Hello from Central Texas

[bomber991]

Hey everyone, I live in the Austin Texas area, and I was looking to possibly convert my bicycle to an electric bike. I still got lots of research and lots of questions I need answered, but it's looking like this is definitely the place to ask them.

I just got fed up with gas prices and realized that at the best it might be $3.25 for premium by January. Yeah I gotta put premium in my car. Anyways, there's a park and ride about 6.5 miles from my house where I can go park my car and ride on the bus. I haven't really been doing that recently this school semester but I did that last semester. Right now I'm driving about 260 miles a week for school, 4 days a week! I figure if I took the bus 4 days a week instead that could be just 52 miles I drive.

But I really want to cut out the driving completely if I can. Seven miles of biking seems kind of far for me. I'd imagine I could do it on the way to school, but on the way back after waiting 30 minutes for the bus, sitting on the bus for an hour and being tired from school all day I doubt I'd have the energy to pedal another 7 miles home. Plus it's kind of hilly here, so it's not gonna be easy pedaling home.

Also I've been reading about electric vehicle conversions earlier this year and it really seems like something I want to try, but I've got a lack of funds and time for that kind of project, so I'll have to settle for the electric bicycle instead.

Anyways I'll say more stuff as I have more questions later

Thanks,
Justin.

 

[Chain theory]

Consider all the possibility's

Welcome bomber991

I to live in Texas and I have fond memory's of Austin. Electric kits seem too expensive to me and wont give me the range I need. Also allot of weight and a high center of gravity is also a consideration. I have decided on the 4 stroke rack mount type. You don't have that far to go so the electric kit might be the best thing for you. Austin is very "green" so electric will be well received there. Good luck. Keep searching and reading.

 

[bomber991]

Well I'm more in a suburb of Austin. Thats why I gotta go 7 miles just to get to where the bus runs. I'm still not quite sure of the range of electrics. I really don't want to be pedaling too much. I need to figure out how many watt hours they use per mile. I guess that way I can do volts*amp hours to figure out how many watt hours the batteries will give me and then determine how many batteries I'll need.

I'm on a limited budget. I want to try and keep the cost under $500 for what I'm doing, trying to make the conversion cost the same as the savings I'll have from not driving this semester. I was looking at the ampedbikes.com hubs. Looks like I can get the hubmotor and 3 12v 10ah SLA batteries for almost $500 even.