Review off Cytronex kit
My wife and I, have been around and toying with electric conversions for touring bikes for quite some years now.
Starting with cheap Chinese front wheel conversions with just a hand throttle, which not unexpectedly,didn't last very long.
We then progressed to a pair of KTM E-bikes that were Bosch powered and a bit noisy, but worked quite well, as long as you overlooked the weight and absence of fun when is Cycling with the power off.
The problem was solved with these, when they were parked up with quality D locks in central London.....and then stolen.
These were replaced by a pair of heavyweight and chunky looking German Haibike MTBs. These again were noisy despite being Yamaha powered, and again no fun to cycle with the power off.
The search for renewed Cycling fun, led us to a pair of 9 1/2 kg Islabikes which have worked well for two or three years, as the extra low gearing compensated for the inevitable loss of leg power at 80+ years.
So exploring the E bike scene once again showed us that InFrame batteries would not work on holiday, as charging would be a real problem.
With rear wheel drive units, the possibility of a puncture was too daunting, and no advantages of being super light
But need to bridge the gap between conventional ultra and mid- heavyweight E bikes, and the fun of lightweight touring bikes still existed, and was interestingly solved to some extent, by a subscription to David Henshaw's A2B Magazine
David has been a longtime supporter and proponent of the Cytronex conversion from Winchester. I have been aware of this kit for sometime but considered it possibly too fragile for bikes transported on a towbar bike rack down to Spain or Italy
I couldn't have been more wrong.
After easily fitting two kits to a pair of road, orientated, mountain bikes a Trek 3 and a low step Whyte , we then drove across Europe in some pretty atrocious weather, so at that stage I had my doubts as to whether we would doing any E-biking at all?
Once again, I couldn't have been more wrong
1400 kms away, the hills of Italy in the Tuscany region were no place for old folk without some electronic assistance. Unlike the UK, 5 km+ climbs were commonplace, with some gradients putting a big question mark over the wisdom of having front wheel rather than central or rear wheel assistance.
Once again, I couldn't have been more wrong.
Despite being rained blasted on the back of the car for hundreds of miles, both bikes performed perfectly.
We tended to set them up with the yellow lowest power assistance at the minimal setting, and more or less this was good enough for most modest gradients. But definitely not all.
Of course, when the road conditions were just give-and-take, the lack of any resistance from the front wheel motor meant that Power Off riding felt just like well sorted touring bikes. So fun was very much restored
The only weakness or change that I would like to see, came when we were cycling, ridiculously steep gravel tracks as per our itinerary in northern Italy.
Very loose gravel and some sudden increases in incline which meant going rapidly for more power with the left thumb. This on at least three occasions Meant unfortunately, turning the power off rather than increasing it.
This in turn meant pushing the bike as restarting on these gradients was not possible.
I would like to see the power button turned 90° so that the plus sign is in front of the handlebars, and the minus -is behind the handlebars, and Off is in the middle. The natural movement of the thumb tip when the hand is stationary on the hand grips is a gentle arc, so tracing an easy line from
+ to - via a central Off position
When doing a 30 mile ride around undulating Hertfordshire north of London, we found that 30 miles used about 30% of the battery as per the iPhone app. in the yellow support position, but with lots of total power OFF Cycling. This is the only conversion that supports this possibility, in our experience.
So our experiences of the Cytronex conversion is not a gentle commute to work, nor a Sunday fun ride, but some pretty hard-core cycling which would not of been possible for people of our age without some assistance.
The conversions came through with flying colours, despite the conditions of travelling on the back of a car and being blasted by motorway, downpours for many hours....then many kms of rock and gravel surfaces not particularly recommended by Mark S of Cytronex
These are not the conditions most people would use their bikes for, so this must confirm the possibility of a pretty bullet-proof conversion in even extreme circumstance.
Highly recommended.
Ps
(It would be interesting to use a power meter and assess whether power On plus leg power is using much less effort than power off and a low gear plus leg power, of course at a much lower speed.)
My wife and I, have been around and toying with electric conversions for touring bikes for quite some years now.
Starting with cheap Chinese front wheel conversions with just a hand throttle, which not unexpectedly,didn't last very long.
We then progressed to a pair of KTM E-bikes that were Bosch powered and a bit noisy, but worked quite well, as long as you overlooked the weight and absence of fun when is Cycling with the power off.
The problem was solved with these, when they were parked up with quality D locks in central London.....and then stolen.
These were replaced by a pair of heavyweight and chunky looking German Haibike MTBs. These again were noisy despite being Yamaha powered, and again no fun to cycle with the power off.
The search for renewed Cycling fun, led us to a pair of 9 1/2 kg Islabikes which have worked well for two or three years, as the extra low gearing compensated for the inevitable loss of leg power at 80+ years.
So exploring the E bike scene once again showed us that InFrame batteries would not work on holiday, as charging would be a real problem.
With rear wheel drive units, the possibility of a puncture was too daunting, and no advantages of being super light
But need to bridge the gap between conventional ultra and mid- heavyweight E bikes, and the fun of lightweight touring bikes still existed, and was interestingly solved to some extent, by a subscription to David Henshaw's A2B Magazine
David has been a longtime supporter and proponent of the Cytronex conversion from Winchester. I have been aware of this kit for sometime but considered it possibly too fragile for bikes transported on a towbar bike rack down to Spain or Italy
I couldn't have been more wrong.
After easily fitting two kits to a pair of road, orientated, mountain bikes a Trek 3 and a low step Whyte , we then drove across Europe in some pretty atrocious weather, so at that stage I had my doubts as to whether we would doing any E-biking at all?
Once again, I couldn't have been more wrong
1400 kms away, the hills of Italy in the Tuscany region were no place for old folk without some electronic assistance. Unlike the UK, 5 km+ climbs were commonplace, with some gradients putting a big question mark over the wisdom of having front wheel rather than central or rear wheel assistance.
Once again, I couldn't have been more wrong.
Despite being rained blasted on the back of the car for hundreds of miles, both bikes performed perfectly.
We tended to set them up with the yellow lowest power assistance at the minimal setting, and more or less this was good enough for most modest gradients. But definitely not all.
Of course, when the road conditions were just give-and-take, the lack of any resistance from the front wheel motor meant that Power Off riding felt just like well sorted touring bikes. So fun was very much restored
The only weakness or change that I would like to see, came when we were cycling, ridiculously steep gravel tracks as per our itinerary in northern Italy.
Very loose gravel and some sudden increases in incline which meant going rapidly for more power with the left thumb. This on at least three occasions Meant unfortunately, turning the power off rather than increasing it.
This in turn meant pushing the bike as restarting on these gradients was not possible.
I would like to see the power button turned 90° so that the plus sign is in front of the handlebars, and the minus -is behind the handlebars, and Off is in the middle. The natural movement of the thumb tip when the hand is stationary on the hand grips is a gentle arc, so tracing an easy line from
+ to - via a central Off position
When doing a 30 mile ride around undulating Hertfordshire north of London, we found that 30 miles used about 30% of the battery as per the iPhone app. in the yellow support position, but with lots of total power OFF Cycling. This is the only conversion that supports this possibility, in our experience.
So our experiences of the Cytronex conversion is not a gentle commute to work, nor a Sunday fun ride, but some pretty hard-core cycling which would not of been possible for people of our age without some assistance.
The conversions came through with flying colours, despite the conditions of travelling on the back of a car and being blasted by motorway, downpours for many hours....then many kms of rock and gravel surfaces not particularly recommended by Mark S of Cytronex
These are not the conditions most people would use their bikes for, so this must confirm the possibility of a pretty bullet-proof conversion in even extreme circumstance.
Highly recommended.
Ps
(It would be interesting to use a power meter and assess whether power On plus leg power is using much less effort than power off and a low gear plus leg power, of course at a much lower speed.)
