Fat tire bike has a 48 v. 18 amp li-on installed on the back rack and I rode it a few miles yesterday on a torture test of hills and no pedal assist starts and full load riding and I'll give it a thumbs up review. I promised photos of both bikes though neither one boasts any real innovations. I'll take some when the rain lets up. These two bikes are intended as riders, learners and motivators for future electric projects, but I'm really enjoying them both during frequent daily rides. I'm still absorbing info on controllers and batteries at his point, but these two direct drive brushless motors, a 500 watt 36 v. and a 1,000 watt 48v. are what will determine my decision on how powerful a motor & the voltage selection for my next e-bike build. I like to experiment as I go and my use of sealed lead cells for the fat tire bike is an example. It's not that I didn't believe that li-on tech was superior; just that I needed some real world baselines to make comparisons & that goes with internal combustion power vs. electric powered bikes as well. Reading is learning, but doing is experiencing!
My future electric project will be a board track style build and I'd like to see dependable 45 mph performance capability, with unstrained 35 mph cruising. 3kw to 5 kw at 72 v. Does this sound about right? With 1.34 hp per 1,000 watts, four 4 hp equals 3,000 watts & at 72 v. I'd think 40 mph + would be attainable with 3kw through a traditional drive train. Direct drive hub powered 26" or larger wheels as well. I don't want to overpower this because it's supposed to be a bicycle with an e- motor unlike the first I.C. powered machines but even the first V twin power plants only made 5 hp or so, and these engines propelled the road bikes at an advertised speed of fortyish m.p.h.
I've some research to do on power. I confess to liking the idea of hub drives on vintage style e-bikes. They look so much like the large drum brakes which started to come in vogue during the twenties on cycles. I intend to continue building pedal bikes & for that purpose I'm favoring the hub drives over the mid motors, not only because a broken chain means a push or lift home (or roadside repair) with a mid drive. With the hub motors you can pedal on to your destination! As power increases to the small, shared drive chain, on the mid drive setup, the probability of chain failure exponentially increases as well. The mid drives do have their positive attributes and I'm actually a fan, but for my purposes I'm leaning towards the hub drives.
Rick C.
