The earliest electric bikes???

[Broadbeans]

Evening, electroids! I was just thinking back to the 1950s, and I don't remember seeing any electric bike technology then - it was all super little two-strokes back then. Think the earliest electric I came across was in the 60s. There was a little one you could get with (Embassy, I think) cigarette coupons, bt you needed to save up zillions of the to get the bike. There was a pic of it in the catalogue. It looked like a biggish red and white James Bond-type suitcase you could carry about wuth a handle, and I think the wheels folded out cleverly. A city gent was pictured, carrying it up steps to his office-block! Anyone remember it? Johnny

 

[flecc]

I don't remember that one Johnny, though with the batteries at that time it wouldn't have been much good. The first electric bike proper as we know them was very much more recent, in 1991 in fact. Which one of them was actually the first in that year is open to question, but England was there as we usually are with innovation. This time it was the forerunner of the TGA Electrobike, allegedly using a truck wiper motor. In fact TGA are still producing the latest version at £895. It drives though the gears like the Cylone and Panasonic units, and for a while TGA produced it as an add-on kit for ordinary bikes, sadly discontinued now.

Sinclair was in early as you might expect with the Zike electric bike in 1992 and the Zeta add-on motor in 1994. Powabyke go back a long way too, but I'm not sure which year they started.

Some early names from the USA are Zap, a friction drive add-on motor, the Currie Electrodrive which arose from an electric vehicle researcher who left General Motors to set up in bike motors, and the BionX which arose from Chrysler research following the Arab oil crisis in the 1970s.
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[Blew it]

I certainly remember the Embassy no.1 coupons, That's where my Elora socket set came from together with a torque wrench and spanner sets. Those tools are still in regular use today.

And I've still got the cough too!.

Regards

Bob

 

[Broadbeans]

That's interesting info, Flecc, ta! About twenty years ago I tried to motorise a bike with a Sinclair C5 motor axle against the rear tyre. It was all held together with plywood and screws, but such a muddle that it never worked! If I'd persevered, I might have been the first!

I once came across a fella on a Zeta (the front-wheel version) and I think his battery hung from a little bag on the crossbar. He was a hefty 17.5 stone, he told me, and he was pleased with the outfit. But I think he was putting on a brave face, because as he rode away he was hardly going at walking speed! Johnny

 

[Broadbeans]

They must be good spanners, Bob! If you'd smoked enough for the electric bike, you'd have needed it to get around! I've still got a little travel alarm clock courtesy of Black & Green's tea coupons! Johnny

 

[flecc]

Yes, the Zeta was one of Sinclair's worst efforts, and that's saying something. It was virtually gutless, far too low powered and too under batteried to be any good. But of course he lived in a very flat area!
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[Broadbeans]

I nearly bought a Zeta, Flecc! I seem to remember the battery was quite tiny. Don't know what wattage the motor was. There's a video on Youtube of a bike powered by one of those fast electric-car motors rubbing the front wheel!

I have a little bicycle trailer and have considered motorising it as a 'pusher' with my (still unused!) C5 motor. Have seen a couple of pusher trailers on the internet. Don't know how well they work. Wonder if they'd push you over when you go round a sharp corner? Johnny

 

[flecc]

I don't think they would be a problem, most quite low powered. The one seen most here has a Currie Electrodrive motor driving the offside trailer wheel, and I think side thrust is a slight issue with that. Opening the throttle could try to make the bike lean to the left as the towbar swung sideways, and our road camber could make that worse. A proper differential setup would be too expensive though:

Trailec
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[Broadbeans]

That looks a grand trailer set-up, Flecc. Food for thought! And you could carry a whopping battery! Just saw your mention of old car batts on another posting. I've got a little home-made open wooden canoe, which I power with a motor pod built 'secretly' in a wooden rudder. It's powered by a large car battery hidden in a wicker basket. Great fun...and it glides silently for miles on calm water. It draws only 7 amps, so really hardly ever gets depleted before it's recharged, and the battery has lasted for yonks. I suppose this would be the best technique for a lead-acid Milan 2, charging it as soon as possible after each trip, rather than running till the power fades. Can you do top-up recharging with the newer batts, too, or do they prefer regular depletion? Johnny

 

[flecc]

Top up charging is best for them Johnny, they work best with constant charge cycling, and that will suit the Milan well.

That boat setup sounds good, a clever way to hide the motor. Electric drive is an ideal way of propelling small boats on lakes and slow moving rivers, quiet, efficient and far better to live with on the water than small two stroke outboards, for us, the fish and other wildlife.
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[Broadbeans]

The boat's good fun, Flecc, but a bit of a novelty. It doesn't fool everyone - a bloke popped his head up out of a boat and said, 'By gum, you're the first churchwarden-pipe-smoking electric canoeist I've seen all day!'

I've also tried it with a bamboo-pole sailing rig, but truthfully the most fun I get is with just paddling around with a long double paddle, like a kayak. It makes me feel like Charles Atlas after a day out! I've heard that electric biking helps you get fitter, because you actually get the bike out and do a bit of pedalling. Hope this will be the case, as bodywise I'm rapidly turning into a zeppelin! Johnny

 

[Tim]

We had a customer 3 or 4 years ago he said he was issued some kind of electric bike for the D-Day landings! Maybe we mistook what he said and he meant a folding bike, I gather they were used by paratroopers in Normandy.

 

[flecc]

We had a customer 3 or 4 years ago he said he was issued some kind of electric bike for the D-Day landings! Maybe we mistook what he said and he meant a folding bike, I gather they were used by paratroopers in Normandy.

Yes, they were ordinary folding bikes Tim. The following extract is from the BBC's online services:

"This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Claire White of BBC Scotland on behalf of William Ward and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
My most vivid memories of WWII date from the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944. I was 19 years old at the time and was serving as infantry.
We landed with folding up bikes for a quick advance off the Normandy beaches. The Germans were mortaring and machine-gunning the roads so we got rid of the bikes after 50 yards. I was a Bren Gunner meaning I fired a machine gun during the landings."
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[flecc]

And here's a photo of the WWII Airborne folding bike, made by BSA:

 

[nigel]

Hi flecc
in some ways the design looks quite modern for 1945 may be the give away would be the saddle handlebars and front light but i can quite understand your reluctance to keep hold it for very long though nigel.

 

[flecc]

Hi flecc
in some ways the design looks quite modern for 1945 may be the give away would be the saddle handlebars and front light but i can quite understand your reluctance to keep hold it for very long though nigel.

The Ever Ready front light is understandable, but the amusing thing about the way it's equipped is the Bluemels pump behind the seat tube, but no puncture outfit.
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[Jeremy]

I can remember seeing plans for a homebuilt electric bike when I was a youngster, I think they came from Popular Mechanics or some such magazine. I was seriously thinking of building a bike to these plans when my cousin offered me a small Italian 38cc engine that fitted under the bottom bracket and slid to and fro with a "clutch lever" to engage the friction drive wheel with the rear tyre. This would have been in the very early sixties.

The electric bike design used a large, home made, wooden pulley, bolted through the spokes. The motor was a converted car dynamo fitted to a rear rack. The battery was an ordinary car battery slung in a wooden box beneath the cross bar. As far as I can remember there was no throttle, just an on-off switch mounted on the handlebars.

I've no idea if many were ever built, but am sure that at least one must have both built and tested for the magazine to have published the plans and instructions.

Thankfully the health and safety mafia hadn't been invented back then, so the idea of young boys experimenting with motors, pulleys, lead acid batteries etc was all perfectly acceptable..............

Jeremy

 

[Broadbeans]

Yes, Jeremy, I've seen a few of those home-brewed bikes with little engines. They look great fun! A fellow in Bolton has a strimmer-motor bike, but it screams like a jet-engine! I've been on a couple of annual coast-to-coast runs, and people turn up on all sorts of old jiggers. There's one in particular, called a Power-Pak, where the engine sits in the carrier position, with a friction-wheel rubbing the back wheel, and it seems to go like a rocket - except when it rains and loses grip. They're all smoky and buzzy, but very charming - and the good thing is that you can do 140 miles in a day, breakdowns permitting! I've often though that a good configuration for my spare Sinclair C5 motor would be to put it in the frame, near the pedals, with a belt-drive to a large diameter rim mounted onto the spokes alongside the back wheel, like the very early motorbikes. I suspect that a simple on-off switch would prove okay as a control. And if the power failed, you could just whip the belt off and pedal on! Johnny

 

[flecc]

The Power-Pak was definitely the fastest that we used to fit Johnny, left all the opposition standing. The slipping drive in the wet was due to using a ribbed alloy drive roller, and if used with a heavily treaded tyre the roller could rip chunks off the tread in the wet. Another problem with it was vibration, if on a bike with hard leather saddle it could be painful after a while, a new form of saddle soreness.
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[Jeremy]

I've been racking my brains to try and remember what make mine was. I have a feeling it was called something like the Mosquito, maybe made by Anzani? The cylinder was horizontal, projecting in front of the bottom bracket. The motor bolted to the frame like a side stand, by a clamp that went through the front of the lower rear fork. The fuel tank was built in to a rear rack, with the throttle being a lawnmower type lever mounted on the handlebars.

I seem to remember that it went rather well, certainly fast enough to scare me when flat out (although I was only around 13 or 14 when I was playing with it). I can't recall what it was like in the rain, as I doubt I ever took it out in the wet. I do remember that it was hard work to start, the knack was to pedal up to speed with the motor disengaged, flick the lever to push the motor back (with the decompressor engaged), then release the decompressor and hope that it started before you collapsed from exhaustion..............

Jeremy