i’ve seen YT videos on how people do it, the only main concern seems to be the BB spacing, those are bike frame specific, so u might need to pay attention on that if u r going mid-drive, but with gearing, it will be a much nicely ride, its just loud af
Man, there are so few belt driven mountainbikes. Maybe mountainbike + belt just doesn’t mix well? I guess I could just replace my chain every season, might even be cheaper…
Also damn this is a good looking bike but no fucking way am I spending 5000€ for a 250W motor lol:
I wonder if I should be looking for an ebike frame that I can install my own vesc + motor + battery in. Or maybe buy a mountainbike, install a hub motor or two and call it a day
The 250w limit is by law only, no? Technically the motor can spin faster, it’s just limited by the esc.
Chain drive has its advantage, and if u break one it will be much easier to find replacement at local bike shop if u r out and about, not so much with belt
Yeah, but if most ebikes are limited to 250W, it would be stupid to put in a motor capable of much more than that, no? Bosch don’t advertise KV or max power output or anything on their website for it So I’m clueless as to what it’s actually capable of, and what speeds.
These inmotion, windgoo… Bikes are pretty easy to VESC. After that you can use a high voltage batt and push the speed up a bit.
These bikes go for pretty cheap, my fix for rainy or snowy weather
You can easily put 500/750W through this motor. And the bike is also rated for 250W (it’s a legal thing)
It can probably take a lot more than that but the wires would be the bottleneck there. If you would open the motor and resolder the motor wires with a thicker gauge, I bet you could throw 1100w through that thing and it would be fine. This goes for most ebike hub motors
its similar to esk8 motor, 12s rated motor can be used on 16s setup, u just need to watch the temp when u pump more amps into it. most ebike motor doesn’t have temp sensor is the problem. my mini ebike that i had before is also limited to 250w, and its never more than lukewarm, so i reckon its possible for it to run on higher voltage and more amps, but i never got to try it before it got stolen.
there aren’t that many ebike motor manufacturer, i doubt bosch has their own, its probably a rebrand of the common bafang or something, those u can find the spec on leafbike.com quite easily
How about an electric fat bike? Fat bikes were originally designed for snow that other smaller tire bikes would plunge into. Surly and Salsa are two well know fat bike companies. Don’t worry about suspension if it is strictly for commuting.
26x4.0" used to be the old standard but some fat bikes go up to 5" width. Not sure if it is better to get a pre-made or get a dedicated fat bike and electrify it.
You must also watch out for some ebike brands that have the ESC or part of it integrated in the hub. This makes putting a VESC in a lot harder, as on only some throttle lines and batt ± go into the hub. Bionix used to do this for example.
So I’m clueless as to what it’s actually capable of, and what speeds.