Powered Bicycles

I have been selling electric bicycle conversion kits for a little over 2 years

In that time I have sold over 200 kits. At first I was selling for a popular company that has a 36 volt kit. I wanted more range so after a long search I found a company in China that sells a 48 volt kit. I wish that I could have found an American company that produced an affordable kit, but sadly the ones produced here are VERY expensive. This give me the range I hoped for. Last year I imported 100 of these kits. I sell most of them on Ebay and some locally

I not only did this for a profit.. this is America.... but I am pleased to know that over 200 people are not using their cars and I am helping in my own way to reduce our carbon footprint and dependence on oil.

I have converted all of our lights to cfl and do everything else I can think of to be "greener"

Jaded13

Last month I bought a Golden Motor 500W 26" front wheel motor kit from Amped The kit came with nearly eveything I needed and installed pretty easily on my mountain bike. I supplied three 12v batteries, some zip ties and a couple of washers to secure the large hub to the forks, and a couple of bolts to attach the rack.

 I have twist shifters on the bike, so the hand grips that come with the kit are a little awkward, they have a typical flared ring on the inboard side and the sensor wires coming from the break grips pass directly over the shifters, both of these make it harder to get to the shifters. On the other hand, with the power of the motor to compensate, I don't have to shift as much, so it hasn't been a big deal. Regular shifters would be better though.

I ride the bike to work, which is about 14 miles round trip. I'm terribly out of shape, and the bike is a heavy inefficent mountain bike with 2.5 inch off-road tires. On a bad day when I'm pedaling but only putting out a fairly pathetic amount of effort the batteries last for all but the last few minutes of the trip. The 7Ah pack recharges in about 3-4 hours on the supplied  36v charger. You could certainly add a larger battery pack if you wanted to go farther, the three 7Ah batteries are small enough that you could use bigger cells without much trouble.

I suspect that a more efficient bike would significantly increase the range, the big off-road tires on my bike are unbalanced at top speed and are heavy, so it takes more energy to get them up to speed.

Amped was great to deal with, free shipping out of California, very prompt and answered all my questions.

Check out the Twike which is a 3 wheeled light car but you can also help it by human power, peddling. I tried to order one but wanted their new NiMH batteries . When they were finaly ready to ship it all the way from Germany the price had jumped from 20,000 to almost 30K. I just couldn't justify that much. I feel it should be about $8,000. www.twike.us It's still a great idea and they sell well in Europe where they are made and gas and diesel is $7-8 a gallon. A new lithium battery version is also coming out in a year or so. Maybe a USA factory would help get the price down to a real level. I love the idea. solar stacks

Currie Technologies has been producing exclusively electric bicycles and scooters for over ten years. Please check out some of the products at http://www.izipusa.com/ and http://www.currietech.com.

There have been some awsome developments in technology within the last few years and the products have been having tremendous success worldwide. It seems as though it is being driven primarily by the new environmental movement that is beginning to cause people around the globe to look for alternatives to getting in their cars.

Hi Sehija,

I commend your efforts! I came across a site that you may want to check out - they actually provide not only bikes but a "car-like" electric vehicle that seems to travel fast enough for the highway and offer the range that most people would expect.

If I come across any other sources I will get back to you.

Good luck ih your efforts and I look forward to hearing what you end up doing. It'd be great to hear your experience once you've made a purchase and have tried out the commute.

Cheers,

Tim