Hello from Swansea

[taffiosi]

Hello everyone, excellent forum.
The wife and I are both looking for electric bikes, we are keen cyclists and regularly pedal 25 miles on cyle paths around our home but after a recent trip in southern france we found the steep hills were a bit to much for us in the 34 deg c heat and we decided there and then to look into e-bikes for our return in the autumn as so many people were passing us on them and made it all look easy.
Im going for a conversion kit on a practically unused Secialized Rockhopper i had of ebay recently as I want to keep my current Rockhopper as standard, not sure about the wifes steed yet so i will be looking at all the options and any advice will be greatly recieved.
Geoff and Rebecca.

 

[Benjahmin]

Hi Geoff,
Conversions great fun and you end up with a bike that you know about and can repair if needed. It's the way I went and it's great around the west Wales hills where I live.
Here's a link to my conversion process. I used an Ezee kit, not the cheapest but a respected motor with lots of grunt backed by a 20A controller. Plenty to get you up the valleys.
http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/converting-a-carrera-crossfire3.21965/
Another motor known for it's hill climbing ability is the Bafang BPM that Woosh supply. Both of these are front wheel conversions which is the simplest way to go, however they can get a bit 'lively' on loose steep surfaces, nothing that's caused us any problems in 3 years of mostly back lane riding.
There is an endless debate about the merits of either hub or crank drive conversions and their relative climbing abilities. I've found the hubs to be reliable and capable hill climbers. The geared hub is simple and, in my case, robust and is self strippable to repair is needed. Haven't had to (apart from greasing) in 4000miles.
The wife has a Woosh Big Bear. Probably overspecced for her size and weight but, again, gets her up every hill we've gone for around here. And she's no life long cyclist only coming to it for leisure in latter life.
Have fun choosing and converting, helps here if needed.