I used to ride a motorcycle (a Kawasaki ER-5 for some 4 years and then a Honda CBF-1000 for 12 more) and for me, it was always about going places. I rode through most of the Alps, but also Pyrenees, Balkans, some Eastern Europe, almost always with a girlfriend and many times a biker friend was along too. You would fill up the panniers with some clothes and equipment and you could travel freely for a week, booking places to stay each afternoon as you went, making one big loop through as many Alpine passes as you could 😇 I still think this is one of the best ways to travel, period.
During that cool period people started writing about e-bikes and I got curious. I wanted to build one and check out all these cool new technologies on my own. It was a bit of a journey and I’ll simplify somewhat:
My first e-bike was a used city bike with a front hub motor and rear hub gearbox.
Note the zip-tie and since departed hair 😄 I got it from my neighbor as payment for helping them run some wires in their new guest house. It was missing a battery and the motor controller was one of the brand-locked ones where the manufacturer will not let you use it unless you had their battery too. So I ditched it and bought a cheap chinese motor controller and battery off e-bay.
It was a minimal investment to start with and so I 3d-printed a custom battery mount with controller housing. It worked well, considering, and I started using it for daily exercise; it lasted a couple of seasons until the old hub motor started developing insulation faults. I guess it was just a bit underpowered for the controller I bought. I removed all the electrics from the bike and sold it to a friend who still uses it.
Next I bought a used midsize mountain bike and converted it to rear hub motor system, building my first homebrew battery as well.
My design skills improved gradually 🥸 It was similar to the city bike, but it had some more torque and could go up steep hills better. But the main advantage was not the motor, it was the mountain bike: I could finally be more relaxed on gravel and mud I sometimes encountered on my drives.
But the bike had a fatal flaw, the combined weight was too much for the rear wheel spokes and I spent more time repairing these than driving. Turns out rear spokes are a limiting factor for an e-bike with a big guy like me driving it and it gets worse with a rear hub motor. It also still had limited torque on the really steep climbs.
After rethinking everything, I decided to buy a larger used mountain bike and go with a mid-drive system. I was by now used to building homebrew batteries, so I only had to buy a Bafang BBS system and the rest was homebrew.
I since learned to hide the ugly parts 😎 This was the jackpot—mid drive (which lets you use gears better) and larger bike were the combination that let me drive anywhere. I bought some saddlebags and suddenly I was able to do the same kind of summer vacations I did with my motorbike, just with slightly shorter daily distances. The motorbike soon lost my interest, so I sold it after a few seasons :)
The bike needed just a few more upgrades: 4-piston disc brakes and a stronger rear wheel to handle the extra weight, and larger tires to make it even easier to drive anywhere I liked. Now, everything just works!
I love e-bikes! I love how they make you a superman and give you the option to just go almost anywhere. I love how I can do vacations with them. When you drive and see an attraction at the side of the road, a motorbike requires extra work: first you need to stop safely, then get out of your hot protective gear, lock it up, the shoes are not really built for longer walks etc. With a bike, you just stop, hang the helmet on handlebars and throw a lock on the bike; 20 seconds and you can do whatever you like. (E-)bikes are pure freedom!
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