Serious commuter - time to go electric??

[Motiv Electric Bikes]

Bramor thanks for the shout out!

 

[Aushiker]

OK Team,
thanks for all the guidance, I've sucked it all in, completed my research and chosen a bike ( from http://longislandelectricbikes.com/ ). I have choosen a Trucker Disc with a Falco 500w motor. Very similar to the picture above.

Looks nice. I have a Surly Long Haul Trucker which is my touring bike .... great bikes. Should be a fun setup for sure.

Andrew

 

[Tommy]

I started this thread up above and promised some feedback and I got my bike broke in.

I did indeed buy a Trucker Disc with a falco motor. I bought it from Chris at Long Island Electric Bikes, he was super helpful during my search and spent lots of time with me trying to get the right bike. Sadly I had some problems with the Falco from the start. Firstly, the battery didn't want to sync with the motor which resulted in the bike becoming a heavy dead unpowered ride 13 miles into my 26 mile commute. Following a few days of diagnosis Rakesh (from Falco) and Chris got me a new one ordered. 1 week later it arrived.

It synced OK, but was smaller and was dead 8 miles before I got to work, making for a heavy slow haul for the last 8. Another problem was the bike would drop into regen mode frequently for no apparent reason, this had the effect of greatly slowing me down, until the power would surge back. This up and down speed was very annoying. Also the Falco console wasn't very intuitive. After 5 round trip commutes I gave up and sent my Trucker/Falco back. I have to add, despite the problems, Rakesh was very responsive and was on the phone to me, night and day trying to fix things.

Again Chris was super helpful and guided me toward a BH emotion Neo Cross. I have now made about 6 round trip commutes, 24 miles each way (48 mile round trip - I found some shortcuts). I have some hills, about 800 feet and about 15 traffic lights. I can manage the trip in about 1 hour 25 minutes. I can get to work on a single charge (I paid extra for the 12amp hour battery) with probably about 10-20% juice left in the battery. On a flat roads or even slight incline & with hard peddling I can comfortably sit at 24 mph. Acceleration from stop is rapid and much quicker than other proper cyclists around me. The Neo is very good and looks pretty normal.

So all in all, I'm now a happy ecommuter, this really is the future of commuting. I'll do a better & more BH Neo focused write up as I learn more and properly break it in.

Thanks to all the help and guidance from this site and Chris.
Tommy

 

[Admin]

Awesome overview Tommy! I'm glad Chris was able to help you out. I recently re-reviewed the Falco stuff and struggled with bits here and there as well. I like the look of their all-black stuff and the way you can piece together a custom system but the display is wonky the hard cut off at 20mph wasn't as smooth as the Easy Motion systems, I think you made a good choice.

 

[Bike_On]

I started this thread up above and promised some feedback and I got my bike broke in.

I did indeed buy a Trucker Disc with a falco motor. I bought it from Chris at Long Island Electric Bikes, he was super helpful during my search and spent lots of time with me trying to get the right bike. Sadly I had some problems with the Falco from the start. Firstly, the battery didn't want to sync with the motor which resulted in the bike becoming a heavy dead unpowered ride 13 miles into my 26 mile commute. Following a few days of diagnosis Rakesh (from Falco) and Chris got me a new one ordered. 1 week later it arrived.

It synced OK, but was smaller and was dead 8 miles before I got to work, making for a heavy slow haul for the last 8. Another problem was the bike would drop into regen mode frequently for no apparent reason, this had the effect of greatly slowing me down, until the power would surge back. This up and down speed was very annoying. Also the Falco console wasn't very intuitive. After 5 round trip commutes I gave up and sent my Trucker/Falco back. I have to add, despite the problems, Rakesh was very responsive and was on the phone to me, night and day trying to fix things.

Again Chris was super helpful and guided me toward a BH emotion Neo Cross. I have now made about 6 round trip commutes, 24 miles each way (48 mile round trip - I found some shortcuts). I have some hills, about 800 feet and about 15 traffic lights. I can manage the trip in about 1 hour 25 minutes. I can get to work on a single charge (I paid extra for the 12amp hour battery) with probably about 10-20% juice left in the battery. On a flat roads or even slight incline & with hard peddling I can comfortably sit at 24 mph. Acceleration from stop is rapid and much quicker than other proper cyclists around me. The Neo is very good and looks pretty normal.

So all in all, I'm now a happy ecommuter, this really is the future of commuting. I'll do a better & more BH Neo focused write up as I learn more and properly break it in.

Thanks to all the help and guidance from this site and Chris.
Tommy

Tommy,

Sorry to hear the Falco didn't work out. I have owned one for a year and can confirm your experience, that the kits seem to need adjustments to get working right. I added a throttle as an override, which allowed me to manually assist until I could work out the PAS bugs with Rakesh. The system still needs some polishing, as you and Court mention. I have re-programmed my motor and it is performing well. The motor still cuts off harder than I like. I'm thinking that may be partially due to my drop out and torqe bar alignment. But that has been an issue for a while. In the cruise mode, it allows 20+ mph riding. I agree that the console is horribly not intuitive. Rakesh is a good guy and I hope they up the reliability. They did upgrade their wireless unit and motor firmware to pair better.

BTW, I don't think the battery pairs with the motor. The motor pairs with the console, yes?

I need to get ahold of a good bionx system and compare sopmetime.

Best w ith your NEO and congrats.

 

[vamolandro]

I agree with many of the suggestions above. We love Surly bikes too! We actually did a Disc Trucker conversion with a 500W falco motor and it's one of the fastest bikes in the shop. I can hit 35mph on it and easily maintain a speed of 30mph. I added a pic below.

View attachment 481

Given your riding style I feel like you might prefer a mid-drive, especially with the distance you are riding. I mean you could charge the battery at the office, which most bikes listed will require given the general range. I know some of the Kalkhoff and Focus bikes are a bit pricy, but I think they might be just what you're looking for. We might have some 2013 models available that we can work out a deal if you're interested.

Certainly whatever you get I think you'll want pedal assist as the throttle is nice for certain situations, but I feel an avid rider like yourself will appreciate the experience pedal assist has to offer especially on some of the more refined brands.

Hi Chris!
I am contemplating converting my disc trucker, to make my flat commute less sweaty, here in Long Beach. I am pretty handy with basic bike stuff. Would you rank your 500W falco conversion as reasonable for a first conversion?
Casey

 

[Chris Nolte]

@vamolandro - I'll PM you some info.