Category Archives: Testimonials

Many thanks to Jarrad for sending in the review below. He converted his first bike nearly 7 years ago and has come back to upgrade. Please read below for his take on the installation and performance.

Malvern Star, 2016

In January 2016 I decided to get an ebike kit on my Malvern Star, which perhaps wasn’t the best choice of bike to convert as it weighed a ton. The lads from Solar Bike set me up with a 36V 200W rear mini drive motor and a 9Ah tube battery.  The setup always performed well despite the weight of the bike and I was always happy with speed and range and it has never let me down. In September 2022, it’s still going strong every day and will still do a 15km trip with the throttle on full the whole way. 

The only problem is the bike is falling apart around the Solar Bike kit and it’s become quite dangerous. A result of almost zero maintenance. So this review of the 36V 200W rear mini motor with 9Ah battery has been 7 years in the making and is a testament to the quality Solar Bike components and running gear.

I will keep the bike and fix it up and have it as a spare and see how long it keeps going for. For what that bike has saved me in fuel, parking, fines, insurance, time in traffic and in free exercise, it is without question the best investment I’ve made!

Trek Marlin 7, 2022

I recently upgraded from the Malvern Star and got a Trek Marlin 7 XXL, which for me is like getting a Ferrari. I chose the larger 21Ah Tigershark battery to give me extra range. The Solar Bike team was helpful in responding to queries via email and ordering was quick and easy.

Fitting the rear minimotor kit to a Trek Marlin was very simple and without problems; I took my time and with no rushing I was riding by noon. The only alteration/adjustment required was a couple of washers to get the brake disc to spin freely in the brake calipers. There were varying thickness washers supplied for this.

The bike has got great instant pick up and easily sits on 30kmh without pedalling and I rode around for a couple of hours including on the beach and the battery didn’t use a bar. I highly recommend this simple hub motor, controller throttle and larger battery setup for both economy and performance.

We’ve just landed another shipment of our summer range of ebikes. Click here to download the catalogue. They include a beastly Fat Bike, a men’s and ladies’ hybrid commuter, a folding bike and a mountain bike.

via GIPHY

The Lekker Jordaan is a stylish bicycle that we regularly convert in our shop. These two lovely models were made electric with our front hub motor and rear rack kit to become some of the most pleasant ebikes to ride and look at. They are well equipped with a Shimano Nexus 7 speed internal hub gear, chain & mud guards, front and back lights and front and back racks. We’re sure these will see many many kilometres of comfortable and elegant electric bike riding around Fremantle and Perth in the years to come.

The plant doctor came into the shop recently to get an electric kit for his bike and kindly sent in a review.

It’s surprising to learn that Australia as a nation currently only recycles approximately 2-3% of its lithium ion batteries and these are now by far the most common type of battery in use. Why may you ask is it so small when they are so expensive to produce and when we are living in a world where every second headline is concerning global warming, turtles dying of plastic strangulation and tips on how to be a 1st class citizen eco-warrior? Well, there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is that recently Australia opened its first lithium ion battery recycling facility but the bad news is that we really just don’t know if it’s financially or energetically worth it. Strange isn’t it – how can it not be worth recycling them? Well, it’s a very complicated topic and after reading a rather complicated thesis about it I’m still a bit confused but the main points are that the processing technology is very energy intensive and produces its own waste. Recycling is largely driven by financial profits and whilst it is possible to recover copper, nickel, aluminium, lithium, steel, cobalt and manganese from some of these batteries, the only ones really worth recovering financially are cobalt and copper; the remaining metals are recovered either due to ease of processing or due to legal requirements. It’s pleasing to see that we are building more recycling facilities and now have a recycling capacity in Australia but it also appears that the design of batteries doesn’t need to focus solely on higher power to weight density but needs to focus also on ease of material recovery. The new lithium ion battery recycling plant in Australia that has been operating for about a year now is called Envirostream, it extracts steel, copper, aluminium and a mixed metal compound that contains lithium, manganese, cobalt, nickel and graphene. The raw materials can go back into Australian industries but the mixed powder is shipped back to Korea where it is used as stock for new batteries. The process used in Australia eliminates the high energy steps of heating to extract all of the expensive metals but rather uses a combination of crushing and pneumatic stress to recover the compounds, this allows for recovery of 95% of the products – with the exception being the plastic polymers used to hold the batteries together. By creating a mixed powder that can go back to the battery factories there is a large processing requirement removed. The leaders at Envirostream have created the powder product based on what is required at a battery factory. When batteries are made, the crafty metallurgists make a cauldron of metallic slurry that is rolled into the anode and cathode. These sheets are cut to requirements needed for battery cells and the left overs are chopped up and put back into the mix. By imitating this mix with the recycled product it is possible to recycle old batteries without needing to take each metal back to its elemental ingot form and save a lot of processing expense and energy.  Click here for the most comprehensive read on recycling technology, difficulties and the industry worldwide. To recycle your batteries you can drop them off at one of these recycling centres and they should ultimately find their way back into your batteries in a few years time. Neat isn’t it?

This was a bike brought in by a customer this week looking for an electric conversion. Being a single speed, we decided that the street legal Solar Bike mid-drive conversion kit was the best option to keep a nice balance between motor power and riding speed with the single rear gear. Also, due to the original bike having nice deep rims it would be a shame to change one to a regular look with a hub motor. The battery in the frame is a Panasonic 36V 14Ah model so should have a great riding range in excess of 50-60km on a single charge. It is a beauty to ride too, it all came together so easily and really feels lovely to cruise around on.

The Big Babboe is a wonderful cargo bike brought into the country by Cargo Cycles in Melbourne. It’s the perfect bike if you’re thinking of starting up a family or already have a large one. We’ve electrified this one with one of our conversion kits to make it all that much easier to ride. If you’ve lost your job and need to down-size to one car or if the daily stresses are getting too much and you’d prefer a ride to work then it’s worth giving a little consideration to this model.

It’s getting more and more common these days for someone wanting to quit their oil and gas job, leave their life, sell their car and take off on an eco-powered adventure. More often than not the contraption they build is a hideous monstrosity that needs an over-size load vehicle running ahead of it and isn’t fit for purpose. This isn’t the case with Peter’s recumbent trike or life. I think that he’s nearly got it right. He’s used a well priced recumbent trike from Greenspeed and had us put on a Bafang mid-drive motor up front. A large capacity 48V 17.5Ah battery was located on the frame in front of the seat for a nice centre of gravity. The solar power system includes a 180W panel that feeds directly into the electric bike battery through a $50 multi-voltage solar controller. It’s still a work in progress and various test rides are necessary before he takes on the Nullarbor but it’s a comfy and functional system that allows some long-distance eco-touring. With this system alone Peter is able to do about 200km with a battery charge supplemented with solar. He’d have to allow for a few hours of sunshine at the end of the day to reach the goal of being energy neutral by the time the sun sets but he’s not too far off with this simple system.