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i keep seeing deliveroo riders with frankenbike style ebike conversion kits - motor in front wheel, battery cable tied onto frame. Has anyone done a fairly neat and cheap ebike conversion? any recommendations for a cheap conversion kit or components that wont set on fire when charging and that doesn't look terrible?
Cheap good conversion kits do not really exist. the one I use is very neat and works very well at around £700 but appears to have some quality contrrol issues ( I have not had them)
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/tongsheng-tsdz2-ebike-kit/
@tjagain what were whoosh lifetime deal with, the only company that seem to offer simple off the shelf kits are Cyclotricity.
I think I want a medium powered rearwheel drive with pannier mounted battery
woosh were really professional and good. they wanted to know my bike would firt the kit. I first spoke to the sales person, then to one of their tech guys. Only then would they put the order thru. Kit arrived quickly.
a wheel kit is not as good as a BB mount. Depending how its done they are less intuative to ride as the torques sensing is not as good and a cheap one may use cadence sensing which is IMO rubbish. You might need gear and brake cutout switches
having ridden quite a few bikes from bosch and shimano full bikes to cheap wheel kits there is no comparison. BB mount with proper torque sensing is the best wheel mount with torque sensing is OK, wheel mount or bb mount kits with cadence sensing are not as good
Also if you are going to be using it a lot on hills especially hill starts BB mount is much better
Really I just wanted something to blast to work on and into town. Fit and forget. Been looking for an off the shelf bike but they are north of £2k snd my bike to work scheme is £1500.
I’ll drop them a message cheers
I got a 17ah front wheel conversion kit from Woosh. They fitted it to a redundant Charge Mixer alfine 11 for me and I now think I have the ultimate electric commuter. I am sure it doesn't ride as well as a BB conversion kit but it is so simple and no cyclists beats me off the lights. Keep in a low gear and easy spinning to maintain 15.5mph or push the pedals a bit and get a range of 70mph and maintain an average over 15mph in heavy traffic and lights. The Charge Mixer is a great base bike, upright position, strong steel (weight doesn't matter), discs and the alfine allows for stationary gear changes when you balls up lights and traffic.
Sounds like what I’m after @jaminb did think about front wheel drive but then I’ll need to run the cable from the pannier. Much simpler to service and cheaper I imagine. Plus you can move a hub drive from frame to frame a bit easier.
Charge actually make some nice ebikes now.
From experience:
Bikes with just a cadence sensor only are clunky as they don't modulate the power very well. On or off, and with a powerful drive this can be difficult in some circumstances
You can torque sensing BBs for some hub drives, which improve them.
Mid drives are not really any more difficult to fit, can be torque sensing and you can still remove the wheels from the bike easily.