Cheapest gents bosch centre drive bike?

[ghost]

Hello. I have been looking for a bafang centre drive kit to have a play building a new bike. I wanted a centre drive because I already have a good hub drive bike and would like something different that can be 'tuned' using the bikes gearing.

After reading a thread on here about a lightning quick kalkhoff for somewhere around £2700 I began to take note of the bosch drive although I cant justify that sort of spend.

I had previously dismissed it because it is not available in kit form, however the more I read the more I am beginning to think perhaps this drive system is going to be very popular. I am especially interested in finding answers to the following...

- What is the cheapest new gents bike with the bosch centre drive?

- What is the best value gents bike with centre drive? What I mean is the absolute cheapest is not always a good deal, If I can spend an extra £100 say and get lots of extra kit or a better shaped frame then it may be better value than the absolute cheapest.

- Are there 2 different sorts of drive system 25kph and 45kph or are they the same with different software or something?

- I have read about the new drive system coming out 2014 is this worth waiting for or do you think the first generation is good enough for the average joe. Bearing in mind I may be needing to dongle-ify it immediately I guess gen 1 would be better, or do I buy direct from Germany aand get one of their Uber quick ones straight out of the box?

To help...
I want to go fast.
I am not too heavy.
I can pedal okay, no heath issues
I only need to sprint up to 10 miles between charges.
As I am asking about cheapest I am looking at the lowest budget bosch drive so that's my budget.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

You don't have to spend that much on a Kalkhoff to get a fast one. The normal Kakhoff Agattu C11 can be adjusted to go pretty well, but I don't want to publish how. Send a PM to Alex, and he'll be able to explain it and what it will do. He knows more about it than me.

You find the cheapest Bosch bikes in Germany. They're often pointed out on the German Pedelecs forum, or look on German Ebay. They'll be mainly models from previous years, and probably have the "popping" drive problem to sort out.

 

[103Alex1]

Ghost ... it's a good question about whether the 350W & 250W wated motors are actually the same only with a different software control profile with the former allowing greater acceleration for example. I have often wondered too.

The few user reports I've seen on the 350W indicate they may not be much different to the 250W ones on very steep climbing. Trouble is all 350W ones are 'S-Pedelecs' which are specced for German road use and thus have strict component criteria like mirrors etc. and are also sold in fewer numbers. This inevitably means they are very expensive for what they are.

The key thing to remember is that just derestricting a motor doesn't make a bike inherently suitable as a "fast bike". The ones which will be a good match for faster riding will also be good for faster riding unpowered. In other words very high gearing for descents and low gearing for climbs (large range). Plus once you get into the 40mph range (most likely unpowered), ergonomically suitable with low rolling resistance too. This takes you into top-end sports bike territory. So pair that with an eye-wateringly overpriced motor/control system and you really need to be prepared to throw the extra £1,500 at it to get the package.

If the goal is fast speeds and seriously low effort then in all honesty I wouldn't bother with a crank drive. Just build a high-powered hub drive with LiPo fuel and it'll beat any Bosch to the finishing line without breaking a sweat. With effort, at high speeds the right sports bike will accelerate in favourable conditions with or without a motor .

 

[ghost]

thanks for the answers buddy!

When I say fast I mean 22-25 mph on the flat maybe not super fast by some peoples standards but certainly too quick to be legal! About as fast as the guys who fly past me in lycra although I have no intention of upsetting any of them with overtaking antics, they can get a little narked by that and quite rightly so!

I would think a fairly standard spec bike would cope with those sort of speeds especially on perfect tarmac that I have the luxury of using daily.

Just to confirm when you say 250w and 350w we are still talking about the bosch and not the bafang aren't we? I hadn't seen the bosch refered to by Watt ratings only by kph ratings. Also when you refer to bosch bikes I assume you mean all bosch powered bikes and not that you are recommending Bosch branded bikes as being the cheapest. I see bosch make bikes as well as supply motors to others. FYI the bosch branded models are £1700 list price from my LBS (electric transport shop), still too expensive for my shallow pocket. Anything closer to the £1000 mark I wonder?

The aim is to get some speed coupled with maximum stealth.
And also just to have a crank drive in the stable.
I have looked at getting magic pie 3 on 48v kit for the mountain bike but this would have to be night time use only, lol. This is okay for the winter commute as both trips take place at night. The motor is so obvious and the fact its a suspension mountain bike chipping along faster than a carbon frame racer with a fit guy on it kinda makes it un-rideable around these parts, especially in broad daylight. I recon it would be about a week before I got reported, seriously as well I am not over exaggerating there.

My thinking is the 250w bafang is, to the naked eye, legal afaik. A purpose bought bosch powered pedelec the same, has some chance as passing as legal anyway. Both have the ability to be tweaked a little which is what I am after. I just want a motor to spin fast enough to assist a little at high speeds or at least not restrict me like my current bike does. You cant pedal my current hub motor over about 18 mph due to its winding & voltage. So it doesn't matter how fit you are the motor drag is too much. If you leave late for work you are doomed. Upping voltage is silly as it would prob. fry motor and require relocation of current (very sensible) frame integrated battery position.

Anyway just interested to see how cheap a bosch drive can be had for fitted to a gents bike. Its hard because very often the bike brand name is whats needed to search the net. I mean I searched for 'cheapest bosch crank drive' and of course it doesn't show the very many manufacturers that use the bosch drive.

I need to find out make/model names really, is there a list of models that use the bosch drive somewhere? If there isn't should I (or someone else preferably with more knowledge!) start one with the price and brief description next to them like...

XXX brand Gents large frame 700c £xxx
and so on.

 

[ghost]

oh and I take on board your point about bike speed matching motor speed. I have noted the cadence of my pedalling in the top gears on the road bike I was going to fit the bafang to to see what gears I needed to use to get what speeds because I saw the crank speed of the motor is 78 rpm rated. This made me think I knew how the motor would respond to the gearing I was giving it. I have the option of dropping to an 11T rear too if the thing has the guts (which it probably wont).
The bike is on 700c x 23's and has drop bars so looks like it should be going fast, with even a light powered motor and my semi fit lightweight frame I'm sure I can get it shifting. Also planning on a small backpack or in rear bag battery for short range sprints to add to the stealth.

If only I could afford a gruber assist, but I hear they are noisy.

 

[D8ve]

Best value I feel is second hand .
A good bike with crank drive can be from £300 up.
If you are near Bristol I have two that can be modded to do 20+ MPH for you to test

 

[ghost]

I am not near bristol but thanks for the offer.

"With over 40 nameplates using the bosch system in Europe, this central drive is definitely one to watch."

I found the above statement so my list could take a while!
Keen to see the site gain some solid resources for other members to refer to so thought a list might be good.

I should point out i have looked at the cyclone i think it was, also a belt drive kit which is sold on ebay by a user on here, maybe frank i forget. But as soon as i latched onto the bafang (a bit late it seems, missed the bafang-boat that sailed in july) having throttle, compact size with integrated controller, ability to swap between bikes, easy derestriction, it seemed to fit the bill especially as i have a brand new roadbike languishing in the garage.

However i am not silly to dismiss spending say 1k on a new built bosch crank drive bike with a new battery especially if it can be made quick out of the box. This is prob. Not possible but that was the purpose of the thread, whats the cheapest new bosch crank drive? I dunno but i intend to find out!

I have a feeling as time goes on that more mods. Will begin to appear for the bosch, controller hacks, dongles, spares and repair specialists, internal mods, chainwheel swap options, can you get a throttle already? Also with so many bike manufacturers adopting the drive you can swap any mods or even whole drive units between brands. I like the sound of this.
I have always found it hard to establish when looking at say ebay 2nd handers what performance the giant xcfd or whatever has or what it can be made to do as standard so to speak, with a simple derestrict if it has one.

Now all one has to be able to spot is 'does it have a bosch cd', if the answer is yes then i know i can get 'x' performance from it. This is a simple but important revelation for the non educated e bike purchaser. No longer do you need to be involved in the trade to know what bikes go what speed etc.

Its like i know i can make a 220 bhp uk impreza turbo put out over 300bhp for about a grand there is a simple formula to follow and there are thousands of others who are doing or have done the same. The adoption of one drive system by many brands is a good thing for modifiers even if its not ultimately the most powerful at the moment, that will come i'm sure.

I am in this game for the long haul, if things do go the way i have described above i want to be in on it with a bosch drive to play with. I feel the bafang cd could go the same way but where are they? Maybe over the next few months they might arrive but only those in the know who can also convert bikes themselves will buy them. This is a limited market surely. A lbs may begin converting customers bikes but i doubt it, warranty issues? The question has already been asked to frank by alex i think on another thread, sounds complicated. Far easier is to sell a bosch cd equipped model (maybe part funded by cycle to work scheme as so many new bikes are, the name is good and if the unit proves dependable and its performance capability widely known it will be the most popular surely, probably is already.

 

[RobF]

Eddieo (RIP) was always good at digging out cheap Bosch bikes, often from ebay Germany.

But I don't think even he could find one for much less than £1,750.

The few 'Bosch bargains' I've seen have always had the smaller battery which I reckon is next to useless.

 

[103Alex1]

^^ Good point.

You're extremely unlikely to get a new Bosch-driven bike for under £1,750 and that will be tough to find. What you need to bear in mind is that the current system is inherently limited, being built for the European market, and even with modding it isn't going to blow your mind or have the mechanical capabilities to do much more than it already can with a dongle. Then you have the replacement or upgrade battery costs which put a cap on resale value after a certain time and a minimum cost of owning one. They have no plans to put out bigger batteries which makes more performance (which necessitates disproportionately more battery) a costly thing over any distance. Many buyers wind up getting a second battery. If you run these bikes on 22-23mph assist in rolling terrain they will likely be drawing a very high % of available battery power continuously.

Speed derestriction is one thing and that can already be achieved for very little outlay. You can't make the motor any more powerful in terms of torque or grunt than it already is. Added to this is the marketing strategy of bringing out tempting new drives / controllers to coincide with replacement battery time for many on a regular basis, to encourage owners to 'upgrade' both bike and drive and stay ahead of the hackers. It's a bit like computers.

As far as resale value is concerned, a Bosch drive is easily identifiable and because this is standard and you can just choose from hundreds of models using identical assistance. But if you sell on there are hundreds of models available for others to choose from too with the same drive so it'll come down to whether they like your particular bike more than others. Point is really that there's about a £500-700+ markup on the cost of a new bike with a Bosch drive for (in substance) the badge. However dubious the underlying bike might be - and that in the end is what you'll either like or get tired of. That is assuming you don't get tired of the drive itself first

The minimum effective selling price thing is a market fix to protect the value of a mass-produced piece of kit. But if you fit a good engine to a cr*ppy car it won't make the rest of the car any better quality or any more attractive. Best way to get a Bosch-driven bike for a bargain is to buy a lightly used 2nd hand bike that someone's bored with because a new model has come along. They're ten-a-penny and the Summer's over, so bound to be bargains to be had. Especially non-utility style bikes which are often bought to play with rather than as essential bikes for work etc.

I personally think there are better systems being developed out there drive-wise and the ones to watch in the future won't be Bosch and may not even be crank drives. Unless you need to climb very steep hills regularly (slowly at 8-9mph).... and even then hub motors are coming on in leaps and bounds. No doubt EddieO (R.I.P.) disagrees wholeheartedly.

 

[103Alex1]

thanks for the answers buddy!

When I say fast I mean 22-25 mph on the flat maybe not super fast by some peoples standards but certainly too quick to be legal! About as fast as the guys who fly past me in lycra although I have no intention of upsetting any of them with overtaking antics, they can get a little narked by that and quite rightly so!

I would think a fairly standard spec bike would cope with those sort of speeds especially on perfect tarmac that I have the luxury of using daily.

Just to confirm when you say 250w and 350w we are still talking about the bosch and not the bafang aren't we? I hadn't seen the bosch refered to by Watt ratings only by kph ratings. Also when you refer to bosch bikes I assume you mean all bosch powered bikes and not that you are recommending Bosch branded bikes as being the cheapest. I see bosch make bikes as well as supply motors to others. FYI the bosch branded models are £1700 list price from my LBS (electric transport shop), still too expensive for my shallow pocket. Anything closer to the £1000 mark I wonder?

The aim is to get some speed coupled with maximum stealth.
And also just to have a crank drive in the stable.
I have looked at getting magic pie 3 on 48v kit for the mountain bike but this would have to be night time use only, lol. This is okay for the winter commute as both trips take place at night. The motor is so obvious and the fact its a suspension mountain bike chipping along faster than a carbon frame racer with a fit guy on it kinda makes it un-rideable around these parts, especially in broad daylight. I recon it would be about a week before I got reported, seriously as well I am not over exaggerating there.

Yes I was referring to Bosch on the ratings of the motor ... S-Pedelecs are fitted with a 350W version whereas regular ones are fitted with a 250W version. Whether that's on account of how the controller manages power or the motor is actually different doesn't seem to be widely discussed. They seem to have about the same climbing torque from what I've read people reporting. Obviously an S-Pedelec doesn't need 'modding' to reach the speeds you're looking at and you get better on-road equipment built in like mirrors and better lights. But for a minimum price of about £600-£1000 more than the cheapest regular "250W" bikes.

I haven't tried a 250W Bafang. But the big bonus of the Bosch/Impulse/ [& (new) Panasonic CD ?] bikes is the way power is delivered not how much. In essence it's down to how natural riding the bike feels and how intuitively the power is delivered in response to riding. That barrier when compared to cheaper CD bikes is a large part of why you're paying £500-£700 extra for (the controller system) rather than the motor itself. It's basically the main reason I never bothered with a CD build. Without that 'finesse' I couldn't see the real draw - may as well fit a throttle and bang a hub on !

With Bosch CD bikes, the harder you ride the more you get back from the motor and the sooner you then change up gear. At speeds over 20mph on the flat you'll likely be in a high gear and it's somewhere here that the bike reaches its natural performance plateau for the gearing it has. Let's just say that I have my reservations about whether a Nexus-7 hub for example would comfortably deliver an 'on the flat' speed of even 23mph without riding like a bat out of hell.

With regard to stealth, take a look at d8veh's 500W CST rear hub stealth conversion. The motor is MUCH smaller than a magicpie, and can be well concealed by the disc brakes. If the battery is fitted as he has it, the bike would comfortably deliver exactly the speeds you want, has masses more power than any derestricted Bosch bike and the likelihood of anyone even realizing it's an eBike is slim. It'll take on steep hills with ease too (at 15mph+, much more on shorter runs). If being guaranteed of getting to work on time if you leave a bit later is the thing, without looking flustered, then this is your bike !

 

[Martin@e-bikeshop]

Hi Ghost,

Just having a quick flick through the forum posts here and spotted this.
I'm currently in Cyprus with my feet up on the beach, hence the short post

But if you do require any info on the Bosch CD system / dongles / motor torques / 350 / 250w differences / tweaking, then I'm the man.. just let me know and Ill be sure to help.

Regards
Martin

 

[Artstu]

Hi Ghost,

Just having a quick flick through the forum posts here and spotted this.
I'm currently in Cyprus with my feet up on the beach, hence the short post

But if you do require any info on the Bosch CD system / dongles / motor torques / 350 / 250w differences / tweaking, then I'm the man.. just let me know and Ill be sure to help.

Regards
Martin

That's all very well Martin, however I imagine he'd prefer a post saying "yes we have some old stock 2013 Bosch bikes on offer for £1,200 "

 

[Nusse]

Radon Hybrid Nexus £1,212

Radon Hybrid Nexus

 

[Artstu]

Radon Hybrid Nexus £1,212

Radon Hybrid Nexus

Good for someone tall, and perfect price point

 

[RobF]

Radon Hybrid Nexus £1,212

Radon Hybrid Nexus

Good find, it's got the smaller battery but is certainly cheap enough.

What hasn't been mentioned is this Bosch drive is near obsolete.

Most manufacturers seem to be fitting the new small sprocket one for 2014:

Cube Reaction Hybrid Pro 29 black´n´white´n´red

 

[Artstu]

This one has always hit the spot for me Merida E-Spresso 8 EQ weiss

but it would have to be a big saving over the latest Bosch system for me to buy the older version.

 

[Nusse]

Good find, it's got the smaller battery but is certainly cheap enough.

What hasn't been mentioned is this Bosch drive is near obsolete.

Most manufacturers seem to be fitting the new small sprocket one for 2014:

Cube Reaction Hybrid Pro 29 black´n´white´n´red

If it had the 400 Wh battery and the new 2014 Bosch it would probably be a lot more expensive...
And I already started a tread about the new Cube hybrid. http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/electric-bicycles/15644-cube-hybrid-2014-a.html

 

[103Alex1]

Good for someone tall, and perfect price point

... indeed. Good find. Although funnily enough it has the Nexus 7 I'd just refer comments above on that one !

 

[Nusse]

Todays offer (400Wh, £1,389): Cube EPO Travel Pro black 'n white

I think both Radon and Cube are high quality bikes. Three friends of mine recently bought Cube 29"ers from Bike-discount and are all very satisfied.

 

[banbury frank]

Hi ghost

look at cyclezee he has complete bikes with the 8 fun centre drive or kits

talk to him he is very helpful


http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/electric-bike-conversion-kits/15735-cyclezee-conversions-stock.html

Fank