warrah

That is awesome.

whoa £16,000! Thats crazy. Kind of illustrates a general process of diminishing returns that you get with EVs as they get larger and more powerful. The heavier the vehicle, the more power is needed to lug around the weight of more power. Makes sense to go light... wish someone would bring out a small 2 person e-velomobile of some sort. As a comparison and cuz this is a sales thread, when the Pagans batteries crap out in years to come, it costs £250 to replace, £500 to replace the double sized one. Of course the Nissan leaf has a greater range, but not as much as £16000 would have you think... with the 2400wh battery, the pagan travels 65miles under the similar mostly-30mph-with-occassional-periods-of-faster-speed conditions that the nissan leaf achieves its stated 84mile range.

The price drop in the last week obviously isnt depreciation, thats not how depreciation works. Depreciation is reduction in value over the course of time due to wear and tear or relative to a wider changing market. The Pagan is currenty SORN; it didnt experience £750 of wear and tear in the last few weeks, nor did the EV market experience a seismic surge of progress in the last few weeks. The £750 reduction was due to feedback from people on the internet about why it wasn't selling. More generally though, you are probably right, the Honda will depreciate less. I'm not 100% sure, maybe someone can weigh in on this, but surely an EV will not hold its value as well, compared to a petrol vehicle; the current fast pace of progress in EV technology means todays nissan leaf will seem archaic in 10 years, whereas petrol vehicles have remained relatively unchanged over the years.

There isn't much overlap between the two. They have different strengths. The pagan eliminates fuel costs, road tax, engine noise (you'd be surprised how much that improves your enjoyment of the ride) and also your contribution to humanity b*mf***ing the climate to death, if thats a priority for you. The pagan is a lot more efficient so does not damage itself with massive amounts of heat over time. Needs less maintenance; it doesnt have 100 different mechanical parts that can go wrong, no carburetor, radiator, exhaust, oil system, transmission, pistons, cam chain, starter motor, etc. Don't get me wrong, I think combustion engines are charming; there are few machines still being made today that resemble a museum exhibit. The honda 250 has a much higher top speed, has a much higher range, petrol stations everywhere so the range is effectively infinite. Whether the pagan or the honda has more torque is an interesting question, its worth researching internal combustion engines vs electric engines regarding torque if youre interested, but we'd need to test the pagan with some kind of torque measuring thing to be sure. The honda can take 2 people, can hill climb better, has a place for luggage, and every garage knows how to repair it. Its worth mentioning though that the pagan has such a simple relationship between its EV parts that if you are up for some light DIY, replacing a part yourself is totally doable. You'd probably have to be up for it, as a garage probably wont touch the EV part. They'll do the lighting part though. Oh yeh, the chick magnetic field of the honda is probably higher too.

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/pagan-electric-bike-60mph-fully-road-legal.22286/ d8veh introduced me to this forum when he posted a link to the last road legal ebike I sold: http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/fast-legal-bike.19861/ The resulting thread was so much fun that I built another bike in the hopes we could all do it again. You'll definitely need a full sized skip for this one.

http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/cc510/warrah1/main%20photo.jpg One-off Pagan brand ebike. Unlike every other high powered ebike out there, this model has passed government approval and has been road registered as a motorcycle class vehicle, so can legally travel on the roads at its top speed, 60mph. Features: Adaptto Max-e sine wave controller, programmable profiles/throttle curves, intelligent temperature and range management. 1200wh lipo battery as standard. I can upgrade the battery to 2400wh for an extra £400 (if you opt for the larger battery, there will be a delay of a week or so). 5000w hub motor. 1500w fast charger, fully charged in 1 hour for 1200wh battery, 2 hours for 2400wh battery. Easy access charging port on the side of the bike. Regenerative braking DNM USD-8 downhill forks. Hydraulic disc brakes front and rear. Fat road legal tyres, 3" wide front 3.25" wide rear. Lightweight (for a motorcycle class vehicle), 50kg. Registered in July 2015, so as new condition, wont need an MOT for 3 years. Can be taxed for £0 (as its electric). Can be ridden with just a CBT. Can be insured with Adrian Flux for same price as a 125cc, they dont consider high powered ebikes exotic. Delivery will be by a motorcycle shipping company, they normally charge between £60-150 depending on how far away you are. Alternatively I am willing to use the cheapest method you can find. Will personally deliver if local £3000. Any questions please ask. http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/cc510/warrah1/DSC_1365.jpg http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/cc510/warrah1/DSC_1323.jpg http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/cc510/warrah1/DSC_1319.jpg

Updated price, this is now £1000. Doesnt look like anyone wants it, havent even had any offers, so i'll try to make the price the best thing about it.

to drive a motorcycle above 125cc. You need a CBT first, then pass theory and motorcycle test, and then you can drive a motorcycle above 125cc. If you have no intention of doing this and are happy to ride less then 125cc, you can just keep renewing your CBT.

even provisional license? ive been riding around on these high powered ebikes with just a CBT for years

Its a worthwhile point to make. The bike im selling does sit in an uncomfortable place in the market, where a buyer needs to know how these kinds of DIY ebikes work, in order to fix any faults that might arise through normal road use wear and tear (i stated in the advert that its unlikely car garages will know how to fix an ebike). But if they have that knowledge already, then why not just make one themselves? Im looking for a very rare kind of buyer, one whos had the drive to acquire all this knowledge, and yet doesnt have the time to go through the process of modifying an ebike to pass the MSVA. Also, being 3 years old, its battery isnt new anymore. Given all these issues, i can see myself having to steadily reduce the price until its a bargain for someone. EDIT. im pretty confident such a person exists though. The MSVA is a long, tedious, and unforgiving process to grope your way through first time, and buying an ebike that already has the MSVA will save someone alot of time. That they can then use doing what they love, making ebikes.

Good point, trucks have to have that height. Im picturing in my head though a truck with a lower front cabiny part but unaltered rear cargo part, so that, in this fictional world of all velomobile/recumbents, they are able to see all the other road users. Is there a reason they have to be so high up that relates to the high cargo they have behind them?

I figured what would i do differently if building again (first question), and 'the bike compares poorly to a new build/ready made' (second statement) are related so i can address them both at once. The battery on the bike is a 60v 20ah LiFePo4 battery. The new ones i have built use LiNiMnCo chemistry, which has a higher power density. That said, in the 3 years since LiFePo4 was the best choice for me, LiNiMnCo has not taken its place in the market; its price, dollar for amp hour, is still much higher. I'd use a more purpose built high-power ebike frame, as these have started to appear last year. There was only one in 2012, the greyborg, so all this choice is like a dream come true. Everything else hasnt dated in the slightest. I wish it had and we were talking about a thrusting young industry making leaps and bounds, and in 2015 motors were using superconductive magnets and other sci fi stuff. The Cycle analyst is still the standard for the display. Infineon controllers do what they do well and havent undergone any game changing transformations. Guess i might try a sine wave controller one day? they make the motor completely silent, which sounds fun. But its all about the battery really, thats what needs to make leaps and bounds in the LEV world in order for progress to happen. I would caution anyone about assuming 30mile range/30mph has been surpassed by inevitable progress in off the shelf ebikes. The laws governing what legal ebike manufacterers can claim in their numbers for range and speed are not tight enough, and as im sure most people will already be aware, this allows them to quote the max speed (16mph) that the bike can do right next to the max range it can do (IF TRAVELLING AT LOWER SPEEDS, the part they dont mention), which obviously creates a very profitable misunderstanding for them. The way to cut through all this BS is to use a simulator like this one http://www.ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html, that uses the basic facts of physics to tell you what range you will get for a given speed, battery capacity, etc. What you'll notice is that the combo of parts on my bike can do 30mile range at 30mph, but if you decrease the throttle to 50% and take the speed down to 16mph, then it can do 65mile range. So unlike unscrupulous ebike manufacters who would say '30mph, 65mile range', ive quoted the max speed it can do next to the corresponding range that max speed will get you, but you can get a whole lot more if you baby the bike while there are no cars around. Yup! This is such a good/important point. When in 2013 i found that same data you quoted on the benefits of faring, and low drag, i instantly wanted to MSVA (motorcycle single vehicle approval) a recumbant! and it was heartbreaking, because numerous criterea in the MSVA manual state the minimum height of lights, etc. Its quite high, and would have resulted in me needing to mount the lights on little stalks in order to meet the requirements, which would have looked... unusual. Im thinking all the time about all the ways i could do it though, because honestly, appearance mean much less to me then efficiency. When you think about these minimum height rules, they make total sense... if road vehicles were too low to the ground, they would be difficult for trucks etc to see. Our civilizations history with petrol vehicles means we never needed to care about maximum efficiency and squeezing every possible mile of range, and so this average safe height rule is set by petrol vehicles, even though, if *all* vehicles were to decrease their height together, there wouldnt be this issue of some not being able to see others, and they would all save petrol through increased efficiency!

Oh dear, sorry if i gave that impression. I love the discussions about legality perticularly, ive learnt loads! My wanting to call it a day in terms of participation and checking back on this thread was because of this post: not so much a criticism as just molten nastiness, i dont really have the self esteem to weather that sort of thing. I hope you understand. I never thought of the legal debates as criticism, and i think there is an important place for them, and in the context of what i made it makes total sense to discuss legality

oh... you mean like a skip for rubbish :-( i didnt understand the context at first, thought it might be bicycle terminology. I think i'll wrap things up here, i think ive misjudged this forum somewhat, i thought a thread about my bike might appreciate information about it from its maker... but i think its more valuable to people as a 6 page opinion freeforall. I just joined to see if i could help answer any questions, i feel like a right dumbass. Thanks d8veh, i really appreciate that. I really believe in high powered electric bicycles as a serious transport solution; ive been convinced by all the excellent research, both emperical (real world stress tests) and theoretical (computer modelling by clever engineers) that goes on at the endless-sphere website. I would never defend a position based on personal anecdotal experience, or worse, because im a dealer for a big brand; as a scientist i would be more than willing to follow the evidence where ever it leads, and if it lead to 'bicycles cant take kilowatts of power' then so be it. But steel bicycle frames really can be repurposed for this use. The ductility of steel is an important factor, and aluminium dropouts are a big no no on endless sphere for that reason. Its not all crazy shed builders who care nothing for safety, and anyone whos read through this whole thread and is still curious, please do visit endless-sphere.com for the other side of the story, you can get alot of information from there.

what is a mini skip?

I hope my previous post has gone some way to allaying any fears people might have about the engineering. The tyres are motorcycle tyres, which are in a completely different league construction wise to bicycle tyres. The brakes passed the MSVA testers test with flying colors and pass every MOT using the same testing equipment they test motorcycles with. If we take the heavier side of standard bicycles to be about 15kgs, as a reference point, then given you are of average healthy weight, the extra 30kgs ive added is within the range of human weight varience bicycle frame manufacterers have accounted for. This does bring up an important point though; you probably should not ride my bike if you weigh much more then 90kgs. Then if we look at the motor itself, then first it must be noted that 1500w is not as crazy as it might first appear; a human is capable of generating more torque and stress on the frame, in bursts of uphill riding, then this motor produces. To be on the safe side, the LEV hobbyists on endless sphere alway advise adding a torque arm to the motor axle, to spread the stress out so the dropouts dont stretch over time. I have put two torque arms, one on each side, for this bike. The axles are 14mm on these motors. There are quite a few specific engineering decisions. You should definitely let me know the details of the structural engineering decisions KTM have made for those ebikes that you also sell for them. Specifically the details you assumed were automatically superior to a DIY build. RE chinese fatalities with ebikes, this is a serious issue that should be looked into. Im aware that more and more road users in china are using electric bikes, so we would obviously expect a certain portion of all annual road fatalities to be ebike related. Given this, someone would need to do some statistical regression to discover whether ebike related fatalities are disproportionately high in the data? There were 275,000 road fatalities in china last year. Saying there were 3000 ebike related deaths tells us nothing without stastical analysis.

Hi everyone. I built the bike in question. Found this thread today and signed up to this site just to answer any questions you might have. Thought i'd save people some of the time and effort spent in speculation. I'll try to address some of the points that have already come up, but if i forget any then please ask. RE what the point is, or more specifically, if electric scooters/motorbikes do what they do and bicycles do what they do, why hybridise them and get the worst of both worlds? Weight should always be a concern when adding anything to a bicycle. Weight is also a big concern for any electric vehicle, as increased weight results in decreased range. Electric scooters are infact not built with low weight in mind; they are petrol scooters with electric engines, using petrol scooter brakes, frame, wheels that have all been designed to cope with petrol scooter weight. Electric scooters compensate for the decreased range with a larger battery, which itself weighs alot and so results in diminishing returns. The bike i built weighs 46kg, electric scooters weigh twice that. You can pick the bike i built up and carry it into your house. In terms of the legal parts that had to be bolted on (mirrors, indicators, lights, horn), these collectively weigh about about 2kg. The idea behind approaching the road legal Light Electric Vehicle (LEV) from the bicycle direction is therefore about saving weight; meaning you need a smaller battery to get the same range (battery is most expensive part of any electric vehicle, and so electric scooters cost alot of money) , and you can use light bicycle wheels and light downhil bicycle brakes, both of which can cope with a 46kg bike very effectively. The Single Vehicle Approval testers were stunned at the stopping power of Shimano Saint hydraulic brakes when they tested them with their brake testing machine! The tyres on the bike are road legal emarked continental 22" motorcycle tyres rated for much higher weights and speeds. So i suppose what im trying to say is, weight saving is a concern for both cyclists and electric vehicle designers, which is why the two worlds can overlap so effectively. For everyone who sees a heavy bicycle and thinks its an abomination; that is a valid reaction, because that excess weight does make it harder to pedal. But look again, and you can see it is not just a heavy bike, but its also a very very light electric vehicle :-) The downhil bike market is especially good to LEV enthusiasts; these parts are over engineered for abuse and shock, yet are also trying to be as light as possible, which makes them perfect to repurpose for light electric vehicles. Someone posting on this thread (might have been the original poster) put it well when he said something along the lines of 'different needs require different solutions'. When i started building it, my needs were to build something that could travel 30miles at 30mph on a single charge, and i also wanted to add human power to it with pedals. I wanted to accomplish this legally, because i wasnt willing to look over my sholder for the police all the time (even if nobody has been prosecuted, many people have been given fines for illegal ebikes.)