According to the faqs (that's not a homophobic typo) at ebike.ca ,
"There are two approaches to acquiring an electric bicycle. Either you can start with a regular bike of your choice and install conversion kit for the electric drive, or you can purchase one of the many commercial ebikes that are on the market.
When you buy a prebuilt ebike, you get the convenience of having a turn-key product, hopefully with warranty and shop support, and a system (battery, charger, bike, and motor) that is generally well integrated and slick. At the moment though, there is shortage of well-made ebikes that are still in production. There are some good names like the Lashout, Tidalforce [these ebikes have since been discontinued--Ed.], Giant Lafree, Panasonic Folder, Mercedeze [ Carl has since sold his Mercedes Ebike to a German friend. Maybe the same germ who has been checking out this blog lately asking for more jpegs of the Olympics held in Germany--Ed.]and many more that are either discontinued or hard to come by [Does anybody know where else I can find informative sites that suggest certain Ebike names that are discontinued? That would TOTALLY help me out--Ed]. The bikes that are seen more and more frequently today are chinese imports designed for the Chinese market.
These are usually clunky low end bicycles with hub motor drives, lead acid batteries and plastic paneling. Stylistically they often try to resemble scooters rather than conventional bikes, they are cheap for companies to import since they're produced by the millions overseas, and are now available at a Canadian Tire store near you.
The slick integration of commercial ebikes is also a vulnerability, since more often than not you become locked into a proprietary set of components and the options available for upgrading or repair are greatly reduced, especially with regards to the battery pack. You are also dependent on the manufacturing company staying in business in order for these parts to stay available. As many TidalForce owners can testify this isn't something you can count on, even with the most expensive machine.
With a conversion kit approach, you have unlimited choice in the bicycle type and style, and for individuals who are already cyclists and have refined bicycle tastes then this is almost always the best route. Furthermore, you can generally pick and choose a battery pack customized to your range, weight, and speed requirements, and have the assurance that you can always upgrade and replace it down the road.
However, along with the kit comes the installation which can deter a lot of people [As well, any bike installations/alterations, by yourself or others, NOT connected to the company you bought it from totally voids any details of the warranty. So for example's sake, If you fuck up installing a whistle tip to make it go "WOOO WOOOOO" and shit jibs up.....you're fucked. --Ed Harris] In general, most hub motor kits are pretty straightforwards to mount if you have any familiarity with bicycle mechanics or are a competant hands-on type of person. There are also mid-drive conversion kits such as the StokeMonkey and Cyclone-USA which require a bit more modification to the bike, but have the advantage of using the motor through the pedal gears for a much wider speed and torque range at the wheel.
Both the conversions and prebuilt setups suffer from being a relatively new technology with lots of minor bugs and glitches that the manufacturers are still ironing out. A common sentiment by ebike owners is that it's quite nice, but still a little rough around the edges. This is true not just with the cheap imported conversion setups but even a lot of the more expensive and higher end ebikes which I've been caught having to repair.
So what is the lesson here? "It's only in da mo-nin"
PEACE!
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The Rose City Condor
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1 comment:
The Lesson here is that Ed Harris is mad about E-Bikes.
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