The advantage of a DIY eBike is that you can repair it yourself. Plenty of ebike dealers have no knowledge of the electronics and if something stops working, then the bike gets send back to the factory. As it is a seasonal business you may be without a bike for weeks in summer time.
[1] https://hackaday.io/project/25337-smart-bldc-controller-for-...
At your given budget I would have used a better bike and a smaller motor/battery. The combination of beefy motor on an inferior quality bike could be flat-out dangerous.
You can. You just move the motor, battery/controller to another bike.
What the author did is a great way to check the feasibility of the idea for himself without breaking the bank.
Don't weight ten hours of learning about bicycle assembly as though it were ten billable hours if it isn't. Compare it against the ten hours you were going to do other things in: reading, watching TV, going out for a walk, whatever.
If I was the OP, I would do this exact thing: after putting some more miles on the bike and saving up that gas money, get a nicer bike and swap the motor. Better yet, sell this e bike for $2k now that it’s all upgraded and use that money for a full upgrade.
Were I to do it over again I'd get a nicer model, because in practice I almost never lock up my bike outside anyway so the theft concerns aren't an important factor.
Hows the battery holding if you carry extra weight? How much does the total setup, you included, weights?
Edit: I would consider an extra charger and charge at work for that range, in case you want to stop by somewhere on your way to or back from work.
Though, it doesn't matter if you don't ride in the rain, and many people don't.
The only problem I've had with the underlying bike is one incident where I slammed on the throttle from a full stop and the motor wrenched the whole back axle out of its alignment and jammed the wheel at an angle to the body of the bike. I guess the nuts securing the axle had worked themselves loose. Luckily I was close to work and was able to walk my bike in, and bring some tools the next day to loosen and re-tighten the nuts.
Overall I think it's been great. I wouldn't go back and buy a more expensive bike if I could. The nearly car-like prices of "good" bikes are too much.
Besides, the pedal assist power is adjustable so if I hit a hill I can just press the + button on the controller on the handlebar and I get more power. That functions like shifting into an easier gear, without having to pedal like mad to get anywhere.
Plus, a 1000-watt motor is ridiculous: that's the kind of power generated by a pro sprinter, and over twice what a pro climber generates on average. A 100-watt boost would be enough of an advantage to make most hills easy, and would probably weigh and cost far less.
If that is what you want, fine, but then stick to roads, stay off bike paths.
On even terrain I don't have any reason to be driving around at over 15mph (and I don't), but we do have morons who will, and that's why the law is so restrictive in the EU.
They don't bother with ebikes anyway, so they're reckless with a moped, which is way more dangerous.
The 250W limit in Europe is stupid (plus it shouldn't be a European law, it's not the correct scope).
Finally, you can be reckless with rollerblades or a bike, you don't need a motor. I guess it's more a problem of "250W is more than enough for people" just like 640kb was, for politicians.
Do you think there should be no power limit, or that it should be a different power limit?
I don't see why the regulations for electric bikes should be much different from gasoline bikes (aka, mopeds). If your e-bike is powerful enough, then it's comparable to a more powerful moped.
Do you think we prevent people from drive on the sidewalk because they will be reckless? I think the greater the momentum disparity, the more likely it is that an error, like loss of control, results in injury or death. This is a wider brush than "reckless".
But even if we assume it's the power draw and the motor itself is terribly inefficient, we're still talking 80% efficiency? Chain drive is 95% efficient if badly maintained, but then the human power loses that, too, so we don't need to consider it. So we're still talking 800W, which is 3-4 times as much as needed to sustain 20 mph on flat ground, and utterly out of range of any human for any time period beyond a minute.
The power and speed limit of normal ebikes is a feature. It keeps us from making the same mistake we have with cars, which only ever got faster while driving discipline declined and were at any point beyond human ability anyway.
I understand that mid-drive motors can deliver much more torque than hub motors. Maybe the OP is being realistic about what he needs in the Arizona hellscape where he lives.
The author made a cool thing and did everyone the service of documenting the process. Why is everyone so quick to crap on his project?
The law recognizes this too, which is why e-bikes are primarily regulated by power output or top speed.
He used an alu bike...
mechanical disc brakes worked for a decade before hydraulics.
hydraulic alone doesn't provide greater braking power vs cable pulled calipers.
So to simplify the point I'm making, he needs better brakes.
My bad -- the name "IRON HORSE" threw me off. Still, the thing supposedly weighs 37.75 lbs., which is terrible for a bike. For $1500, he could get something with much better parts weighing 20-25 lbs.
'Course, my average speed is about 8mph. I like to stop, look at things, and read the signs, and sometimes travel along hard-pack dirt roads.
Their e-trekking bike is about 54 lbs. I know what I'm going to get for myself when I get older.
EDIT: Pro deal is 50-60% of retail, so you can buy a used bike for about half of the sticker price.
Also ... biking with a trailer just isn't fun. I'd much rather bike on a loaded-down heavy bike than on a lighter bike dragging a trailer behind it.
And there's the fact that I'm sure you must be underestimating something, because a bike trailer has additional weight from its frame, wheel, and tire to add on that a fully-loaded bike does not. I don't see how it's possible that, for equal carrying capacity, adding a trailer could somehow reduce total mass.
The wheels of the bike trailer add additional rolling resistance, and more I think than putting the same weight on two wheels. That is, the trailer wheels are smaller, which means there's more force against the direction of travel.
Most bike trailers have two wheels side-by-side. If you are biking down a dirt road, then odds are there are packed ruts side-by-side, with a grassy strip in the middle. With a 2-wheel bike, it's easy to go along one of the ruts. With side-by-side wheels it's more likely that one of the wheels will be in the grass.
(My spouse uses a trike, and has this problem.)
I think username223 doesn't understand where the weight comes in, and is estimating what the weight "should" be based on a road bike + trailer combo.
A bike like mine, for bike camping, is heavier than a road bike. I also use it for dirt roads, so it needs to handle more shocks and vibration. The racks and fenders, and of course the gear, adds more weight. There are also not one but two kickstands on mine - the one on the front tire is needed if I'm carrying front panniers, because otherwise the wheel may twist and the weight pulls it down.
This then calls for a stronger frame, which adds even more weight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touring_bicycle gives more on the topic.
I haven't found it to be a problem. Mind you, I go slow, even downhill. I don't usually like biking faster than I can run.
A 20-25 lb steel bike with sufficient robustness does not really exist for $1500. Something like a surly ogre is about 30lbs. To shave off that extra 5-10 lbs you're looking at some very performance oriented parts and/or construction with extremely elevated prices.
when electrifying you value robustness over light weight. The energy from the motor more than makes up for the few extra lbs it has to haul.
Riding an electrified road bike at 30 mph all the time sounds terrifying and potentially dangerous.
> The brakes are often too soft to handle continuous elevated speed. What ends up happening is that I spend more money overtime to upgrade the bike to my desired state. So far I spent about $1500, including parts and tools, this is accounting for a fairly cheap used bike on craigslist ($200). Had I bought a new bike, I would have had to spend probably close to $1900. To make it exactly the way I want it, I estimate that I have to spend an additional $800 to get install IGH, bigger brakes, and more efficient tires with less rolling resistance.
Frankly, the author's setup just sounds dangerous. The several-$K all-in-one bicycles that they refused to get on grounds of cost are expensive because they are actually built to handle the rigors of e-bike usage, and have incredibly useful features like hydraulic disc brakes. The brakes on that department store bike are "disc" brakes, but they're certainly not hydraulic, or even good, at that price point.