I'm responding to both Mike and Kelly. I had written a response to Mike but it went away after I went to another site - in a new tab. I have no idea why that response went away, so I'm going to do this one off line.
The e-bike site I use is electrifybike.com which sells Bafang and Tong Shen e-bike conversion kits and offers supporting equipment and documentation. This is where I bought my latest TSDZ2 kit with the open source software already installed and a very nice display for about $500. My two stock TSDZ2 systems and batteries were ordered through Amazon from a Chinese company called Greenergia which is still on ebay and sells a wide variety of e-bike conversion kits. Amazon now only sells Bafang.
The first e-bike I rode was my German son-in-law's Bafang based conversion which he had installed modified software on. It did not have torque sensing, but that can be added as Kelly mentioned. Bafang systems are more powertul and heavier than TSDZ2 systems. They work well but systems with torque sensing make you feel like you have bionic legs and systems without torque sensing feel more like riding a motorcycle.
Mike said he and his wife are getting a Pendix mid-mount motor and it's special battery installed on their tandem. Pendix looks like an elegant system. I look forward to reading about how well it works for them. It does allow all three rings on a triple crank to be used and appears to use a direct drive - no gears - motor. Bafang and Tong Shen only allow the middle and big ring to be used. In Germany, where the Pendix company is, the laws limit e-bikes to 250 watts, else they have to be registered and insured like a motorcycle and can't be ridden on bike paths. There, having granny gears on a mid-motor e-bike, makes it possible for a weaker rider to climb steep hills slowly.
On my V-Rex, with the new software, I had trouble climbing 20% grades that I had had no problem climbing with the stock system on the same bike. I finally remembered that, for European use, there is a software setting in that software that limits the power output to 250 watts. After I turned that setting off, I had no problem climbing those hills with the V-Rex. If I had had a Pendix system, I could have used my lowest granny gear to climb those same hills with the motor generating less than 250 watts and me generating matching wattage. The stock firmware on a TSZD2 system allows the motor to generate well over 300 watts using a 36 V battery. Using a 52 V battery, the same system using that software, can generate 750 watts with no change. It can also easily overheat the motor and damage it, so the software also supports installing a temperature sensor and automatically shutting down the motor before it gets damaged by getting too hot.
Kelly talks about how e-bikes and e-trikes have become dominant in Tucson. That is certainly not the case in Asheville. I am the only regular recumbent rider I know of here and I haven't seen a trike here in years. I'm also the only CF rider I know of here. Now my recumbent and CF bikes are e-bikes. My regular bike is not.
There are lots of bicyclist here, and some of them are riding e-bikes, but the last trike rider I knew of was a fellow I used to ride 'with' climbing Elk Mountain Scenic Highway which a steep winding two lane road up Elk Mountain which starts less than a mile from my house. It is 8 miles, with 1600 feet of climbing, from my house to the Blue Ridge Parkway via that road, so I used to ride it regularly.
I first met him near the bottom of Elk Mountain where the road is fairly flat. When we reach serious climbing, he slowed down so much that I got off my bike and walked beside him. Maybe a mile later he turned around to head back down. He was a retired faculty from a university in the northeast US who was a serious bicyclist until he 'aged out'. After a crashing his regular bike because he couldn't balance on it any more, he bought that trike. I think he was in his 80's when I knew him. I road/walked with him several times that summer. That was the last time I saw a trike here and that was long before there were e-bikes.
Speaking of e-bikes, I've switched back to riding my V-Rex on local rides because I screwed up on my upright bike and let the chain wear get to the point where it was causing shifting problems. The wear was so bad that I've replace the chain, flipped the two smaller rings, and replaced the cassette. I got most of that done this afternoon, but I've been enjoying riding my e-biked V-Rex - with the open source software and firmware - so much that I may just keep doing riding it for a couple of months until it is time for my next tour. I think the V-Rex is now the only bike I have in the US that I'm up to touring on. Right now the first tour is likely to be riding up to Crozet, VA , which is roughly 350 miles from Asheville, where my younger daughter and her family are moving later this month. That ride would be partly on US 11 in Virginia which was one of my favorite bicycling routes, Depending on how that goes, I may ride back to Asheville by a different route.
In Europe, after my last European tour, I decided to switch back to my European recumbent, a old Giro, for my future touring in Europe and now I think I'm coming to the same decision for the US. Actually, now I don't think I'll be up for doing any more European tours in part - there are several other reasons - because, if I did , I'd have to e-bike my Giro. I'm still able to do my local rides here on my upright bike without assist, but I'm no longer confident that will still be true next year. It will be very easy, and not very expensive ,for me to convert that bike back to an e-bike when I need to do that.
I'm responding to both Mike and Kelly. I had written a response to Mike but it went away after I went to another site - in a new tab. I have no idea why that response went away, so I'm going to do this one off line.
The e-bike site I use is electrifybike.com which sells Bafang and Tong Shen e-bike conversion kits and offers supporting equipment and documentation. This is where I bought my latest TSDZ2 kit with the open source software already installed and a very nice display for about $500. My two stock TSDZ2 systems and batteries were ordered through Amazon from a Chinese company called Greenergia which is still on ebay and sells a wide variety of e-bike conversion kits. Amazon now only sells Bafang.
The first e-bike I rode was my German son-in-law's Bafang based conversion which he had installed modified software on. It did not have torque sensing, but that can be added as Kelly mentioned. Bafang systems are more powertul and heavier than TSDZ2 systems. They work well but systems with torque sensing make you feel like you have bionic legs and systems without torque sensing feel more like riding a motorcycle.
Mike said he and his wife are getting a Pendix mid-mount motor and it's special battery installed on their tandem. Pendix looks like an elegant system. I look forward to reading about how well it works for them. It does allow all three rings on a triple crank to be used and appears to use a direct drive - no gears - motor. Bafang and Tong Shen only allow the middle and big ring to be used. In Germany, where the Pendix company is, the laws limit e-bikes to 250 watts, else they have to be registered and insured like a motorcycle and can't be ridden on bike paths. There, having granny gears on a mid-motor e-bike, makes it possible for a weaker rider to climb steep hills slowly.
On my V-Rex, with the new software, I had trouble climbing 20% grades that I had had no problem climbing with the stock system on the same bike. I finally remembered that, for European use, there is a software setting in that software that limits the power output to 250 watts. After I turned that setting off, I had no problem climbing those hills with the V-Rex. If I had had a Pendix system, I could have used my lowest granny gear to climb those same hills with the motor generating less than 250 watts and me generating matching wattage. The stock firmware on a TSZD2 system allows the motor to generate well over 300 watts using a 36 V battery. Using a 52 V battery, the same system using that software, can generate 750 watts with no change. It can also easily overheat the motor and damage it, so the software also supports installing a temperature sensor and automatically shutting down the motor before it gets damaged by getting too hot.
Kelly talks about how e-bikes and e-trikes have become dominant in Tucson. That is certainly not the case in Asheville. I am the only regular recumbent rider I know of here and I haven't seen a trike here in years. I'm also the only CF rider I know of here. Now my recumbent and CF bikes are e-bikes. My regular bike is not.
There are lots of bicyclist here, and some of them are riding e-bikes, but the last trike rider I knew of was a fellow I used to ride 'with' climbing Elk Mountain Scenic Highway which a steep winding two lane road up Elk Mountain which starts less than a mile from my house. It is 8 miles, with 1600 feet of climbing, from my house to the Blue Ridge Parkway via that road, so I used to ride it regularly.
I first met him near the bottom of Elk Mountain where the road is fairly flat. When we reach serious climbing, he slowed down so much that I got off my bike and walked beside him. Maybe a mile later he turned around to head back down. He was a retired faculty from a university in the northeast US who was a serious bicyclist until he 'aged out'. After a crashing his regular bike because he couldn't balance on it any more, he bought that trike. I think he was in his 80's when I knew him. I road/walked with him several times that summer. That was the last time I saw a trike here and that was long before there were e-bikes.
Speaking of e-bikes, I've switched back to riding my V-Rex on local rides because I screwed up on my upright bike and let the chain wear get to the point where it was causing shifting problems. The wear was so bad that I've replace the chain, flipped the two smaller rings, and replaced the cassette. I got most of that done this afternoon, but I've been enjoying riding my e-biked V-Rex - with the open source software and firmware - so much that I may just keep doing riding it for a couple of months until it is time for my next tour. I think the V-Rex is now the only bike I have in the US that I'm up to touring on. Right now the first tour is likely to be riding up to Crozet, VA , which is roughly 350 miles from Asheville, where my younger daughter and her family are moving later this month. That ride would be partly on US 11 in Virginia which was one of my favorite bicycling routes, Depending on how that goes, I may ride back to Asheville by a different route.
In Europe, after my last European tour, I decided to switch back to my European recumbent, a old Giro, for my future touring in Europe and now I think I'm coming to the same decision for the US. Actually, now I don't think I'll be up for doing any more European tours in part - there are several other reasons - because, if I did , I'd have to e-bike my Giro. I'm still able to do my local rides here on my upright bike without assist, but I'm no longer confident that will still be true next year. It will be very easy, and not very expensive ,for me to convert that bike back to an e-bike when I need to do that.
2 years ago