This is the Carpe 30 flat bar road bike from the Spanish bike building company ORBEA decked out with a mid-drive kit from BAFANG and a long range PANASONIC lithium ion frame mounted battery.

Style – tick

Speed – tick

Range – tick

Handling – tick

Seems to tick a few boxes!

This was an old 1950s Dutch style single speed bicycle that came into the shop a little while ago with lots of rust, mud and spiders.

We proceeded to electrify this lovely old bicycle as requested. There were a few small issues to get it electric. The first one was the decision on where to locate the motor. The front forks were not suitable for a hub motor due to their thinness and angle. The rear axle also wasn’t suitable for a hub motor as it was a single speed bike so the distance across the axle was only 120mm.  It wouldn’t have been ideal to stretch it to the 130-132mm needed for a typical rear hub motor. The final option left to us was to use a mid-drive motor. We have been using our own designed neat little mid-drive motor (click here for details) a lot lately. It’s smaller than all other available kits and it has lovely torque sensing. It performs rather similarly to the BOSCH or SHIMANO mid-drive motors but with a few small benefits. The difference between a torque sensing kit and a cadence sensing conversion kit is that with torque sensing the motor responds to the pressure you apply to the pedals, with cadence sensing the motor responds to the revolutions of the pedals. The torque sensing kits are typically a little smoother in regard to performance but an added advantage is that you do not require a throttle to operate them.  Whilst with a cadence sensing kit, the throttle is not an absolute necessity, the times you can get in trouble without the throttle is when you need to start up a hill.  Because you need to rotate the pedals approximately half a turn to get the motor to engage it can be difficult to begin riding. The throttle is very useful just to give you that initial kick and then you don’t need it once you are up and riding and rotating the pedals. The torque kits are good in that the response is immediate as soon as you start pushing.  The throttle is also available on our torque sensing kits and it is also rather useful in certain times when you want a little more immediate power – such as crossing busy roads or negotiating lots of pedestrians. The final hurdle was finding a rear brake.  The original system had a rear coaster brake – that’s one where you pedal backwards to activate the brake like on your childhood BMX. Because the motorised crank drive system does not engage in reverse then this braking system was lost. We ended up searching far and wide to find a long reach rear brake caliper (99mm) that we could fit to this bike.  In the end, the bike came together rather well.  It is an extremely comfortable ride and it was lovely to put some life back into this 1950s classic.  It will surely see a lot more kilometres now it’s electric!

Please come in this week to take advantage of our latest special. It’s the AVANTI Discovery 2 equipped with the SOLAR BIKE rear wheel mini-motor kit and PANASONIC tube battery. The electrics are superb and the bike is great. It’s designed for comfort and commuting efficiency. With suspension seat pole and fork it’s lovely to ride and the disc brakes will help you pull up nicely in times of need. It’s on special for one week only. $300 off this model. Was $1990, now $1690. Offer ending on the 27th June 2017!

One of ELECTRA’s beach cruisers came in this weekend for a conversion job and it came together very nicely. The customer opted for a direct drive front motor and a long range 36V 21Ah battery to enable him to get from Freo to the city and back. The bike is great to ride, the’re well designed for comfort and style with their “Flat foot” technology that puts the pedals forward to allow leg extension whilst still easily putting your feet on the ground for balance. The Springer front end is a nice touch too.

The industrial trike from GOMIER is the heavy duty mother of tricycles that can be used for carrying great loads. This was one created for SEA DOG TV, a company that has been shooting wildlife films on Rottnest island for the best part of the year for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. It was proving to be a bit arduous carrying scuba diving tanks from place to place so the industrial trike was electrified and a trailer added so that the film crew can get across the island with energy spare to do their good work. The 14Ah 36V PANASONIC Tiger Shark battery fitted beautifully within the frame of this tricycle and should allow the crew to get all the way across the island and back. We hope to see some lovely underwater videos of Rottnest this year!

After a couple of years of reliable service the Red Baron came back to us for a complete system upgrade. This is the new look of the Luftwaffe; 1000W front hub and 48V 17.5Ah Tiger Shark battery mounted within the frame! The bike is the Red Baron from FELT.

If you want to make a high speed dual suspension electric bicycle then the GIANT ANTHEM is one of the best models to choose simply because there is room within the frame to mount a high capacity battery. This bike uses the BAFANG 1000W mid-drive conversion kit and you need a very solid battery for it to work as the motor has a 30 amp current draw and with this high power you need a high capacity battery to get a decent range. This battery is a PANASONIC 48V 17.5AH lithium ion battery and will give a range of approximately 30km with pedalling hard and lots and lots of motor power. There are very few other dual suspension bikes that have a large enough frame space to accommodate a good battery – nearly none we’ve found – so if you’re looking for something like this then for around $1000 you should be able to find a 2nd hand GIANT ANTHEM that will work well.

The next problem with this type of bike is getting a mid-drive motor to fit. The great majority of bicycles have a bottom bracket shell/crank width of 68-73mm.  With dual suspension bikes it varies a little and this model has a 90mm bottom bracket shell. This is quite easily overcome by ordering an abnormal mid-drive BAFANG kit with a 100mm axle length. The problems do not finish there though because most bicycles have a cartridge style bottom bracket but lots of high quality dual suspension mountain bikes have a press fit bottom bracket. They look like this:

This means that the typical mid-drive conversion kit will be too sloppy in the shell and surely cause problems. We overcame this by doing a few measurements and getting some cups made that would fit in the press fit bearing slot and be the correct inner diameter to support the mid-drive motor. Here are our poor drawings but thankfully the machinist was high quality and produced some good parts for us.

The part for the drive side has a thinner outer diameter in an aim to keep the chain line as straight as possible in regular riding. This is what they look like when they are put in:

This is how it looks with the motor in place:

The bike rides beautifully. It’s near impossible to get a high power dual suspension bike for under a few thousand dollars but this is a great solution. The bike can hit up to 60km/h with good pedaling and a range of around 30km should be expected with a 48V 17.5Ah battery.  Rough prices are bike: $1000, motor kit: $1000 and battery: $1000.

The fixie trend was about not so long ago, you’d see colourful bikes accompanied by men with man-buns and goatee beards lurking around the hippy cafes all along the streets of Fremantle and beyond. While this group of hipsters can still be found, the trend is dwindling a touch because in all honesty they’re just not that practical for the average punter needing to commute to work – or the coffee shop. True fixed geared bicycles are still being used on track bikes in velodromes but many of the “unpure” fixie riders have reverted to single speed and have lost the ability to lock their back leg out to get a good skid going and instead will employ both front and back brake levers – God forbid! What this trend has left though is a need to look good while riding a bike, LEKKER are a Dutch/Australian brand that makes bikes with looks at the forefront of their design aspirations and the Amsterdam is one of their models that has taken aspects of fixie culture and urbanised it. This bike has a 7 speed internal hub instead of the fixed gear but the frame sports that nice simplicity that you find in single speed models. We’ve taken it one step further and added a sleek electric conversion kit onto it to make it that one step more useful. We put a mini mid-drive kit onto it that can power it at between 250-350 watts and put a sleek PANASONIC lithium ion battery within the frame for high power output and handling. So, for all those who want to arrive at their favourite coffee shop with their man-bun, their goatee and their polka-dot shirt free of any sweat drops then we have the bike just for you. We present to you the Electric Lekker Amsterdam!

This is Mango Margot gracing the streets of her native Scheveningen in Holland. The bike is a train-bike; according to Margot “The old-school versions are the new hipster thing and converted to a solar bike it’s even more booming!”

This is the Giant Halfway, so called because essentially it is only half a fork and half a rear chain stay. If you look closely then you’ll see it has stub axles for both wheels instead of the axles running through to be supported on both sides. The option left to us to convert this nice little folding bicycle was to use a mid-drive kit. We chose our own brand of mini crank-drive conversion kits. It’s a lovely little torque sensing conversion kit and it worked a treat for this bike. The customer opted for a tube battery to be mounted onto his rear carrier rack.

BODHI TREE SURFBOARDS is an amazing place located in East Perth where you can go and build yourself a beautiful wooden surfboard. I highly recommend this to anyone out there who loves surfing, surfboards, woodcraft or art. Greg will guide you through the process of building your own surfboard and teach you about all the nuances of tail design, board shape, rocker and wood at the same time. The final product will be the best surfboard you’ve ever ridden. The thing is, if you’re going to be building such cool surfboards, then you’re going to need a damn cool electric bike to go with them as well. This was an old beauty that came together marvelously. It should be seen running between Perth and Fremantle for the next 10 years packed with surfboard making paraphernalia.

From a day care centre in Denmark to the streets of Dunsborough, this Christiania cargo bike has done some miles. However, with 3 growing kids it was time to either get a car or electrify this beauty. Thankfully the latter was chosen and this weekend we put an electric conversion kit on to help with daily commutes. The front wheels have stub axles and the rear wheel had an internal hub gear that they didn’t want to lose so that eliminated all hub motor options; our final option was to use a Bafang mid-drive kit. There were a few hurdles to overcome but a day later it was all achieved and now this classic old bike will be seen daily doing the rounds of Dunsborough.

The Mach 4 from APOLLO is an elegant model being made electric at Cottesloe Cycles. The steel fork is ideal for the front mini-motor and the Panasonic lithium ion tube battery within the frame gives great handling. The bike is completed for the commuter with mudguards, a rear carrier rack and an internal 7 speed Nexus hub gear.  This is a great commuter bike with good style and performance.  The total package comes together for $1890 and is excellent value. Please drop into Cottesloe Cycles to test ride one.

This is a video showing our new high powered 1500W Electric Fat Bike Conversion kits. We used it here to go bike surfing. Click here to see video.

Apparently in Germany all of the bike mechanics have to go to bike school. 2 and a half years to become a basic mechanic and an extra year for the advanced qualification. It was great to have Tweety in the shop this week with her German qualifications. She gave us all a bit of schooling and broke the long held bike build record in the process. This here was one of the many bikes she assembled this week. It’s the beautifully designed VALLKREE scrambler in chrome. It rides like a dream and it’s nice to know all the nuts and bolts are tight!

This was an interesting cargo bike that we electrified this week. It’s a beautiful cargo bike from DOUZE that has a lot of top end parts on it. However, riding it loaded up with a child and groceries and heading into the sea-breeze is a bit troublesome so the customer asked us to electrify it. Hub motors were no option due to the front wheel having a through-axle and the rear 11 speed internal gear so our only option was to use a mid-drive kit. This proved tougher than expected due to the frame geometry but we got around it all by pulling the motor apart and installing half of it on each side then bringing it back together. It’s now a great electric mid-drive cargo bike that will serve for many many years to come.

Solar Bike. Fremantle Woolstores. January 2017.

We’ve been putting together a lot of the mid-drive kits lately and this one was worth a note. This was a simple fixie that a customer brought in. It’s quite a cheap and elegant bicycle that you can get from a lot of online places or even shop fronts. This model was a REID bike that sold for around $400. It’s simple and cheap but there’s not a thing wrong with it and it lends itself nicely to the mid drive kits. There are a few brands of mid-drive kits our there. BAFANG, also known as 8fun are very well known in the business but their kits don’t have torque sensing like their production electric bikes do. We’ve now got our own range of legal mid-drive kits that have torque sensing and they are proving to work exceedinly well. They will fit onto nearly all bikes and have both throttle and pedal assist LCD control. This bike came together easily and it is a great ride. The picture here shows it with a 36V 11.6Ah PANASONIC lithium ion battery in the middle of the frame.

These are two of our greatest creations of late. One is a little baby girl and the 2nd is a downhill bike converted with a Bafang mid drive motor. The mid drive kits are really well worth a visit, they’re a little more comlicated than hub motors to set up but have some nice features. The Bafang (8fun) kit is probably the best on the market as a retro fit kit. They’re available in powers of between 250-1000W. This one here is the 750W model and it runs a 48V 11.6Ah SAMSUNG lithium ion battery. The battery had to be attached upside down on the down tube as often with dual suspension bikes there is no room within the frame. Rack mounted bikes are tricky also as unless it’s a seatpole mounted battery it won’t work. This bike rides like a dream, it gets about 25km range on the top level at about 45km/h. The mid-drive kits allow you to run through the gears so essentially speed depends on the gearing system. This one still delivers power at slightly above 50km/h but that’s pedalling at top speed as well. Larger chain rings are available if you need to go faster but that is pretty quick on a bicycle. Once you ride a dual suspension bike it’s hard to go back. It feels like a combination of a flying carpet, bicycle and hover board.

Vallkree are a group from Byron Bay who are designing, building and importing some pretty good looking electric bikes. We’ve got a few on our shop floor now so if you’re interested in this style of bike then please come by and take one for a spin. They have a rear wheel motor, pedal assist and also open throttle control. They’re suprisingly comfortable and look great. They have a variety of styles, accessories and colours available. Please check out their website here.

This is the GIANT Halfway. It’s a folding bike that was interesting in its production because both wheels had stub axles, if you look closely you’ll notice that there is only one side to the fork and only half a rear triangle. This made installing a hub motor impossible so we put on one of the new SOLAR BIKE mid-drive kits. These new motors are smaller than all of the other ones and they come with torque sensing. It came together beautifully and performance of the bike was only changed by having lovely and smooth electric assistance coming from the cranks. Another nice custom conversion!

The brand new La Belle reinvents an old Malvern Star name from years gone by but wraps it up in a stylish and sophisticated modern way with more than a nod to the comfort and practicality of the famous ‘Dutch’ style ladies bikes. Whatever outfit you’re wearing, its ready to simply get on and enjoy the ride. Made even better with a Solar Bike long range 36v 17ah rack battery electric conversion at Ace Cyclery.

This is my old mountain bike – called the Centurion – that’s probably how long it would have lay about not getting used until I converted it to electric. I took it into the Solar Bike shop in Fremantle and put on a pretty beefy kit! It’s got a rear wheel 1000W motor and 48V battery now and the boys in there let me put it all together in the shop and give it a basic service for free – well I bought them a slab of beer actually for their assistance. Was great to have their experience with the assembly work. A couple of new tyres, some new cables and pads and it was the best birthday present a bike could get. It goes like brand new but feels like Cadel Evans is pedalling it for me. It’s made life much easier getting around town now. No traffic, no sweat, no public transport stress and no more cost for me getting around for a few years till I need a new battery. The bike is great to ride but the motor is a bit fast. I can’t keep up to the speed of the motor when I pedal so I’ll either have to get a few more teeth on the front cog or else ease up a bit on the throttle. I love it and suprisingly am getting a pretty good daily workout

Bill, Feb 2016

This was a conversion put together by Ace Cyclery for a customer who had a light weight carbon Colnago. Some purists may be appalled at making such a beautiful thing electric but not the customer or creator. It was a challenge to find a suitable fork and some handlebar modifications were performed but now it is an increidbly light weight electric bike that will cover thousands more kilometres than it already has. It has a 400Wh Panasonic lithium ion battery in the frame and a light mini-motor up front. On a bike like this with a little input you could easily expect a 50km range. The new upright riding position will make it very comfortable.

Ace Cyclery, February 2016

The Boda Boda is an elegant looking cargo bike made by YUBA. The step through version is very nice but it’s hard to find somewhere to locate the battery when converting it to become electric. Alex, the crafty mechanic from South Beach Cycles, has found a solution. He cuts and laminates a piece of ply wood and creates a 2nd layer under the carrier rack. With holes in the correct locations it’s possible to turn the switch on and off and also get the key in there to remove the battery. If you’re looking for an electric cargo bike then these guys are the ones to visit for sure.

Here we have a couple of electric bikes we put together and they couldn’t have been more like chalk and cheese. The first one was brought in by a customer and in all honesty it was such a piece of junk that it was hard to talk the customer out of converting it. Anyway, ahead we went and put on the motor and battery he wanted. In the end, we had to put a new rear wheel on, new brakes, new cables, new seat post brackets etc. Was a lot of work scrubbing the grit out of the chain but in the end it was a pleasant surprise and it rode ok.

The next bike however was a pleasure to put together. A new Carpe 50 from ORBEA, everything went together so smoothly and the bike ran like a dream. This is really a top model for a great price. We used the Panasonic 11.6Ah 36V lithium ion tube battery pack and a rear mounted hub motor. These bikes have such nice geometry for a flat bar road style bike that it feels more like a hybrid but with great handling. All up a busy morning here.

Solar Bike, January 2016

It was a pleasure to set up a couple of my favourite electric bikes for my friends David and Rosy for some of the first for the new year. These were the Orbea Carpe 30 – a lovely bike with great riding geometry and hydraulic disc brakes. Rosy’s was the Breezer uptown. A stylish ladies bike. Both are regular bikes we convert here in our new shop in Freo and I hope to do a bunch more this year!

Matt, Solar Bike, January 2016