Electric scooters/eBike question

If you have an old bike that you don't ride any longer, you can buy a conversion kit and build your own. I've converted 4 now, and it's a piece of cake. You can buy the kits on ebay and Amazon, among other places.

Rear mounted is slightly more difficult if you have a multi-speed hub (derailleur). You get all nasty dealing with the chain, otherwise it's just as easy as the front wheel drive. The mid mount models are where it is really at, if you get a motor that is powerful enough. The advantage is the motor can utilize the gears on the rear hub. They can be very fast bikes without spending a few grand on modified battery packs and controllers.

Just as an FYI, one of the bikes I converted was for my wife. It's a Schwinn Hybrid with C-700 wheels. I put a 1250 watt front drive on her bike, 54 vdc battery pack. With Me on it, I weigh 175, it will hit 40 mph on the gps.

My wife and I have regular Mountain bikes that someday I would like to convert. I definitely do not care for high speed and would want to maximize distance and safety. In addition to adding the motor and batteries I will invest in some really quality brakes on the front and back wheels.

Agree on the exercise use of bikes. We are both retired and like to walk and hike a lot. We take our bikes with us sometimes to use on flatter sidewalks, paths, and trails that are not too rutted out or not too hilly/steep just so we can cover more territory. Our neighborhood has some relatively steep long hills throughout it. It's nice and great exercise to walk it, but biking is harder especially on the long steep hills. We walk it frequently but rarely bike it. If we had electric bikes we would use the motors to climb those bad hills and then pedal the rest of the way.

I had a friend that I used to work with, he's retired and moved to Colorado. I believe he purchased a couple of electric bikes from Walmart, for around $800 each. They had 20 inch tires that were around 2.5 inches in width. He and his wife were big into doing the RV thing, and the bikes were purchased to run around campgrounds, etc. I believe he said the top speed on these bikes was 20 mph.

I may have been wrong about tire size that my buddy bought. Here's a page of factory built ebikes offered by Walmart.

Walmart ebikes

Keep us posted as you test and make your decision. I'll be interested in seeing what y'all settle on.

Careful, the damn things are addictive!

Yes, this is the outfit I have used on the last two builds. They offer a kit for either a front or rear drive motor. I converted two different bikes with the front drive kit from these people. My wife's hybrid retro cruiser and my friend's wife's tricycle. Both have a C-700 wheel size.

Amazon- EBikeling

Battery and Rack

I am no expert on which bike to select, and most people who do a kit ebike do so with an old bike they had stored in the garage or their shed. Hell, my wife (no pics) and I are riding Schwinn bikes. Obviously not the best bikes around, but we have learned a lot since I started riding some 3 or so years ago. The most important thing you can do, and I'd give the same advice if you were a golfer with some experience, is go get fitted. If I could do it over again I would go to a real bicycle specialty shop and get fitted by a knowledgeable professional. The most important thing in considering any bike is frame size, and that's where the fitting comes in. I am riding a bike that is technically to big for me, and it has nothing to do with tire size, it's all about the size of the frame. You are approaching this project with the right frame of mind, and you have that "do it right the first time" attitude. I think you and your wife will do well on your selection of bikes to convert.