Comments on the Walmart Bike:
1) If you put the battery in wrong the first time, the fuse will blow.
2) The motor is an ASSIST motor. It does not have the power to run the bike by itself.
3) Am not sure if it will help enough going up very steep hills. Will be testing.
4) The motor control has two SAFETY use modes for the motor. a) Power assist after you are moving. b) Power assist after you are pedaling. There is a twist DEADMAN throttle, which only continues working if you twist it.
5) Bike has an extra slot for a second battery pack. You switch between PACK-A or PACK-B depending on which has energy.
I've driven my ezip trailz for 1 year and 8 months now. Almost daily for a couple of miles a day.
1} It's impossible to put the battery pack in wrong. It has slots in the battery case that prevents it.
2} The bike carries my 200lbs with no pedaling and depending on the charge, up moderate hills. I only have one battery pack. The only time I pedal is if I happen to run out of juice.
After about a year, the stock batteries (two 12V 10ah "Enduring" brand Chinese SLAs), were just about fizzled out and I could only go about a mile before needing a charge. Instead of spending $150 or more for a new battery pack from Currie (and the fact that it's almost always out of stock), and instead of spending $70 plus shipping to order two comparable batteries online, I ran across SLAs in a local grocery store that were 12v 7.5ah which cost me $17.99 each. I think they are used for home alarm systems and computer UPS. I took the case apart and installed them and so far they have worked great. I haven't maxed them out since I usually don't make trips over 2 miles total. My max range would probably be about 5 miles. Even when the bike was new, 8 miles was probably the maximum range with the Currie battery pack. I saw someone post here that they went 10 miles and hardly used any of the battery charge. I'd have to see that to believe it.
The bike has been very durable and I ride it on moon crater streets and dirt roads in a podunk one horse town. No breakdowns ever. No flats because I put some gorilla snot in the tires when I bought it.
Top speed 15 mph with no pedaling on a flat road or very slight incline.
Paid $150 for it at Wal-Mart. It was the only one they had and was on clearance. A real steal.
The Wal-Mart I bought it at never got any more of the bikes until recently and they now have two of them and are priced at $398.00. If I keep waiting like I did before, they might even reduce these to $150 and I might buy a new one. Just think, buy an entire new bike for less than the battery pack from Currie.
Mine is a 2007 model. The controller/battery switch is on the seat tube. On later models, they moved the controller to the rear of the bike. I wonder why. Now you have to stop and get off the bike if you want to switch batteries.
Many people are running 36v through this 24 volt motor successfully using the stock controller, but they are drilling holes in the motor casing to cool it. I'm sure it would overheat if you didn't do this. It's a tricky operation to do and I don't want to chance screwing up the motor when all those little pieces fall out.
My biggest complaint is the loud whir of the motor. You can hear it coming from at least 2 blocks away. Dogs, goats and cattle can hear it coming from even further away. I don't like attracting attention, so this whir still bugs me.
The ultimate upgrade for me would be a quality 24v lithium-ion battery pack, which would reduce battery weight greatly plus more range. Wouldn't it be great if a Dewalt or Black and Decker 24v battery packs had at least 10ah? But those batteries are Ni-Cad and peter out after they've sat a few months.
If you plan to buy an Ezip, if you check nothing else before buying, at least check and see if the battery pack will slide into both sides correctly. I discovered long after I bought mine that the right rack was slighly bent and the battery wouldn't slide in. This was a dilemma since the contacts wore out on my left side rack. I removed all the screws from the contact holder on the right side and was able to get the battery in. The contacts probably wear out from all the vibration and bumps from the road, even smooth roads. And I've looked around and haven't found replacements for the contacts. A way to prevent this is wrip a strong bungee cord around the battery pack from top to bottom to minimize vibration. Even this may not prevent it. The connection from the battery to the contacts on the frame is metal to metal and made of copper, so vibrations really take their toll since they are cheap chinese parts like most everything else.
