Hi from Bulgaria...

[JimJay]

Hi, All!

I live in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and I'm toying with the idea of becoming an e-biker. It'll be an adventure, partly because the roads here are either very good (when they're new) or very bad (a year or two after they're new, due to the effects of very cold winters and very hot summers - and municipalities "only" having money when it's election year and they need to do something to get votes ) As well as the pot-holed roads - and I'm talking REAL potholes, not the baby ones that people in the UK seem to get so worried about - many of the drivers here have a phone in one hand, a coffee and cigarette in the other, and don't believe that the rules apply to them, especially if they drive shiny German motors with blacked-out windows. Most drivers are used to swerving around the potholes without looking around them and assume that cyclists are just kamikazes looking for a good place to die anyway.

Needless to say, we don't have bike lanes, apart from in a couple of the parks, and even if we did they'd be full of parked cars or taxis taking a short-cut.

The good news is that we can have e-bikes of any power we want, despite the supposed EU regulations, as no-one (including the cops) knows or cares about them!

 

[BG bicycle]

Hello, jimjay and welcome from Yambol.

Terrible roads huh, better this one? Tarmac was once here see photo.

Are perfectly correct are many very good roads and plenty of interconnected villages via dirt tracks. The roads network here is very good and the quality of is overall satisfactory.

This photo hereinafter the road is obviously no longer in use direction of travel encouraged via main road opposite side village.

 

[Fat Rat]

Hi welcome

Sounds like a mad house lol

 

[BG bicycle]

Hi welcome

Sounds like a mad house lol

Not at all just a ten percent flat tax rate. Laughs last, he.

 

[JimJay]

It's great - I love it here, even after 15 years! I'd say the road in that pic is better than quite a few here, unfortunately - at least it's flattish. Too many of our roads have massive craters in them, made worse when they're full of rainwater and just look like puddles - until you're submerged in them with a burst tyre or worse...and I'm talking about my 4x4 here!

 

[BG bicycle]

What sort of Ebike jimjay be of interest, custom DIY, or shop bought?

I’ve a few tools include test gear specific to Ebikes, ever require. Include in the list a battery welder.

Ebiking around this way is becoming very popular include the DIY, community of was always here the Bulgarians are industrialists, seen a few rather quirky although practical builds to date.

Roads that bad central Sofia? Where do you live?

 

[JimJay]

What sort of Ebike jimjay be of interest, custom DIY, or shop bought?

I’ve a few tools include test gear specific to Ebikes, ever require. Include in the list a battery welder.

Ebiking around this way is becoming very popular include the DIY, community of was always here the Bulgarians are industrialists, seen a few rather quirky although practical builds to date.

Roads that bad central Sofia? Where do you live?

I'm looking at a few general options:

1 - stick to my 4x4, on the basis that riding a bike in Sofia is suicidal and I'd like to be in the survival side of any bike accident I'm involved in. This is my wife's preferred option

2 - buy a ready-made, maybe a Pegas from Romania or something from another European country with a healthier disregard of EU regs than seems to be the case in the U.K. Don't get me wrong on this: I used to be a motorbiker and I'm not looking to polish myself off by going at crazy speeds on a push bike, but I do need something with decent range that can tackle both the completely mental traffic downtown, where a spurt of speed can help get you out of trouble, and the hilly (read "the sides of Mount Vitosha") parts of the suburbs where I live and spend a lot of my time. I'm also a bit long in the tooth nowadays and power assist - possibly a lot of it, timewise - would be essential if I run out of steam on a long and steep hill, or even on the flat...

3 - convert a couple of Giant hub-gear bikes that I already have. This would be Plan A, since it would hopefully save me some cash. I reckon that a front hub conversion would be best for that, as I wouldn't lose ground clearance and the back wheel hub-gears can stay.

I know how ingenious (not to mention Heath Robinson) some Bulgarians (and others, of course) can be when it comes to engineering projects of all kinds - my father-in-law is one of them However, I'm also well aware that it's not unusual for enthusiasm to carry people away here - and I'm keen to avoid being carried away, in any sense of the expression! Often some Bulgarians' skills are also rather less than they believe - or should that be "hope"? I'm aware of my own limitations when it comes to engineering, so I'd be more inclined to buy a ready-made conversion kit that wouldn't require any/too much modification to the original bike. I've bought plenty of stuff from Aliexpress and so on but I'm wary of buying electronics direct from China, especially when my life might depend on them! However, I'm keen to learn from others who've done their own custom conversions and are willing to share their knowledge and experience.

Yes, many of the roads in central Sofia are bad, particularly the side-streets, and the pavements are often even worse. As you'll know, suing the council if you break a leg on a dodgy pavement simply isn't on the cards here, and flat ones tend to be a place where tourists congregate to photograph such a marvel, so cycling on the pavement is a no-no (and anyway rather anti-social when pedestrians already have to watch out for broken manhole covers and unstable slabs).

 

[JimJay]

Weirdly, I tried to write "custom builds/conversions" in the penultimate paragraph of my post above but the system refused to allow it as it apparently made it spam!

 

[BG bicycle]

Ok, understood. Chao.

 

[JimJay]

Sorry about the probably over-long previous post: I was just trying to set out what I think my options are, together with why I think that. Plus a musing or two on Bulgaria and life/the folks here, of course...