Comment by Fnoord

1 day ago

Looks like you can't have a passenger anymore either. I like to have my kid on the backseat of my e-bike.

I'm not in the market for this, but I am in the market for making my cargo bike electric. Having to slow down at a traffic light and then start from zero absolutely sucks. It goes very slow, it is rough, and you won't have time. I'd use it just for that specific use-case.

8 comments

Fnoord

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Reason077  20 hours ago

Conversion kits that add a front hub motor are relatively affordable and easy to install. Should work with most cargo bikes if you can find one that's compatible with your wheel size. Something like: https://swytchbike.com/

  • Fnoord  15 hours ago

    Here's my cargo bike: (non-e variant): [1]. The company got bankrupt a couple of days ago.

    It has three wheels. Two smaller ones at front, one back. As such, I'd prefer to install the motor on the back. We do have that speed limit of 26 km/hour (my current e-bike has it as well), but since more force is required, the kit would need to know this as well.

    I got it second hand, same as my e-bike. Otherwise, these aren't affordable for me. 6k EUR for a cargo e-bike is just insane IMO.

    [1] https://www.babboe.nl/media/akeneo_connector/media_files/b/a...

    • Contortion  15 hours ago

      Also an owner of a non-electric Babboe. We looked at converting it to electric but very few companies would actually do it and the one that we finally got to give us a quote basically said it wasn't worth it. They would've had to replace the whole brake system due to the higher speed of an electric bike. We ended up just buying a different electric cargo bike.

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  • andrewshadura  17 hours ago

    Also: I'd not recommend hub motors with cargo bikes. There is a reason all cargo bike makers switched away from hub motors. They're low-power and often not strong enough mechanically.

  • andrewshadura  17 hours ago

    Swytch are great in marketing, not so much in engineering. Very proprietary system that keeps changing every year or so. We have one kit, but I'd not buy from them again.

Toutouxc  17 hours ago

If it’s for a chill cargo bike, just get a hub motor kit. It’s the proper solution, there are tons of them and they are cheap and durable.