A lot has changed since I first wrote about E-bikes back in 2020. Today sales of E-bikes are vastly outpacing sales of electric cars. Seems like they’re everywhere now. In 2023 roughly 40 million E-bikes were sold worldwide.
I was just at the local big-box electronics store and even they are selling E-bikes now. Mind you I would probably not buy a bike from a big-box store. I’m all about supporting my local bike shop, who has helped me countless times over the years.
Probably not the place I would go bicycle shopping. Your local bike shop will likely give you better support.
Bicycles are already one of the most efficient forms of transportation. Modern electric drivetrains are also very efficient. Combine the two and you can go a long way on literally pennies worth of electricity.
I was drawn to E-bikes when Mrs. Kong was diagnosed with heart problems. She’s fine, thanks for asking, but she will only ever be able to go so fast on a bicycle. I am a reasonably fit cyclist and can average 15-17 mph depending on which bike I’m riding and how badly I want to beat myself up.
Unassisted, she’s maybe good for 12 mph. Now, through the magic of technology, she can easily keep up with me.
Using my patented “throw money at the problem” method I first tried two electric conversion kits, neither one of which really met our needs performance wise. Now either of these would work just fine for a commuter or casual rider, but we were looking for the ability to do rides in the range of 80 to 100 miles.
I finally gave up and just bought her the $$$ bike I should have gone with in the first place. I did learn a lot about e-bike conversions, however, and have since done a couple more for friends.
This is the bike I should have bought in the first place. Riding the Great Allegheny Passage last summer.
The first bike I converted was Mrs. Kong’s mixte frame Soma. I originally ordered a conversion kit from a UK based company Swytch. They ran into supply chain issues and months later out of desperation I ordered a similar kit from another UK company called Cytronex.
The Cytronex kit uses a 250 watt geared front hub motor which makes for easy installation. Top speed is around 20 mph with a range of maybe 25 miles. I ended up buying a second battery so it can now probably go 50 miles. This kit requires you to take multiple measurements of your bike because they will size the cables to fit. A reasonably handy person could probably install this in a couple hours.
The one thing I don’t like about it is the cadence sensor works off the rear cassette and is a bit fussy to set up. Most cadence sensors mount to the crank and are easier to install. Note that a cadence sensor just knows if you’re pedaling (and maybe how fast you’re pedaling) while a torque sensor actually senses how much force you’re applying to the pedals. That’s why the better E-bikes tend to have torque sensors.
It’s fun to ride and I dare say it looks a lot classier than most E-bikes.
The oversized “water bottle” is actually the battery. There’s a spare hiding in the front bag.
Meanwhile my Swytch kit finally showed up a full year after I ordered it. I think it’s a good product but I think the company is still dealing with supply-chain issues. Two of my friends ordered kits from them and had similar experiences with delays. If you order one of these don’t expect to get it overnight.
The Swytch kit is advertised as fitting most bikes and I’d say that’s the case. I managed to install one on my friend’s bikeE recumbent with a 20-inch front wheel, so it can be done. The most important thing is to measure your fork accurately to see if the hub motor will clear it.
If it will work on this thing it will work on just about anything. Keeping the cables clear of the rider’s feet was a real challenge.
Since I had finally bit the bullet and bought Mrs. Kong the bike I probably should have purchased in the first place, I now had an orphaned conversion kit looking for a home.
I ended up installing it on my faithful randonneur “Blue”. I probably now have the only E-bike with cantilever brakes and downtube shifters. The battery is cleverly concealed in the front bag while two spare batteries travel in the rear bag. Top speed is around 22 mph and I should be able to go 75+ miles.
Fear not dear reader. Blue’s replacement has already been built. I haven’t given up riding conventional bikes. I just thought a “stealth” E-bike would be fun (it is).
You have to look close to tell that this is an E-bike.
Meanwhile, we had been eyeing a Co-motion tandem E-bike for a while. It’s a really nice looking bike but the price starts at $18,000! I’ve bought cars for less than that. Since we already had an older Co-motion tandem that we really like, a conversion seemed like the much more sensible, and much less costly option. This also solved the problem of having to store two tandems.
This project seemed a bit ambitious for me, so I farmed it out to a local bike shop that specializes in electrics and trikes. The kit itself came from a Pennsylvania company appropriately named “E-Bike Kit”, and is meant for “heavy duty” applications like tandems and cargo bikes.
With a 500 watt rear hub motor and a massive 15 amp-hour battery it will easily go 100 miles at 17-18 mph with battery to spare (we’ve tested this). Despite only having a cadence sensor, the controller has some clever programming that mimics a torque sensor.
The decision to use a rear hub motor was driven by the necessity of transporting the bike on a rooftop carrier. This requires removing the front wheel and attaching the front dropouts to the bike carrier. I didn’t want to be removing and reinstalling a motor-wheel every time we transported the bike. With the additional weight of the motor and battery, the bike is now a bit tail heavy. Since I outweigh my stoker by a good 50 pounds, once we’re on the bike it’s not really an issue.
We also considered a mid-drive conversion but were worried about putting too much stress on the drivetrain. Tandem components already need to handle the force of two riders pedaling at once. Adding a motor to the mix didn’t sound like a great idea.
We had some issues with it at first, mostly breaking spokes on the rear wheel. Mind you these are beefy 12-gauge spokes. In frustration, I finally shipped the rear wheel back to the manufacturer who built me a new wheel and added spoke washers. So far we’ve had no further problems. Kudos to them for standing behind their product.
We’re very pleased with it now that the teething problems have been sorted out.
A word of warning to would-be do it yourselfers. Most of the hub motor kits will only work on a frame that has dropouts. Since the industry has largely switched over to thru-axles, these will not work on most newer frames. I think there is exactly one kit that will work with a thru-axle (Grin technologies in Canada) and it seemed like overkill for what I was trying to do.
Your other option would be a mid-drive conversion, which replaces your bike’s bottom bracket and crankset. You’re on your own if you go this route, because I have no experience with them.
This is a pretty typical looking mid-drive kit. The only advice I can give you is take measurements to make sure something like this will fit your bike’s frame and bottom bracket shell.
Before you dive into a conversion, note that I’ve seen prices on complete E-bikes come way down. Entry level E-bikes today are selling for around $1000 and occasionally go on sale for less. The disadvantages of a DIY conversion may not be worth it to save a couple hundred bucks.
I had this bike as a rental on a recent layover. I would say it’s a pretty typical entry level E-bike. I looked it up and it retails for around $1,100. It seemed pretty capable for an entry-level bike. Range is advertised as 45 miles, 65 if you buy the larger battery. It folds in half, which would be useful for someone with limited storage space. Keep in mind that these bikes are relatively heavy. This one weighs in at a hefty 64 pounds. You might be able to fold it, but it will still be tough to carry it up stairs. The components, as you would suspect, are on the cheap end of the spectrum.
You can get pretty much any style of bike in an electric version these days. Recumbent, trike, cargo, beach cruiser, you name it.
I think the cargo bikes are pretty cool but they tend to be heavy and take up a lot of space. Still, you can just about replace a car with one. I saw one that will cleverly stand on its tail to make storage easier.
This is a pretty typical cargo E-bike. It’s advertised as being able to carry 440 pounds with a range of 50 miles.
Since I’ve become the neighborhood “expert” on E-bikes, people tend to ask me what to buy. I usually answer: “It depends. What do you want to do with it?” Road? Mountain? Trails? Commute? Errands? How far? How fast? I’d suggest finding a good bike shop that knows E-bikes and working with them.
In general I would say that a mid-drive with a torque sensor is the preferred setup if you don’t mind the extra cost. In my experience this configuration gives you the most natural feel. The torque sensor feeds power on demand better than the “all or nothing” effect you can get with just a cadence sensor. Since the mid-motor works through the bike’s drivetrain it can take advantage of gearing, allowing for a more compact, lighter setup.
To throttle or not to throttle? This comes down to preference. I can see a throttle being useful for someone that doesn’t care about exercise and just wants transportation. It can also be useful to quickly accelerate across an intersection, if your bike has enough power. I removed the throttle from my 250 watt hub motor because it was pretty worthless. We do have a throttle on our tandem, but I almost never touch it.
Keep in mind that a throttle may change the legal classification of your bike so keep your local laws and regulations in mind.
Be sure to know your local laws. Oh, and don’t be an idiot. Enough people hate cyclists as it is.
Now what about exercise? I would say it all depends on how you ride. Since I’m mostly doing this for fitness, when I’m on an E-bike I expend just as much effort as I do on a regular bike, I just go faster. We went 100 miles on your e-tandem the other day and I definitely felt like I’d done a century ride at the end of the day. Obviously if you just use the throttle or “ghost pedal” (pedal just enough to engage the motor) then the bike is doing all the work and you’re not getting much out of it.
I think the biggest advantage of an e-bike is the way it can take the edge off a steep climb or a strong headwind. I’ve taken the E-bike out on days with 20 mph winds where I probably would have just stayed home otherwise.
Storing and transporting E-bikes can be a bit of a challenge. Even a relatively light E-bike weighs in excess of 30 pounds and I’d say 50 pounds is more typical. Your standard trunk mounted bike rack is not rated for that kind of weight. I ended up having a hitch installed on my car so that we could purchase a good quality hitch-mounted rack. None of this was cheap, mind you.
Another consideration is that you may or may not have the strength to heave an E-bike up onto the back of a car. Our rack didn’t come with a ramp (some do) but I was able to fabricate one so Mrs. Kong can load and unload her bike.
This is a really nice E-bike. Priced accordingly. I thought the ramp was a nice little piece of fabrication on my part.
There are a few drawbacks to E-bikes. I’ve already mentioned weight, plus the occasional challenge transporting and storing them. Here are a few more:
Hardcore roadies hate e-bikes. They also hate disc brakes for some reason I can’t fathom. It’s a brake, not a religion. I have ten bikes and no two of them have the same type of brake. As long as it stops when I pull the levers I’m happy.
Now I may be a roadie but I’m not one of those guys. It’s a bike. I don’t tell people what to ride. Whatever gets you out riding is fine by me. Same goes for recumbents, even though I happen to think they all look like someone’s science-fair project. Only one person has to like your bike and that’s you.
E-bikes have put a lot of people on bikes that otherwise wouldn’t be riding. Overall I think that’s a good thing. However, I get the impression that some of these folks haven’t ridden a bike since they were a kid and it shows. Might want to brush up on cycling rules and etiquette. Enough people hate cyclists as it is.
Keep in mind that on an E-bike you’re likely faster than anything else on the trail except a very fit road cyclist (who is probably out on the road in that case). I can outsprint Mrs. Kong on her E-bike but I can’t sustain it and I certainly can’t pass her on a climb.
You’re quieter than you think and will overtake people faster than they’re expecting. I think most people’s brains “compute” a bike to be moving around 10 mph and anything faster than that surprises them. Keep in mind that some trails have speed limits, usually around 15 mph.
I have heard stories of lithium-ion batteries catching fire but I suspect in most of those cases it’s cheap bikes with cheap Chinese batteries. We’ve never had any trouble with ours. I won’t leave one sitting on a charger overnight, just to be sure.
So charge up and enjoy the ride.
