Hi Everybody,
Having fitted a few conversion kits to bikes over the last few years I’ve dropped in to the forum a time or two but have not joined until now.
My family are a bit bike mad and since my wife developed Asthama a few years ago we have also ended up electrifying some of our bikes.
My first foray into e-bikes was a Hainzmann high torque motor fitted to a recumbent trike. That cycles was sold (without the motor), a couple of years ago and since then my wife has been using two of the cheap (£180 minus battery) Chinese kits that are all over e-bay. One is on a BuddyBike Tandem that she rides with our 5year old, the other on a 700c wheeled Isla Bike.
I’m about to choose a system for fitting to an ICE Tandem Recumbent Trike that we have just bought secondhand. As this tandem will be used mostly by my wife and one of the kids I want it to have a reasonably torquey motor, as this will likely be a bike for life I also want a quality kit installed.
My requirements are:
Reliability; I’m in the armed forces so need the system to be reliable and dependable whilst I am away.
Range; Might be difficult on such a heavy bike but I’d like over 50 miles.
Related to range I’d like the system to be ‘intelligent’ in its power management. So I want a torque sensor so that the motor eases off when the riders ease off, when the rider works harder the motor works harder.
I want to be able to turn down the assistance effort when it is less essential but increase it when required.
Not essential but a power reversing would be good. Drag brakes have always been useful on tandems so why not use the motor as a drag brake and top up the cells in the process.
So having considered all of that I’ve decided that Heinzmann DirectDrive and NeoDrives kits are the front runners.
NeoDrives seems neater, it is actually the system that ICE now factory fit to their new trikes and having spoken to them they have been very impressed with how well it copes with the hilly terrain around their Cornish HQ. Much of this neatness though is achieved by putting the control electronics and torque sensor inside the motor hub though, so I’m concerned about the thermal aspects involved, particularly on such a heavy bike. With the Heinzmann on the other hand the controller is in the battery mount and the torque sensor is in the bottom bracket. Better for heat dispersal but more wires and I’ll need to drill the BB.
Both systems have batteries of about the same capacity, 525Wh and 515Wh. I’ll have to buy the Neo from Germany but the Heinzmann is available from Cyclezee of this parish. Both systems are about the same price.
You may ask ‘why not use you now redundant heinzmann Classic Motor’. It would indeed be terrific for pushing the tandem trike up hill, on the old trike we had a thumb throttle and mostly used it only for hills and pulling away. Trouble is though its blooming noisy, only achieves 12mph in a 406 wheel, I don’t have the controller for it and it has a slightly bent axel. Oh and after a brief spell on another bike it is currently sitting in the middle of a 26” wheel.
Anyway I’d be very interested to hear of other opinions and ideas for this trike. I’d also be interested to hear about how torque sensor controlled motors behave on the road and in particular whether anyone else has ridden a tandem with a torque sensor. Of course on a tandem the sensor is responding to the effort of two riders so the assistance delivered at the rear wheel will be greater than would be the case on a solo. This can be taken care of by turning down the level of assistance but it would be good to be able to reprogram the controller to remove this effect.
Cheers
Joe
Having fitted a few conversion kits to bikes over the last few years I’ve dropped in to the forum a time or two but have not joined until now.
My family are a bit bike mad and since my wife developed Asthama a few years ago we have also ended up electrifying some of our bikes.
My first foray into e-bikes was a Hainzmann high torque motor fitted to a recumbent trike. That cycles was sold (without the motor), a couple of years ago and since then my wife has been using two of the cheap (£180 minus battery) Chinese kits that are all over e-bay. One is on a BuddyBike Tandem that she rides with our 5year old, the other on a 700c wheeled Isla Bike.
I’m about to choose a system for fitting to an ICE Tandem Recumbent Trike that we have just bought secondhand. As this tandem will be used mostly by my wife and one of the kids I want it to have a reasonably torquey motor, as this will likely be a bike for life I also want a quality kit installed.
My requirements are:
Reliability; I’m in the armed forces so need the system to be reliable and dependable whilst I am away.
Range; Might be difficult on such a heavy bike but I’d like over 50 miles.
Related to range I’d like the system to be ‘intelligent’ in its power management. So I want a torque sensor so that the motor eases off when the riders ease off, when the rider works harder the motor works harder.
I want to be able to turn down the assistance effort when it is less essential but increase it when required.
Not essential but a power reversing would be good. Drag brakes have always been useful on tandems so why not use the motor as a drag brake and top up the cells in the process.
So having considered all of that I’ve decided that Heinzmann DirectDrive and NeoDrives kits are the front runners.
NeoDrives seems neater, it is actually the system that ICE now factory fit to their new trikes and having spoken to them they have been very impressed with how well it copes with the hilly terrain around their Cornish HQ. Much of this neatness though is achieved by putting the control electronics and torque sensor inside the motor hub though, so I’m concerned about the thermal aspects involved, particularly on such a heavy bike. With the Heinzmann on the other hand the controller is in the battery mount and the torque sensor is in the bottom bracket. Better for heat dispersal but more wires and I’ll need to drill the BB.
Both systems have batteries of about the same capacity, 525Wh and 515Wh. I’ll have to buy the Neo from Germany but the Heinzmann is available from Cyclezee of this parish. Both systems are about the same price.
You may ask ‘why not use you now redundant heinzmann Classic Motor’. It would indeed be terrific for pushing the tandem trike up hill, on the old trike we had a thumb throttle and mostly used it only for hills and pulling away. Trouble is though its blooming noisy, only achieves 12mph in a 406 wheel, I don’t have the controller for it and it has a slightly bent axel. Oh and after a brief spell on another bike it is currently sitting in the middle of a 26” wheel.
Anyway I’d be very interested to hear of other opinions and ideas for this trike. I’d also be interested to hear about how torque sensor controlled motors behave on the road and in particular whether anyone else has ridden a tandem with a torque sensor. Of course on a tandem the sensor is responding to the effort of two riders so the assistance delivered at the rear wheel will be greater than would be the case on a solo. This can be taken care of by turning down the level of assistance but it would be good to be able to reprogram the controller to remove this effect.
Cheers
Joe
