"I am hoping to build a bike that will allow me to pedal at a 30mph pace when I have to deal vehicles approaching from the rear. I live in a heavy vehicle traffic area and need access to tuning lanes at stop lights when there is a limited gap in traffic. Battery range has to be minimum of 60 mi and over, 100 mi at a lower assist level. I currently ride a Delite and take extra batteries if I ride over 80 miles. What ever I build has to be set up to carry additional batteries if needed."
O.P. and I were discussing the above offline, but I'll reply in the open forum. By the way, he's in fairly flat country, but really busy urban traffic.
I personally don't need to ride in heavy traffic at high speeds. The above calls for a motorcycle. You don't really want to slice/dice with cars on any bicycle.
If I were to build a bike to run that kind of a gauntlet, I'd choose a big direct drive motor, say 1500W, I'd look for a big steel cruiser bike or a cargo bike with disk brakes. I'm not sure the cruiser exists, but a welder could add the caliper tabs. Might want a 72V controller, and four 36V batteries, running two in series and two spares, if you really want to run sustained 30 mph. Otherwise 52V ought to be enough, I think pedal assist with that kind of power would seem ridiculous, and also hard to pull off. With any effort, you're at 20 mph..
