No Carrier's Comments

e-bike

My latest source of interest is in the new e-bikes. This posting will give you some links to some sources with pictures.

An E-bike is a sort of new. Its not a moped which is motorized bike using gas. An Ebike is an electric bike. They have become a very popular options for people in china who have been using bikes for years. e-bikes are recently using newer batteries- no longer using car type lead-acid batteries, but now they are using NiHd similar to the technology used for cell phones. The newer batteries allow for much lighter batteries to be put on your bike they last longer.

Simply put and E-bike is a bike with a battery, and electric motor. You plug it in, wait 4 hours then you have 20 miles or so of up hill, wind in your face biking joy without having to peddle ! If you peddle you can extend that distance to maybe 30 - 40 miles before needing to find an outlet. These bikes need no license (like a moped) and don't require insurance, or trips to the gas station. they are silent, eco friendly, and cost you pennies a day to run.

They come in two basic forms


1 Complete bikes
2 Kits - allowing your to add an electric motor and batteries to an existing bike.
This Site
has some of the best information on where to get an ebike and examples of what the state of the art technology looks like.

Tres Terra has some of the nicer looking bikes. They are located in Thousand Oaks CA
Izip bikes Seem to have Ed Bagley Jr as their spokesman They have large selection of street, folding, and mountian type e-bikes
eZeeBike from Eruope seem to have some very elegant looking bikes.. I dont know the prices yet
BionX Seem to have some really nice e-motor kits in various power levels they appear nice a clean. Not inexpensive.

Off to the bike store in the next few days to see what they have to say about these.. Ill you know what I find out.

Bob

posted by Bob Lee @ 8:08 PM