Cargo Ebike Conversion for a Cycling Plumber

[Pedal Powered Plumbing]

Hello my friends,

I'm a cycling plumber. I use a steel Dawes Horizon tourer with 4 panniers (and occasionally a bike trailer) to transport tools and materials to jobs around Bristol. I have an advertising board fitted to my frame (see picture). I weigh around 75 kilos, and my tools probably come approximately 40kg, sometimes more. Much of the weight is on my rear wheel. I rarely do more that 20 miles in a day, although it would be nice to be able to do longer leisure trips on a weekend.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could best go about electrifying my bike?


My thoughts so far:

1) My rear wheel needs to be really strong. Does this rule out a rear hub motor?

2) I have a fancy Tubus rear pannier rack, since the one that came with the bike buckled under the weight of my tools! Consequently, I think it would be best to avoid adding the additional weight of a pannier mounted battery.

3) The advertising board is going to make it difficult to fit a frame mounted battery. Can anyone think of a way around this?


Thanks loads!

Benedict Sansam
Pedal Powered Plumbing

 

[Benjahmin]

Hats off to you sir, you must have legs of iron.
I think with all that weight at the back (and given Bristol's hills) a front hub would give too much scrub. So it's mid drive or rear hub. I'm guessing that your chainset gets enough punishment as it is, so I'd say rear hub, for all round bullet proof reliability. I would buy one that has a double wall rim and use a beefy tyre like a schwalbe marathon +.
Unless you could get a triangle battery bag made that incorporated your advert, I don't see an alternative to a rack battery.
But the brakes with all that weight up - ye Gods do they stop you at all, or do you carry an anchor?
Wouldn't you be better off with a bike more suited to the weight carrying in the first place?

 

[Nealh]

Ideally you need a different bike altogether.
A proper cargo bike( the step thru frame type) with the large front box and possibilty of a using a trailer as well, the front box could then support advertising on three of it's faces.

If intent on using your existing bike then definitely look at a large triangle bag with the battery inside and added advertising graphics for the bag. Look to try and go with a 48v set up.
Hub motor for reliability needs to be high torque so something like a rear Bafang Bpm with 201rpm winding, you get to keep all your gearing and will still need the use of them or legally marked SWX02 Bafang rear hub.

Woosh hub kits | Electric Bike Conversion Kits from Woosh

Woosh range of hub kits with choice of front or rear hub motors. Convert your bike into an electric bike.

wooshbikes.co.uk

 

[vfr400]

You can make a plywood box to replace that sign. All you need is 3mm ply sheet and some 9mm or 10mm x 75mm softwood. Cut a piece of ply the same shape as your sign, glue the sodtwood edge to the edge of the plywood, then screw the other side to the other edge of the softwood, so one side is removable.

You can then buy any cell-pack you want, including the nice triangle ones. You can glue in more softwood pieces to hold the battery in place when you know it's size and shape, or you can partition the box with softwood and have more than one removable panel, like a quick release one for your bike toolkit and spares. You're only limited by your imagination.

When finished, sand it all down and make the corners round, then spray with white primer, then white topcoat, then put your signage on it.

Make U-brackets out of stainless or mild steel strip to hold it in place.

You can put your controller in there too with the connectors and all the spare wiring.

You should use a rear geared motor at 48v if you want ultimate reliability. Any crank motor will also work, but not as nice as a hub-motor, nor as reliable.

My preference is the Q128 from BMSBattery. Q128H if you have free-wheel gears and Q128C if you have free-hub gears. The slow speed versions (201 rpm) will give the best efficiency.

For the controller, LCD, throttle and PAS, the PSWPower sine wave ones are the best. You can choose 15 amps, 17 amps or 20 amps according to how much power you want.

Look at the end of this one to get the idea.

Building a cooled battery box for a lawn care bike.

Edit: All done More info and better pics are on my main website here https://sites.google.com/site/shelbyelectro/lawn-care-bike Hi ya'll. This is a build thread specific to my new "lawn care bike." Worked great last summer! The only problem was the 20lb ping being up high in that bag. Not...

www.endless-sphere.com

 

[Raboa]

Hi, I don't know if this will help, its a way to carry bigger rear pannier bags.

Expanding luggage capacity on a bike

Hi, I was looking to expand the luggage carrying capacity on my bike (like a cargo bike). I was looking at a luggage carrier expander and bigger panniers. Here is some examples. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Basil-Unisexs-Carrier-Length-Extender/dp/B007HZ7HRU...

www.pedelecs.co.uk

Thanks