Random Musings > Skip Bike and Bodge It

Electric bike conversion advice

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JimN:
I'm a bit nervous about the reaction to posting on this subject on this site. But with six bikes, including a recumbent, AND a recumbent trike and one of these used every day, perhaps I really shouldn't be. Anyway, I met a rider the other day out in the middle of nowhere and he showed me his conversion - basically one of these  https://www.ebay.co.uk/c/26032265140?iid=223280585932 and a battery, also costing about the same. He was really pleased with it. And the one bike I rarely use now is a Thorne Raven Tour - it has been all over the world, including Pakistan and India, and has served me well with a lot of sentimental value. But it is incredibly heavy and a pig up hills; to be honest, I don't think I will use it properly again. But it seems to me I could just take off the front wheel, put one of these on, give it a new lease of life, and have a lot of fun.
Has anybody any experience of such things? It just seems incredibly cheap for what it purports to be. Would it just break within a week?

Kim:
I don't have much in the way of useful advice, though "you get what you pay for" almost certainly applies.  But just wanted to say you shouldn't need to be nervous about asking about electric bikes.  While they're certainly in the minority around here, we do have a couple of e-bike threads, and snobbery about such things (other than perhaps riding illegally overpowered ones on-road) isn't really in the spirit of YACF.  I know that motors have opened up new cycling possibilities for some forumites, be that overcoming disability, making a longer commute practical, load hauling or just being less intimidated by hills.  It's all good.

Peter:
Definitely.  Post away!

T42:
I'm slowly being coerced in that direction. The hard thing is finding one for 130mm drop-outs. Even harder if you don't want to lose the use of your bottle-cages.

Anyone tried cold-setting a carbon frame?  ::-)

Mr Larrington:
The pictures in that advert bear a startling resemblance to the kit I fitted to an old Stumpjumper earlier this year for Miss von Brandenburg.  Which cost about six times as much.  It took quite a lot of Bad Swears to fit but it does now work.  At the price of the one on Fleabay it's probably worth a punt.

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