zog blog mk II

Well not really electric bicycles, but good to see this article on the 4am expat blog about electric scooters getting traction in Thailand.

I haven’t actually used any of these vendors myself, it’s just information I have been gathering for future reference, but it’s good to see there is a range of approaches - from full service to complete DIY, and pricepoints catered for in Australia for Electric Bicycle stuff.

Australian All Electric Vehicles:
These guys have an ebay store selling assorted bits, as well as a web site.
Of interest to me as the 48v controller they sell looks like just the ticket if I ever decide to increase the power on my bike by adding an additional battery to it. Melbourne locations.

Brett / Solar BBQ:
I know two guys very happy with this guys products, DIY hub motor ebike central: http://www.users.bigpond.com/solarbbq/bikesale/bsale.htm. Newcastle (NSW) Location.

E-MTB:
Expensive but amazing looking bikes and kits.. the videos on the site look like a lot of fun of pushing the power limits:
http://www.e-mtb.com.au/

Zbike:
I just founds this site while googling the subject, and these bikes look cool going just from the web page, but you pay extra for Li-ION batteries. http://www.zbike.com.au/ - Sydney.

E-lation:
I know 2 owners of this kit, different approach to the hub motor style that I went for: http://www.elationebikes.com.au/

E-deals:
Also sell kits driving the chain through the gears, in a similar vein to E-lation kits, but different products - some very high wattage kits there. Sold via an ebay store that also sells assorted parts, and their own web site.

Electric Vehicles Pty Ltd
Melbourne business with a shopfront with some very nice looking bikes, who appear to offer the full level of service and support for those who don’t care to DIY. Located in Melbourne, with a web site..

Well, thanks to the tireless efforts of dazzassj6 from the Endless Sphere forums, who has dismantled parts of his Greenewheels bike to see what makes it tick, here are some pictures of the insides of the various components - the forum article where I got these pics from also has some excellent discussion on what would be needed to increase the speed of the greenewheels bike, and how to go about it.
(more…)

This was found after more web searching by dazzassj6 from the endless sphere forums:

Looks like the bike is sold in chine from the “Made in China” site as the Electric Aluminium Bike (RA-EB0802).

Further searching on the model number RA-EB0802 finds it appears to be of brand Zhejiang Race Motos.

It’s interesting that the other ebike products from this company seem to include bikes that resemble a lot of the ready made electric bikes available in Australia.

Messing around with the camera today - made a quick vid wobbling around the driveway..

Thanks to dazzassj6, a poster on the endless sphere forums, we get a look inside the greenewheels bike, interesting to see the controller and wiring in there.

Also while browsing around after examining the front disc brakes this brake,or similar seems to be the one sourced for the bike.

dazzassj6 also brought to my attention another Very Similar bike to the greenewheels but being sold in the UK (not a wisper bike though), on ebay.

I recently got a cheap but very handy Jaycar power usage meter. Not much to say that hasn’t already been said in this detailed Dans Data post except the price has gone down since then.

After travelling my usual 22km round trip ride to work I measured the power usage (at my current rate) to recharge the battery back to full.. complete electricity usage came to 4.1 cents - for 22km, not too shabby I think. Thats with me pedalling a fair bit, but not all the time, but a fair bit of throttle use. Measured a use a second time the following day and got 3.92 cents of power used.

Well I rode home while it was raining and the greenewheels bike worked just fine, eve though it was cold and wet. Although in the description it says it is fine in wet weather I was a bit nervous about the electrical connectors until I actually rode 11km in fairly rainy conditions.

Also took the bike for a spin without the battery, using it as a normal bike, it was fine. Was a bit tired at first as I took off at ebike speeds, but once I slowed down to normal speeds was jus a nice bike (with 6 speed gears) to ride around on.

Found this interesting and comprehensive pdf report via google from a link in http://forum.envirotalk.com.au/index.php?showtopic=8095 from Francisco Research.

While googling around for more info on the shimano 6 speed gears fitted to the bike I found this web page:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/203914437/Sport_PAS_electric_bicycle_60km_range.html

I’m guessing this supplier, or one of the similar variants are where the greenewheels bikes are sourced.

Also interesting that greenewheels got support from the Government’s New Enterprise Incentive Scheme, in my opinion making excellent use of the scheme to start a business that I hope goes well and keeps growing.