First post here as I'm looking into ebikes now. My wife and I each have this same Biria step-through, and it's great to see that it has potential for conversion, as it's a solid bike that we want to continue riding. Would you still endorse going this route? Any recommendation on what would be a workable front hub in today's market? What is the power output on the unit that you used? I'm plenty handy, including building up bikes and threading wheels in the past. Thanks.
Back from my little vacation hiking and biking some in the Olympic Peninsula lots of fun but happy to be home.
To answer your questions I'd do the same conversion on a Biria easy boarding bike again in an instant, it is a solid and fun bike to ride. I put the geared front hub motor on my wife's Biria and a geared rear hub motor that on a lark I installed on an old mountain bike. Both kits were very inexpensive on Amazon. I bought the MXUS front motor already laced into a wheel several years ago when I was going to try to commute to work on a route with long steep hills (my employer was going to move my office from 26 miles away to one only 12 miles from home but then changed their mind when I told them my requirements for office space). Anyway the kit never really got used because, even though it did great on flat rides where I didn't need assist, it was completely gutless where I needed help on hills - so it sat in a shed unused and unloved. Motor is rated at 36v and I think 250w and came with a KT controller with 15a max rating. When I bought the rear hub kit, which I really didn't need at all, I used the KT 22a max controller that came with that kit on the MXUS and it changed everything. Excellent power, good power delivery (as opposed to what I read about some ready made cadence sensor bikes) and it handles the larger controller with no problems. I tested it in the Columbia Gorge on some hilly routes and it gave excellent assist and the motor never got more than minimally warm even pulling long steep grades. My wife also rides it on hilly routes and it is funny to watch as she pulls along side and passes much younger and more fit riders struggling with their serious looking road bikes on the hills while she cheerfully greets them. Maybe there is something wrong with the original controller but the 22a controller works great with this motor while the original controller did not.
The Amazon sourced no name geared rear hub motor that I put in my old Schwinn Sierra mountain bike also works great (although I almost never ride it) including on very hilly routes without overheating. But neither my wife nor I use a motor alone with throttle as I see many others do, only as an assist.
Long post but hope it helps, in summary:
- I only have hub motor experience with this front 250w rated MXUS and the no name 500w rated rear "ricetoo" motors, both were very inexpensive, both work great with the same 22a max KT controller. Both came laced into decent looking double wall rims with sturdy spokes. So I can't give a useful recommendation regarding which brand to buy or avoid. If I were to do it again I wouldn't hesitate to buy whatever brand on Amazon that came already laced into a wheel with a double wall rim as long as it came with a KT 22a controller and WP (waterproof) connectors.
- you could use either a front or rear hub motor on the Biria but I like the weight distribution with the front hub motor, some care needs to be taken on loose surfaces or grass because it is possible to get wheel spin on takeoff, especially on uphill grades.
- I would use a torque arm for a Biria front fork, even though it is steel I did notice some slight spreading of the dropouts when I ran it without a torque arm. And I'd definitely use a torque arm for the aluminum frame if a rear hub motor was chosen instead of a front motor.
Good luck with whatever you do choose with your Biria bikes, great fun (as a more serious cyclist friend from Ireland said when he rode my wife's bike in the Gorge "brilliant").
I’m going to build an LiFePo4 with A123 style cells.
