700,000+ Electric bikes sold vs. 11,500 Electric cars

imakebiodiesel · Post by **imakebiodiesel** » 21 Oct 2012, 11:33

Electric ebikes are a great idea. I fitted a conversion kit to my peugeot mountain bike 3 years ago. I do a regular commute of 30 miles round trip.
The motor is 250watt with a 36v lithium ion battery. It cost 650 euro then, about 500 euro now.
I regularly tow a bike trailer with it to take the recycling to the bring centre or to do the shopping. The pic below is my new trailer. I can attach a rucksack to it for shopping or a plastic bin for recycling. I can also put a small 300watt petrol generator onto it which recharges my battery as I travel if I need extended milage.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 22 Oct 2012, 12:01

Wow, that's a steep slope your bike can go up

!

imakebiodiesel · Post by **imakebiodiesel** » 24 Oct 2012, 12:57

Sorry about that, forgot to rotate the pic.
Here is a pic of the bike itself. As you can see Ive tried to keep it looking like a conventional bike by hiding the battery and controller. Less likely to be stolen that way. A lot of ebikes have really cheap Chinese made frames and equipment which wont last long. I used my trusty Peugeot mountain bike as the base because I do a lot of mileage and and need a bike that I can rely on and can be fixed easily.
<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/442/newad011.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://imageshack.us/a/img442/338/newad011.th.jpg" border="0"/></a>

imakebiodiesel · Post by **imakebiodiesel** » 24 Oct 2012, 13:00

I dont know what went wrong with the last post but here is the pic of the bike.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 25 Oct 2012, 16:39

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2 ... -efficient

Excellent article on velomobiles. I want that 2 seater!

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 25 Oct 2012, 16:48

Thanks for that Ralph.

with the average trip to work being 19.5 km in the USA and 22 km in the Netherlands.

Depending on his or her fitness, a cyclist reaches cruising speeds of 10 to 25 km/h, which means that the average trip to work would take at least two to four hours, there and back.

Eh? That's the problem - why work so far from home? That's something society has to work on.

I work ten kilometres from home, which is far enough. It takes me between 25 and 35 minutes to cycle each way, depending on mood, weather, traffic etc. It can take twenty minutes by car sometimes, always at least fifteen.

ujoni08 · Post by **ujoni08** » 31 Oct 2012, 13:27

Very nice. They look fast. I like the single seater myself:

lurker · Post by **lurker** » 05 Nov 2012, 11:48

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/80cc-2-Cycle- ... %26ps%3D54

Looks like it could be fun

40mph top speed 120-170 MPG

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 07 Nov 2012, 18:04

How about this?

http://phys.org/news/2012-11-yamaha-fra ... dyson.html

Scuba tank of compressed air on a dirt (motor) bike. 60 mile range and compression could be from renewable sources.

I'm sure it would be legal on a motor cycle licence in the UK, but MOT might be tricky.