Front Motor and Battery Kit

[Mick F]

This has maybe been discussed on this part of the forum in the past, but I rarely look in here.
Apologies if I'm going over old ground.

Mrs Mick F has a bike that she's not used in some years.
Good Mixte bike with Shimano Nexus 8sp kit.

I have been thinking that it could be possible to buy a whole electric system as a kit with the motor fitted in the front wheel.
I don't want a whole new front wheel as the 27" rim is fine, so I could rebuild the front wheel with a motor hub. No stranger to building wheels.

Can you buy a front-wheel electric hub, controls, and battery pack, as a complete DIY kit?
If so, where from?

[simonineaston]

A popular choice seems to be the Swytch kit - see here. A chum has one on his mountain bike and is pleased with it. I've been very please with the nano conversion I have on my Brompton. I think the Swytch offers a very similar expereience but at a lower cost.
Mrs Mick F may care to bear in mind that the modest torque of the front hub motor is quite capable of breaking traction when used to the full on a path covered say in wet leaves or cobbles...

[stodd]

I've never seen such a kit; the hub kits always seem to come with a complete wheel (which is very unlikely to be 27").
Worth asking on https://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/forums ... ussion.42/, and they'd also have advice on which bits will work well together if you can't get a ready kit.

You could also contact woosh (https://wooshbikes.co.uk/) who are very helpful. At the moment they are pretty low on almost everything. Even if they did have something I suspect it would only be the full wheel kits as they advertise. Worth asking.

[Mick F]

The bike is a 27" wheel bike. Fitting a new front wheel would be different to the rear in both width and diameter.

I have a perfectly good 27" wheel, so all it needs is an electric hub and new spokes.
I just want the kit NOT including the wheel.
Does such a thing exist, or do I have to buy a whole front wheel and strip it down .......... and then sell the rim?

Thanks Stodd for that info.
I'll get onto it and have a look-see.

[stodd]

As a matter of interest, how old is the bike and what brakes does it have?
Many bikes from 27" wheel days had pretty poor brakes (***).

If your wife is mainly going to use the motor to help on hills that doesn't matter too much,
but if she's going to be riding faster as a result of the motor it's worth thinking about.
She may well be like me and many other ebike riders;
we ride our ebikes slower than now we used to ride our push bikes when we were younger.

(***) My generally excellent Claud Butler Majestic had terrible Weinmann brakes;
I mostly rode it with similar Mafac ones, much better but still pretty bad.
In the end I replaced the bike mainly because of the brakes, I couldn't find better ones that didn't need brazings.
My son now has it with double pivot Shimano brakes which work really well.
I think only the frame and forks are original though; and it now has 700c wheels.

[emleyman]

If you don't mind buying from China, have a look at TopBikeKit.com
I recently bought a rear hub from them and built it into a rim. With the hub you get the options for compatible controller, display, PAS, and any other bits you want. It all arrived within a week.
I bought the battery off eBay from the UK as postage for batteries from China was expensive. The whole kit came to just under £500.
If you're not bothered about a throttle and brake cut offs it's very easy to fit. The hardest part will be removing a crank to fit a pedal sensor behind it

I assume you have steel forks. If so, and you get a legal 250W hub motor then it should be OK. Aluminum might need a torque arm, and I wouldn't risk it with carbon fibre.

[rjb]

Speak to the people at Nano. They supply kits mainly for bromptons but may also supply just the bits you need. I like their arrangement of using power tool batteries.
https://www.nanoelectricbikes.co.uk/

[emleyman]

I'd be wary of getting a hub that's used for a brompton. It will be designed for higher RPM to suit the small wheels. This will mean the maximum torque will be at much higher speed. A hub for large wheels is designed for 200-240 RPM max, whereas a hub for small wheels is usually designed for about 380-400 RPM. The Aikema hub that I use comes in two versions. One designed for 201RPM and one for 380RPM.

[Mick F]

Thank you all for the info.
In discussion with Mrs Mick F .......... and she's not convinced of the whole idea. It'll be up to her, but if I can get all the info together, I'll make a case.

The bike ..........

Bought Barbie (she was Barbie Pink) some years ago. The 27" rims were chrome and the braking was terrible. I was able to buy some 27" alu rims, so set about re-designing the whole thing.

Long story short, but Barbarella emerged powder coated with Shimano Nexus 8sp, roller brakes, and a Nexus set of levers including the right one being a trigger shifter. New tyres and stainless spokes. The chainset is my old Stronglight99 double with a single 36t ring.

Works very well, and she rode it to work and back for some time. We've also been out together riding.
Trouble is, hills.
Barbarella isn't the lightest bike, and that puts Mrs Mick F off somewhat.

I said she rode it to work and back, but although the majority of the ride was ok, the final 200yds of each direction was up steep hills. It's a heavy bike, so even that's not easy.

Busy on and off today, but I'll try and do some research during any time off.

[Stradageek]

I've fitted a Woosh kit to my wife's Kett, but even for an unpopular 20" wheel I had a 3 month wait and they said larger wheels were pretty much unobtainable.

I asked for just the motor but they said the kit comes fully built.

On receipt I've also discovered that they use 2.3mm spokes with 3.75mm nipples so building into an existing rim might be problematic and I needed to but a new spoke spanner to tighten up the spokes after a few hundred mile of use.

The kit excellent however

[Mick F]

Here's another piccy.
William, the statue in Gunnislake village.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.52429 ... 312!8i6656

[emleyman]

If you do decide to go ahead with it, make sure you can fit a battery on the downtube (plus have room to remove it). It looks as if it should be ok, but with it being a mixte it might be a bit tight. The alternative would be a rack battery, but it would make running cables difficult, and spoil the look of it.

[simonineaston]

Speak to the people at Nano.

My experience with the folk at Nano has been good. Plus one for asking them if they can accomodate an unusual rim.

[Jdsk]

What's the estimated saving from using the old rim?

Jonathan

[PH]

Most of the kits I've seen have been pretty basic rims and spokes, maybe they're deemed adequate for the usual usage, maybe I'm just looking at the cheap stuff*. I don't expect they've spent much of the components or labour and it'll be easier to sell complete than as parts. Wasteful as it is, I suspect buying complete and re-building might be more economical than buying the parts, I doubt the unused components will have much re-sale value.
* I know there are some quality suppliers, I've had a glance, but the prices soon rack up to the extent where a purpose built E-bike begins to look like better value.