Advice on ebike kit for 30 commute

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking of getting an ebike conversion kit for commuting and would like some advice about which one would be the right one for me.

first I'll explain my current situation and what I'm hoping to achieve by building my own ebike.

I have quite a long commute, 30 miles each way with a couple of steep hills but mostly flat. I currently have a 2016 Haibike Sduro (with the speed limiter removed) and a car and alternate between the two. I would like to cycle more often but find that it takes too long (1 hour 20 to 2 hours depending on conditions and how lazy / tired I am feeling). I have a 36v 14.5AH battery on it.

My plan is to get a more powerful bike by adding a motor to an existing MTB and get it classified as a two wheeled vehicle so I can legally do 28mph on it (i'm based in the UK).

I would like to be doing 28mph for most of the journey and get my journey time down to just over an hour each way.

I'm generally drawn to the Bafang motors, either the BBSHD or BBS02(b). The BBS02 seems attractive because it's slightly lighter but would the BBSHD potentially get me there quicker? Does anyone know which one would be more efficient on that kind of journey? Would i need an enormous battery to do 30 miles in one hour? what would be the optimum sized chain ring for this kind of journey?

I'm also a bit unclear about how the pedals integrate with the motor on the Bafang. I'm happy to put in a decent amount of effort with the pedals if it means a quicker journey and a smaller battery. If i was doing top speed would I struggle to pedal fast enough to keep up with the motor? If so would a larger chain ring help to solve that problem? On my Haibike I find that at around 25mph the pedals can't keep up with the motor and I can't contribute much.

I'd also consider a hub motor if people thought that was more suitable for this kind of journey.

I've attached a diagram showing the elevation of the route taken from google maps.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm finding the whole thing a bit bewildering.

Thanks!

hmm. I commuted thirty miles both ways for years on an e bike. Worked great. But honestly, I think about 20 miles one way is about the practical limit. Just for the time. It does help if you have nearly zero stops along the way though.

One thing about a 28 mph bike, you will need some real tall gears for that speed, and pedaling. Even then, your pedaling will not affect range one bit. It will make your butt not go to sleep, so do it, but its just not going to add to your speed or range noticeably, once you are pulling 1000w or more continuous. 10% is what your pedaling will get, and then only if you have a crazy tall gear. To go that speed for 30 miles, you also need a huge battery, very hard to carry on mtb's. Things just pile up like that, once you want speed for more than 15 miles.

The pedaling is one reason I did that commuting on a front hub motor bike. It let me keep the 9 cog high gear in back, and then I put a 56 tooth ring up front. I could pedal to 30 mph. But after a few years, I found hauling ass made me get flats. I'd hit shit I never saw. The bafang will not have that big a front ring. Not sure what the practical pedaling speed is on them, but my guess is 22-25 mph.

Really, your commute is too long IMO. One way to make it work, is drive half of it. Yeah, it sucks, but then you have a nice one hour ride in the morning, then a nice hour in the evening. For me it was perfect. 15 miles twice a day. And for that, your bike is perfect too. Maybe you just need a good bike rack?

Or look at electric motorcycles, which just on casual research seem to come in a 45km/hr category that fits your requirement. That's going to be more fun and more reliable than trying to load the same thing onto a bicycle platform that isn't really made for it.

Hi Matt,

Welcome to the forum.
i was doing 28 miles one way commute nearly every day for my last job. i am also based like you in UK.

kit : em3ev kit mac motor 8t and a 58V 27 Ah battery on an heavy steel touring bike without suspension and dropped bar.
as Dog Man mentioned you need a 56t ring so you can peddle continuously at 30 mph. With a 56t and 11 sprocket i was reaching 35 mph easily.
i was using only 11ah for the 28 miles. charged the battery at work to 80%.
on my commute there was a 7% mile gradient.
i enjoyed it a lot and saved money while exercising myself. it was safe because i was as fast as the car on the 30 mph lane! the police noticed me but since i am always peddling it was fine.

only issue: my back and butt was suffering, maybe due to the lack of suspension. so I invested in a recumbent frame and joined the bender club - my wife was delighted- . This was a perfect solution. no more pain anymore even after 70 miles trip in a day.

other issue: with the mac motor there is no regen so i was wearing a lot of brake pads. after 4000 km my schwalbe marathon tyres were also gone.

i am building a much faster (moped)bike now with a MXUS motor as my commute went up to 50 miles one way!

Best regards,
Pierre

Peterfr12 said:

only issue: my back and butt was suffering, maybe due to the lack of suspension. so I invested in a recumbent frame and joined the bender club - my wife was delighted- . This was a perfect solution. no more pain anymore even after 70 miles trip in a day.

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You don't have to go into the details on what the wife gets out of it, but I'm curious what kind of recumbent and whether it has any suspension.

If I was stronger, I may have been able to pedal faster on that 56. I could pedal 35 in a sprint. But not for 30 miles! Too high a cadence at 35 for me.

For many, the time alone to go 60+ miles a day and work a shift taking up 8-9 hours would be too much time. As he said, he's too slow now. Any decent 500w hub motor will do the 28mph, if you run it on a 14s (52v) battery. 25 mph is typical for 48v. ( 28 at the gate, but 24-25 mph later in the ride as voltage drops)

Then as you said, there is the butt limit, or the back limit, whatever. For me, 15 miles each way was just about perfect. Some days I wished it was 20, but others I wished it was 10.

When I first started, my shitty brushed motor would overheat in about 10 miles in summer. So till winter came, I drove 6 miles to a place to park, and then rode from there. Worked surprisingly good.

I think the OP should try that if possible, And, go ahead and upgrade the bike to 28 mph. Maybe do the full ride some days, and half way others, depending on how his time budget is that day. Its a practical way to cut the car miles, and still get in a serious ride on the way in. I felt so much better on days I rode! Especially the ride home.

I have a giant stiletto that I really like, lots of room for batteries. the downside is no suspension but the right tire solves that issue. it likes cruising at 30 mph without getting blasted with wind like a mtb but need to watch out for big bumps. what about an ice trike if your going to be right in the traffic? my set up 63v 25ah-25r's, 40 amp controller, hs 3540 dd. I get 70km range no pedal average speed in the 30's. im thinking of switching the motor to a crystalyte 4080 for more torque less top speed and stronger axle. I have another bike, geared hub full suspension, I use for runs to the corner store. weighs 50lbs. the giant weighs 100lbs. when riding the 50lb mtb feels like a bicycle the 100lb bike feels more like motorbike. im kind of all over the place but a mtb sits high and the wind is annoying at 40km/h, the giant sits low and the wind doesn't get annoying until 65-70km/h, that's why im thinking something like an ice trike, its 3 wheels not 4 so its a bike not a car

60 miles round trip every single day is an extremely long way for a bicycle unless you are a little crazy and enjoy pain. If you want mobility and knife-thru-traffic for low cost get a motorcycle or scooter.

I think so too, but then no pedaling. No pain with an e bike, but its a lot of time gone every day.

When I was commuting, it was just amazing how good I felt at the start of the workday, after a 45 min easy ride in. Coming home, I recovered from work some how by riding easy on an e bike. If I drove home in an air conditioned car, I'd get home still feeling bad. I'd have to go ride anyway to feel better.

But a scooter or motorcycle is dirt cheap commuting, and would leave him time for an afternoon ride.


He really should try a half ride half car though, before spending a bundle on much faster rides. If he has a car, and a place to park it for the day. Easy to do this in the US suburbs, but hes not here.

I believe the BBSHD requires a special type of frame, while the BBS02 can use a normal frame. To keep pedaling at those speeds though, I'd recommend a direct drive hub motor with statorade, a large battery, large front chainrings, and a 28-11T rear freewheel.

BBSHD and BBS02 both work with normal frames, they are after-market and IIRC will both fit the same frames, pretty much.

BBSHD will help keep you at 28mph better. On my setup, 28-30mph was the best I could get in a long straightaway with max pedalling effort. With taller gears and better road tires 28mph seems doable for a longer time. On long straightaways.

Funny enough, I've done the half-car half-bike thing too. Parked in San Francisco neighborhood with all day street parking, popped the bike out of my sedan trunk, and saved myself $15/day in parking.

I love my 90 mph scooter, but when I worked that job 15 miles away, I really needed that daily ride. Now its different, long time since my health went sour, and a much shorter ride is all I can do and be happy.

But till my bike could do the whole 15 miles, that half way trick was great.

tln said:

BBSHD and BBS02 both work with normal frames, they are after-market and IIRC will both fit the same frames, pretty much.

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Thanks, I must have been thinking about something else, or remembered a mis-quote.

thundercamel said:

tln said:

BBSHD and BBS02 both work with normal frames, they are after-market and IIRC will both fit the same frames, pretty much.

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Thanks, I must have been thinking about something else, or remembered a mis-quote.

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Might be thinking about the Bafang Ultra?

I agree that a 30 mile commute is long and generally outside of what you'd want to do on an ebike. But responders seem to be missing that you intend to alternate with days driving and that you have already done this on a less powerful ebike. So you understand the time and distance issues.

I only know what I read about mid-drives, and my concern would be maintenance and reliability when the motor becomes noticeably more powerful than a human bean.

Assuming that you commute by bike twice a week, and go to work 48 weeks in a year, that means you'd be putting over 5,000 miles a year on the bike. Given that, I'd lean toward the direct drive hub motor with at least 1500 watts of power purely for the durability and reliability. And yes, you'll need a bigger chain ring and small rear sprocket. I'm running a 53T chainring with an 11,13,15 rear. I'd rather have an 11,12,13,15 ... though. I think 12 would be about perfect for cruising at 28 mph.

Unless you have a really powerful motor, the DD won't be great for going up steep hills. But you are only doing 1000 feet of total climbing and I only see three or four fairly short but steep climbs on your graph. So I don't see this as a major problem. The elevation profile of my current commute is 761 feet of climbing vs 466 feet of descent on an 8.5 mile route. I do this fine with a direct drive that I only ever feed about 750 watts to. Given your apparent fitness level, and a probable motor output of 1500 watts or so, I don't think the less than ideal climbing ability of the direct drive will be a problem for you.

As for battery, I think you'll want about 1200 watt/hours of storage as a minimum and you'll want to recharge before each leg. This is based on the assumption that you'll be going a typical 28 mph and consuming 30 wh/mile. If you want to actually average 28 mph for the whole trip, you'll need an even bigger battery because averaging 28 mph will require going well over 30 mph frequently. If your route has few stops, I think you can realistically hope to routinely average 25 mph and trip times of about an hour and 10 minutes if your typical speed is around 28 mph. You'll be a bit faster on average in the generally downhill direction. If you have a lot of intersections, the times will be slower.

These times aren't much faster than your current fastest time (1hr 20 min). But what the more powerful bike will get you is these kinds of times with way more consistency. On the days where you aren't as energetic, or when conditions are worse, your times won't increase all that much.

Note: My experience is with using a direct drive on a hard-tail front suspension MTB to commute 16 miles one way with 800 feet of climb vs. 500 feet of drop for a total of 32 miles per day. I had lots of intersections and a few lights to deal with, so averaging even 20 mph was tough even though my typical bike speeds were around 25 mph. I'd only get 20 mph averages if I got lucky and hit a couple green lights. I had 1250 watt/hrs of battery and my power consumption was typically around 20 wh/mi. I put in a fair bit of pedal effort myself. So I had plenty of reserves when I got home even If I chose not to charge at work.

matthillster said:

I'm generally drawn to the Bafang motors, either the BBSHD or BBS02(b). The BBS02 seems attractive because it's slightly lighter but would the BBSHD potentially get me there quicker? Does anyone know which one would be more efficient on that kind of journey? Would i need an enormous battery to do 30 miles in one hour? what would be the optimum sized chain ring for this kind of journey?

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I'm doing 13 miles each way a few times a week on a BBSHD with a 21ah. I'm guessing 28ah would be suitable but you wouldn't want to forget to charge it at work.

30 miles is a lot. When it's good it's awesome, but when it's bad it's kinda miserable. I'm finding the road makes the most difference. Nice smooth roads with minimal stops and 30 miles would be a piece of cake (throw the wind at your back and you'll wish it was 50). It's the sections of roads that suck where you have to slow down and ride aggressively that add time and are very unpleasant.

I've never had a BBS02, but I'd think on a commuter you're pushing the limits on for 2 hours a day you'd probably be better served with the beefier BBSHD. I'm doing my 13 mile trek in about 25 minutes and I'm on the throttle most of the time, with about 4 or 5 stops along the way.

The chaining is going to mostly depend on your set-up and the road. The stock 46t on flat ground works fine for me. The 42t seemed a little nicer, but you're going to lose some top speed if you want to pedal on the down grades.

Hi Donn,

the recumbent is fully suspended. it is a steel frame from the dutch company Nazca model Pionner, 24 inch front wheel and 26 rear wheel. it is like a flying carpet. it took me less than one hour to learn how to ride it. the motor alleviates all the issue, ie starting and going uphill.


to come back to the topic 30 miles commute:
i was doing a former commute partially by bike- 22 miles one way-with no motor and by car but it is really annoying as you have to dismantle the bike to fit in the car every time and found a place to park it. in Europe we dont have large parkings as in USA and our cars are much smaller. i was fed up and then upgrade to ebike and enjoyed it a lot. However my body was suffering (neck, bottom of the back, etc) due to the position on a bike, even if i was not commuting every day (3 times a week). i was also using the bike the weekend (30 miles) for shopping.

for 60 miles a day you need something reliable so gearless powerful hub motor, (Leaf or Mxus) maybe laced to a motorbike rim. bike tyre get worn so quickly at 30 mph that i will use motorbike tyre on my new ebike setup I am buiding now. You need also a very comfortable bike, fully suspended, with adequate light for the winter time. ditch the derailleur and get a big ring 75t with a good single speed freewheel 16t- expensive but worth it(white industry). i broke 4 chinese DNP freewheel using only the force of my legs!

if you ride daily or very often, reliability is important: tyre, freewheel, clutch get worn and you dont want to spend your spare time fixing your bike. the more you ride the more money you will save.

Peterfr

Yes, I agree, he's doing 30 miles one way already, so he knows what it is. I just don't think he's going to shave enough more time off his ride with a legal speed bike. Stops are the thing you can't shave. But if he's got a really good road and no stops, that makes a huge difference. My commute had a stop every mile, on average.

If I suggested cramming a bike into the car, I didn't mean to. He'd have to have a car for one thing, then a hitch rack sturdy enough for a heavy e bike, and perhaps hardest to find, a parking spot.

for that distance I'd suggest an electric road bike and to be honest, an off the shelf one. I ride 50 miles a day every week day every week of the year on a Giant Road-e and it works just fine. The road bike aspect is the key - a more aero position and frame, with narrower tires than you generally find on a mtb means your battery and motor power go alot further. It's an electric assist, so you have to be pedalling, but on full power I can happily cruise at 26-27mph on the flat/ no wind. The battery has lost quite a bit of capacity over the last 2 years and 18,000 miles, so I'll be rebuilding that this summer as soon as the new batteries arive, but when new it would do 30 miles easily at full power. I only needed to drop down to "Normal" when it was very windy (20mph or more). My commute takes between 1h10 and 1h15 each way every day, perhaps an extra 10 minutes when it's crazy windy.

I'm sure you can do it with a donor bike and aftermarket battery/ motor, but you'll have to upsize both to get around the inefficiencies that brings with it.

mattthemuppet said:

narrower tires

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I wasn't really paying a lot of attention, but I've been seeing some discussion lately that contradicts this. Came as a surprise, but if I remember the story right, given tire inflation that is equivalent in some reasonable way, you're going to get a contact patch of a certain size. That size can be spread out lengthwise, with a narrow tire, or rounder with a wide tire, and actual rolling resistance can end up favoring the latter. Of course this does depend on actual inflation (and on the tire), but the kicker is that if you gas the narrow tire up too much, it starts to bounce in and out of road contact, which also incurs some cost.

So for me, I'd look into this before putting up with a miserable ride for the sake of efficiency.

Good point about heavy daily use and decline of battery capacity. A well made e-bike sounds like the ticket, if one can be found that's designed to perform at relatively high speed. Replace a lot of chains and cogs etc. with that Road-E?

donn said:

mattthemuppet said:

narrower tires

Click to expand...

I wasn't really paying a lot of attention, but I've been seeing some discussion lately that contradicts this. Came as a surprise, but if I remember the story right, given tire inflation that is equivalent in some reasonable way, you're going to get a contact patch of a certain size. That size can be spread out lengthwise, with a narrow tire, or rounder with a wide tire, and actual rolling resistance can end up favoring the latter. Of course this does depend on actual inflation (and on the tire), but the kicker is that if you gas the narrow tire up too much, it starts to bounce in and out of road contact, which also incurs some cost.

So for me, I'd look into this before putting up with a miserable ride for the sake of efficiency.

Good point about heavy daily use and decline of battery capacity. A well made e-bike sounds like the ticket, if one can be found that's designed to perform at relatively high speed. Replace a lot of chains and cogs etc. with that Road-E?

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true and I don't disagree at all - I'm running 700cx35mm (1 1/2"?) tires, up from the original 32mm. It was more a comparison between the 2" or so tires you might find on a mtb and the ones I have on my bike. Weight, frontal area and to a lesser extent, rolling resistance will be quite different between the two. I also have double taped grips and a suspension seatpost

So far for consumables - I use 2 chains (alternate every 1000 miles) and one cassette every 6000 miles, front tire did nearly 10,000 miles whereas the rear caught a wood screw at 3000 miles or so. Replaced it with a Schwalbe Marathon which did 8 or 9000 miles, then replaced that with a Schwalbe Supreme which is a bit comfier at the cost of puncture resistance. Disk brake pads seem to be doing around 7000 miles a set, just replaced the disks a couple of thousand miles ago. Also got a replacement set of wheels some time ago as the originals weren't that great. All told I think I've spent around $600 on it over the last 2 years, which isn't bad - that's what I just spent on a set of tires for the car!

Hi everyone,

just wanted to say thanks for all the great advice and post an update. I decided to stick with the Haibike for the time being but did some mods to get it going a bit faster. I lowered the handlebars and slammed the stem to make it a bit more aerodynamic and put thinner slicker tyres on it to reduce rolling resistance. I also put rigid forks on it to reduce the weight (it now weighs 24kg with the bigger battery). I can now do my 30 mile commute in 1hr 25 if I get a shift on (i've done it in 1hr 20 with favourable traffic and weather conditions).

I'm still after more speed though so I'm planning on building a high powered ebike kit and getting it registered by the DVLA as a moped. I've got something like this in mind:

https://www.cloudsto.com/ebikes/kirb-ebike-5000s-detail.html