e BSOs

[fd3]

Been seeing a number of eBSOs recently.  Sure there's the dodgy lads on something that motors electrically with no need to pedal, but I have seen a number of people cycling full (cheap spring) suspension bikes with built-in battery and motor and on the commute today someone was riding what looked like a modern take on a raleigh 20 with an e-assist and battery on the rear rack.
Are the motors really so cheap that you would fit them on a piece of shite?

[Kim]

Low-end e-bikes have always been fairly terrible bikes.  The perception that (before you add a motor to it) a bike costs about a hundred quid is alive and well amongst a prime e-cycling demographic.

Motors were never *that* expensive.  It's the rapidly falling wholesale price of lithium-ion batteries that's the game-changer.  You can probably get a minimum viable e-bike conversion kit for a couple of hundred quid these days.


It's the really bodgy conversions that fascinate me.  They've got that African vibe of "we'll do whatever it takes to get it working, as long as we don't have to buy new parts".

[Cudzoziemiec]

There is a market for them, so manufacturers make them. Basic utilitarian transport.

It's the really bodgy conversions that fascinate me.  They've got that African vibe of "we'll do whatever it takes to get it working, as long as we don't have to buy new parts".

Sometimes extending to the carrier bags waterproofing the battery in the frame triangle! But again, it's good when viewed from a utilitarian non-ICE transport pov: have bike, start rooing, discover it's hard work, add motor...