For over a year my Solarbike e-bike has been my main transport for commuting to and from work, a 30km round trip. Since I'm so happy with my bike it is time for a review, which I can do in one sentence:
It assists me to burn fat and keep fit, lowers my carbon footprint and is fun!

Here's a whole page review with a few more technical points.

Richard.

I just built this cruiser bike with a 200 watt mini-motor, it looks great and performs really well with the single speed gearing of the cruiser bike. The water tube bottle mounted well on the top bar and looks a little like a petrol tank. Very comfortable and stylish electric bike I think, perfect for around here in Sydney. 

George Poulos

Having bought the 36V 200W front wheel  mini motor and battery, I found myself wishing I had purchased a more powerful motor for the 50km per day commute. Rather than start again, I put a 1KW motor on the rear wheel and ramped up the voltage to 48V by purchasing another 36V and 12V battery to give me both range and speed.

The result: a range of 50km with light pedalling when using the front motor (which cruises at 33kph) or  a range of 35km with light pedalling when switching to the rear motor on long straights (which cruises at 60kph). Essentially, using a combination of the two allows for the open road with the rear motor, and around town with the front motor give the best results. Common sense must apply – cars and people do not expect a cycle to come towards them at high speed so the rear motor is reserved for special circumstances – no traffic / cyclists / pedestrians in sight!

I have recommended Solar Bike to a couple of people who have taken the plunge and wished they had done so sooner. Some people may argue that this type of conversion distorts the definition of cycling, but I still pedal, and I am sure other cyclists would rather see me on the bike instead of breathing the fumes from my car. Now, where did I put my radar detector...

I just love my electric two-wheel drive (Australian designed) Cruzbike, which I have been using for five months. With the Solarbike hub motor on the rear it’s a dream to ride, the motor is so smooth and quiet.

I find saddles on upright bikes very uncomfortable, so always had a longing for those big seats I saw on recumbents. I purchased one of Cruzbike’s cheapest recumbents, their Sofrider model. It was a very steep learning curve riding this type of bike and it took a couple of weeks to get the hang of it; the hub motor is a great help for starting off uphill at the beginning.

Having just reached retirement, I was looking to make a bullet proof super reliable machine. After a bit of research I put on Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tyres and swapped the derailleurs for a Nuvinci CVP continuously variable transmission hub gear on the front. I researched various electrical assist options and Solarbike’s maintenance free, one moving part hub motor was the perfect choice! It was very easy to fit to my bike, I designed a simple aluminium holder for the battery and put the control box under the seat. I chose the larger 500 watt motor because I'm eventually planning to buy a trailer to take my two dogs regularly to the beach, with an all up weight of 26 KG, the extra power should help greatly up some of Albany’s hills.

As my riding is mostly recreational for keeping fit, I put as much effort into pedalling as I can. I use the motor minimally on flat roads, except with strong headwinds, and only use the throttle minimally on slight inclines just to maintain a reasonable speed. I use full power on steeper terrain. I do a regular two hour ride and only use 40% of the battery capacity. The electric boost is great for quickly getting across busy main roads. I have tried winding the power up on a quiet road just to see how it goes, it has amazing acceleration up to a high speed and is a very exciting ride!

I can highly recommend Solarbike products and you get great customer service.

Rupert from Albany, WA

I have visited China many times and witnessed the large amount of the population on bicycles, many of which were electrical, and they were being used for everything from transportation to commercial vehicles.  I have been bicycling for over 50 years and realized that in the present world environment, this is the future.  I have investigated the Internet for e bikes and was overwhelmed by the myriad of "kits" available for converting a normal bike to e bike status...some good and some not.   

I decided to search for a proper bike candidate for conversion.  I settled on a 2010 Fuji Crosstown 4. The bike is perfect for conversion.  It has a high quality aluminum frame as utilized on the entire Crosstown line and a steel fork. The derailleur is a basic wide range Shimano 7 speed cluster.  Finding the right conversion kit was a bit of a challenge.  I finally discovered Solar Bike, and I immediately realized that this was the quality Green thinking company that I was looking for.  After initial contact with Matt, and expressing my needs to him, we assembled a proper kit.  It is a Swift mini-motor kit with thumb throttle.  Continuing exchanges modified the kit for my specific use.   

The whole project took a little while as I am in America and there were lots of emails passed, assembly took me about 3 hours.  I also slightly modified the stock bike, including a softer saddle to accommodate my aging 70 year old body as well as a bipod type kickstand to better support the heavier load, front and rear racks, and a cup holder for hot coffee - very important!   I am extremely satisfied with the final result. The bike is awesome and has been exceeding all my expectations.  The quality of the product shows!  Many people are amazed at the results! All the parts supplied are of the highest quality and I thank Matt for all his help, I could not have done this without him. I have already recommended Solar Bike to several people.  

Alan Simon, Oxnard, California, USA

Here is my finished electrically converted Cross City 4. It has the 200W front mini-motor and the new 9Ah Panasonic tube battery. I just took it for a 21 km ride and it performed very well. I averaged 21.8 km/h, using power for all the uphill and acceleration. The battery is still showing 75% and I felt pretty fresh for an old dude without much fitness. I was pleased that there is very little rolling resistance from the motor and it is quite fast enough for my needs. I fitted a Spanninga 36V front light and wired this up to the tube battery and that works quite well.

Thanks for all your help with the bikes Matthew and I wish you every success.

My old Giant mountain bike was sitting in the shed not getting much use after I bought a cyclocross bike for my short city commutes and weekend rides. However, when I started a new job much further from home, I decided to look into putting an electric assist on the mountain bike to make the 20km journey easier. Checking out the internet, I came across Matt's site and from my first enquiry, he was friendly and helpful. I ended up buying the 200w Swift kit which has proved to be perfect. It has turned what was a bit of a grind into a pleasurable ride. The motor smoothes out all the annoying stops and starts. I leave the bike in top gear and having the motor means I can pedal up to cruising speed very quickly and maintain a good top speed for the whole of the ride. I fitted the kit myself and didn't have too much trouble. I had to file out the slots on the forks slightly to get the wheel to fit, but other than that, no dramas. Matt was very helpful when I rang with technical questions. I love my long commute now and I still pedal pretty hard and get my exercise. The great thing about having the motor is that you can take a break whenever you like and still keep moving, so the ride is less stressful and you never get too out of breath or sweaty, but still get a good workout.

Thanks, Simon

My daughter Fiona and I share this bike which has a Solarbike 200w motor and the latest incarnation of 36v 10ah battery which also acts as a mudguard. The bike is a Mongoose Alta mountain bike which had been thrown out by a neighbour. We both like cycling but both have problems. My problem is age – I’m 77 now – I’ve been riding a bike to work, for shopping and recreation and on tours for 30 years. But I’ve been getting weaker and having to use progressively lower gears.  Now I’m finding it hard to keep up with my younger associates and also finding the distances between pubs when touring to be very long! My daughter’s problem is weight - she is pretty heavy but likes cycling to work a distance of 10km away. However she has trouble with hills and we live in a hilly part of Sydney.
Now that we have installed the Solarbike kit, Fiona can do the journey home without stopping for walks up the hills. And now I can rejoin my biking friends – last week I did a 65km trip with them from Bondi to Parramatta and still had a bit of battery left when I got home. Of course I didn’t have the motor on all the time – just for hills to let me keep up and for crossing busy intersections where one needs to be nippy. This encourages me to feel that I might be able to go back to country touring soon as long as I can recharge my battery at the end of each day! We both find the 200w motor to be quite adequate for the assistance we need. Installation after watching the video was straightforward although I needed to make an extra washer to stop the motor touching the fat forks on this bike. Overall we are both now looking forward to some good cycling days to come. We might even have to get another Solarbike motor kit to keep us both going!

My electric bike is amazing. I got this classic bike from the Glen Parker bike shop in Nedlands and put the Solar Bike 500W complete conversion kit on it. The bike is very fast and I only need to give myself occasional electric power boosts on the flat. I use the throttle full power on most hills and with a bit of pedalling on nearly any hill my speed will rarely drop to below 30km/h. My average speed on most journeys is between 30 - 40km/h. I've had it about 6 months now and haven't had any electrical problems at all. The only small issue was that the nuts holding the battery rack onto the bike had a tendency to come loose. Some Lock-tight has fixed that issue. I have ridden it just over 40km on a single charge without it running out. It's incredibly convernient as I work in the city and ride about 12km each way daily, I use it for about 90% of my trips under 20km as it's fun, cheap, faster than any other mode of transport, healthy and much better for the environment than driving. All up it has exceeded my expectation in every regard.

Sincerely, Christian Wesse.

The Giant Suede has been a very popular model for all ages. It's a well priced bike with good running gear and is extremely comfortable for riding. We've been selling Solar Bike's electric bike kits for over a year now and have had very few problems and excellent back up service. The new 2011 models from Giant have just arrived and we've opted to stock and sell a ready to ride electric Giant Suede. This model uses the lighter and smaller 200W mini-motor and the very reliable lithium ion battery that comes in the double layered rear rack. It rides extremely well as an electric bike and suits people of all ages. Similar electric bicycles we've assembled with the same electrical configuration have speeds of about 26-28km/hr and a range of about 50km. Pictured here is the ladies' model but it will work equally as well on the men's model too. Please come into the shop (19 Station st, Cottesloe, 6011) to test ride or purchase this model. www.cottesloecycles.com

I've been selling and testing a variety of electric transport for decades now and I must say that these kits are the best I've come across. Everything from the packaging, the quality and the service is spot on. I really haven't been able to find another supplier that offers even close to the range of kits and the battery quality in Australia at such a good price. The final product really depends upon the bike you choose to put it on but the electrical components are great. This bike here is one I set up to display in the shop. It's a 500W motor on a mountain bike with the 10Ah LiFePO4 battery. I've sold plenty of these kits through the shop in the last year and they are getting considerably more popular - it's actually hard to maintain a full stock of them. Once assembled correctly, I rarely hear back from customers with problems. If you're in Sydney then please come in to the shop if you are interested in purchasing a kit or having one assembled onto your existing bicycle. It's best to phone ahead to check what is in stock.

George Poulos, Scooters & Mobility. 422 Stoney creek road, Kingsgrove, Sydney. Phone: (02) 9150 0787

I know Matt from working at the University of Western Australia and have seen and tested a few of his electric bicycles in the past. I very much enjoyed test riding all of them but I loved the design of Matt's newest model, the black and white chequered Electric Fixie, and it converted me from a test rider into an owner. I got the 350W version from Cottesloe Cycles for $1650. It's a fantastic electric bike and it's cheaper than the $1700 I pay a year for slow public transport ($3.70 each way) and it's much cooler, faster and better than other electric bicycles I've seen that look like things only my grandmother would ride. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to travel about 10km to work on the electric bike, which is way quicker than public transport which takes about 45 minutes and up to an hour sometimes. The bike has not had a single problem since I bought it a few months ago (though I did take it back to the Cottesloe Cycles bike shop to spin the back wheel around so it's single speed instead of fixed) and I use it for nearly all my travels as it's just lots of fun and really fast and convenient. Even on hot summer days I exercise a lot and arrive at work pretty fresh and don't need to shower. I find now that I exercise a lot more than I would have otherwise without it. It’s great overtaking those cyclists dressed in fluorescent lycra and it’s so quiet that they don’t even notice I have an electric kit installed. I absolutely love it.

Ricarda Fenske, University of Western Australia Research Officer.

I was lucky enough to pick up the 200W with 10 Amp/hr lithium ion phosphate battery kit. I travel 30kms each way each day via train and I was very conscious of the range offered by the kit – therefore shunning the 350w or higher kit and the water-bottle-style battery. I had some initial difficulties with the kit and the installation (doing it myself), and Matt helpfully resolved all of the problems I had created. Although the system is exceedingly simple to install if you know what to do, I botched it up royally, and would really recommend that the $90 installation fee is well worth the expense!

As for the performance of the kit it is awesome! It looks great, is very well finished and easily holds 30+ km/h along the flat with no pedalling. I do pedal as fast as I can as well, but being an overweight, ex-smoker having turned 40, it is probably not too much. My average travel time for the 30 km trip to work is currently 57 minutes and should improve soon; this is actually faster than my old method of commuting, which involved a bike ride, a wait, a train ride and and a walk - all up about 65 minutes. Riding a non-electric bike all the way probably would take me about 2 hours and just wouldn't be feasible. Hills are the best part for me – instead of dropping down to a low gear, I can stay in a high gear and keep travelling at 25 km/h+, rather than dropping to sub 10 km/h. Along the flat I now tend to be able to cruise above 35 km/h with relative ease.

The 30 km trip uses around 50% of the battery, I have actually ridden the entire 60 km return trip on one charge, however this used 90% of the battery (270 minutes to recharge) and I do not unnecessarily want to reduce the battery life so charge at work also. I researched the battery options extensively, eventually justifying the substantially more expensive LiPoFe04 Solar Bike battery based on performance, lifetime, weight and packaging. It is definitely worth the extra initial investment and is actually cheaper over the battery lifetime – roughly 40cents per complete recharge cycle. The battery itself can be key-locked to the rack, and easily removed so that you can take just the battery to your chosen charging point. The rack that the battery fits in to is well designed, and when you look at it in profile, it is very stealthy – hardly hinting towards it’s true purpose. You can see in this picture where the battery slides into the rack (battery has been removed). 

I put the kit on a new Trek FX7.0 and it looks great. A heavier battery would not have been a good choice, as you do feel the bike to be substantially heavier with the additional 10Kgs added by the kit. Mind you, I expect to lose 10Kgs over the next 6 months so things will even out. I now ride the bike to work every day, saving my $6.90 train fee and expect breakeven to occur in one year (bike, kit and extra accessories). I am about to get a 2nd charger, so that I can leave one at home and one at work.

The kit gives me the confidence to ride to work – in a mere hour, and although I have never just coasted along, I potentially could if desired. Each day I now get that little bit stronger, fitter and healthier, and potentially one day, the electric motor will only be engaged for the toughest of hills on the hottest of Perth days. Without the kit, the option to ride simply would not have been feasible for me.

The final thing I have discovered is how friendly the bicycling community is, with most of the hard-core lycra-clad riders quite impressed by the kit when they eventually catch up to me at the pedestrian crossings – eager to find out all about the kit. Some have mentioned it is “cheating” and in a road race it would be, but on my daily commute, I am only either cheating the trains, the traffic jams and the parking inspectors- certainly not cheating myself!

Troy Hemetsberger, L7 Solutions - Internal Account Manager, M: 0449 901 659

As a Master of Science (Sustainability) student here in Perth I was looking to make my travel sustainable – in other words use less material, create less emissions and spend less money than I would using any other type of transportation. My main intention was to become much more in control of transporting myself around Perth and essentially replace the car and the bus or train to get around. Outside of this, other considerations included:

Solarbike’s electric kits ticked all the boxes. I did my research and after having ridden a few electric bikes from different stores I caught up with Matt to discuss a solution. Although I have a good mountain bike and was ready to convert that, after our discussion I chose the Giant Cross City 3 flat bar road bike (purchased from Cottesloe Cycles) as the better commuting alternative. The conversion took under two hours and I have not looked back.

Fully clad in trousers and shirt, I ride it to work every day under full throttle with minimal pedalling. For the really hot Perth days I make sure I have a few shirts handy at work and change into them when I get in because the backpack can heat up the shoulders and back a bit. On the way home I am usually under full throttle and pedalling flat out. Getting to and from work is now pretty cool. It’s more healthy and I’m finding that I’ve replaced about 65% of all my travel requirements with the new bike – the only reason this isn’t higher is that I’ve got a young child and 50% of the time I’m not on a safe bike path or a bike reserved area of the road. However going to the dentist, the pub, the shops, and pretty much anywhere that I just need a backpack is easier and in most cases quicker – especially to and from work now that I have worked out the bike paths. You know you’ve made a good choice when you pass thousands of cars all grid locked in peak hour. Finally, I chose to get two batteries so I could leave one on charge at home using the solar panels on my roof to charge that battery the next day while using the other. I would recommend the Solarbike solution to anyone interested in removing one more car from the road but without the need to get all lycra’d up!

Adam

My own bike design just arrived and I've now set up a few electric single speeds (see assembly video). The one on the left of the picture has a 350W gearless motor and uses the 10Ah battery in the rear carrier rack; the one to the right uses the water bottle style battery and has a 200W geared minimotor. Riding the one with the small mini-motor seemed to me to be a bit under-powered. It was ok, but I like to have a higher speed and on this bike I felt that with the mini-motor topping out at about 25km/hr it was a bit weak for my liking.

However, when I increased the motor power to 350W, which uses a larger gearless motor, I was super impressed! Though it was heavier (especially with the larger capacity battery), the power was greater and it was very well balanced to the single speed gearing of the bike, not too strong so that I don't pedal somewhat but also not so weak that I struggle. I managed to ride 45km on a single charge with this bike before the battery dropped out, it is a very efficient bike so it allows a great range. I believe the increased range to other bikes is because with the single speed I use the motor a little less on average. If I have a fast bike with gears, then I will ride full throttle everywhere in top gear and will use the battery capacity quite quickly. With the single speed, on flat ground I tend to just give myself power bursts every now and then or sometimes ride with the throttle at about half to three quarters full. I find that I ride a little slower than usual with an average speed on flat ground at about 30km/hr but I thoroughly enjoy even this slightly decreased pace to usual. On my 45km test ride, I covered reasonably flat ground but did encounter a few decent hills; I never found I had to even get out of the saddle on these large hills and was comfortable riding at a happy power input, albeit at a decreased speed.

I believe this to be one of Australia's top electric bikes available. For my personal use, I believe that a 200W - 350W gearless motor with the water bottle style battery would be the correct balance, considering a likely range of approximately 30km with this battery option. The larger motors have a higher top-speed and more torque up hills but do decrease the great range available with the mini-motor.

I have ridden my bike to work and back (7,5km each way) for many years.  I’m from Sandnes, the western part of Norway and during winter it can be difficult to motivate myself to get onto the bike. We don’t have extreme winters where I live, but it is often windy and the temperature can quickly drop to -10°C, mix this with strong wind and you have the reason I got interested in electric bikes. I studied some electric bikes on various web shops but they all looked like my mother’s bike and way too heavy. I’m an “equipment freak” so these bikes were out of the question for me.  Instead I looked at the conversion kits; I wanted a kit as light as possible and it should give me the extra push when cycling against the wind. The Solar bike Swift kit was the one I decided to purchase.

The kit arrived and the packaging was really good, nothing damaged inside. It took me about an hour to install it onto my carbon fibre cyclocross bike. I know that carbon fibre forks are not recommended, but I took the chance.  I have ridden the bike daily for two months, everything is working perfectly. The temperature has been down to -12°C and it also managed 10 mm snow. The maximum range with “normal” pedalling is 50km. After one month of cycling in snow and rain I decided to look closer at the inside of the hub. I was afraid that water had penetrated, but everything looked great, no moisture at all. You can feel the extra 6 kg from the Swift kit installaion when riding the bike, but it gives you the extra push and it’s great in steep hills.

Stale from Sandnes, Norway

A very good bike to setup an electrical conversion kit on for high speed commuting is the Giant Cross City 3 and Giant Cross City 4. These are flat bar road bikes and retail at most bicycle shops for $799 and $599 respectively. The Giant Cypress (2, 3 & 4) are more of a hybrid style bike suited to the leisurely commuter and are also good bikes to convert but do not accomodate the water bottle style battery option. They are a cheaper option at $579, $479 and $379 respectively. If you are in Perth and want a high performance electric bike then I can highly recommend calling Cottesloe Cycles to organise the Giant Cross City 4 ($599) with the water bottle battery option and any motor power ($950) fully assembled ($120) for a total of $1670.

Tests were performed on two battery systems: a 36V 10Ah lithium ion phosphate battery (6 months old) and a 37V 7Ah lithium manganese phosphate battery (brand new). Measurements were performed using the Cycle Analyst (Grin Technologies). The measuring device was located between the battery and controller. Measurements were performed on a Giant Cross City 3 (700c rim, flat bar road bike) fitted with a "500W" motor. The rider was 35 years old and of average fitness. Riding was performed between North Fremantle lighthouse and Swanborne surf station (equally in both directions), this is mildly hilly terrain and on the day there were 20 knot SW winds blowing. Moderate but comfortable pedalling was performed throughout the tests. The tests began with a fully charged battery and were terminated when power assistance was negligible. The slightly higher Wh/km values when using the 7Ah LMP battery were due to this battery being tested immediately after the 10Ah LFP battery and the poor rider was tiring.

When using a 500W motor, the average Watt and Amp output was approximately 300W and 8.5A over the two tests. The watt output would reach 500W on some reasonable hills whilst pedalling but would decline to about 200W when on flat with some pedalling. When going downhill full throttle the watt output would drop to about 50W. When riding up a very steep hill with no pedalling until the bike came to a grinding dead stop it was possible to overexert the motor to output 710W and 37A, holding it at this point for any duration would surely burn out the motor or other parts of the system. This power was measured between the battery and controller so if measured at the wheel this output would be approximately 20% lower due to inefficiencies of the controller and motor.

I purchased a 500 watt front wheel motor kit last April and obtained my own lead acid battery configuration. The existing bike with the 500 watt motor is a dream. I have been running it at 48 volts (instead of the system designed 36V). I'm using 4 x SLA 12v 9A/h batteries and have put them into a custom designed box you can see from the photos. It does just under 50 km/h with the increased voltage. I burned off a stinky 50cc petrol bike the other day. Running at 48 volts, I believe the motor is delivering around 750 watts at an average speed of around 25 to 30 km/h. I am getting a good 25 km with some pedal power before the batteries drop to 40 volts. The batteries have never dropped below 36 volts. I notice that some of the yanks are using Dewalt 36v power tool batteries in series at 72 volts. This almost doubles the power of the motor, amazingly without detriment to the 36 volt motor system. I have been running mine at 48 volts with no problem whatsoever. It is my belief that increasing the voltage increases the range as well as the power without increasing battery amp hour. I am game to try 72 volts. The yanks seem to be going for smaller batteries at higher voltages. I bought a managers special bike from Big Dub, reduced from $250 to $150. It is fully sprung, I thought it might fall to bits but its been great. I have belted it around everywhere over the last nine months, even over rough ground. The only thing that went wrong was the control wire to the hub chaffed on the forks with the up and down movement and I came to a grinding halt. I rejoined and insulated the wires and re-routed them, all ok now.  

I've been a bike rider all my life but have been unable to enjoy it as much as I would have liked due to ill-health. I now live in Brisbane in the Fortitude Valley/New Farm area which is pretty hilly. When I learned of Matt's Solar Kit I moved heaven and earth to get hold of one and my life changed forever. Hills just disappear when you switch on the motor and as these are the bane of the cyclist's life this makes all the difference. I now do 90% of the family errands by bike and think nothing of it. I have kept my rear basket and sunk the battery in it, but because the basket is big I still get to use it. I now ride my bike more than ever and once a week attend meetings of a hobby-group at the Queensland Uni which hills would have made burdensome before. I arrive there and get home without a drop of sweat on my brow. I've done some more exotic trips too. I took the bike by car to my old home-town in the Darling Downs and spent the day zipping about getting sweet 'revenge' on hills that used to vex me as a child. On another occasion I rode from Lismore to Nimbin for the famous Mardi-Grass and back, a journey of some 60ks. Because I was sparing with the battery the bike still had charge when I returned but the journey was just about painless! Matt's solar kit is the best I have ever heard of and his courtesy and standard of service is second to none. Do yourself a favour and get a solar-bike as soon as you can. Here is a photo of 'Bilbo Bicycle' in former days,  but since the kit known as 'Shadowfax'. This bike has been in constant use for around 2 years now and has travelled thousands of kilometres trouble free.

Hamish.

This bike was a wreck from the side of the road that I removed everything from and kept only the frame, forks and seat. It has a front and rear 500W motor, each controlled by a separate battery and control system. Thumb throttles in each hand worked the best for me and I liked the olders style handle-grips. It was awesome but it was definitely too much for this bike. It wobbled a bit and with two batteries and a rear motor on the back wheel the weight balance wan't ideal. Also, after crashing it the rear rack snapped, possibly due to the extra weight but more likely the driver. Even though the bike wasn't ideal for this setup it went like bananas upon take off and when pedalling in a straight line it took off more or less as quickly as a normal car. There was heaps and heaps of torque up hills and it was possible to ride up all hills I encountered single speed in the saddle with hardly any effort. I've since removed the front wheel and water bottle battery and it is more tame and ridable with only a single powered motor. I'll retry this system on a more robust mens hybrid bicycle and put the water bottle battery on the diagonal frame to better balance the weight. I'll also connect both systems through the same throttle to see if it works and is better than two throttles. I'd say that if going for a high power electric bike option then the 750/1000W kit with a single 48V 12Ah battery is better than two individual kits. A very sturdy bike is needed and it might be best on a tough chro-moly frame with torque bars. The power from both wheels is great but it comes at a sacrifice of extra weight and a need to charge two batteries rather than just the one. Also, the 1000W kits have a slightly higher top speed than this dual 500W kitted out rocket ship. The acceleration and torque uphills is fantastic but I found that I'd get to 35-40km/hr nearly instantaneously and then it'd not do much more without pedalling very quickly. It seemed to be too much on the side of electric power than pedal power. One kit is ample but the rev head inside us all has to be sated.

Matt - Solar Bike

My mountain bike was converted with a 200W motor and waterbottle style battery. It goes very well and I'm impressed with it's performance. It's made getting around Perth so much easier and I always ride with a smile now. It's my first step toward studying sustainable development.

I got this INDI 500 bike off the side of the road and put a standard conversion kit on it. This has a small 10W panel cable tied onto the carrier rack that re-charges the 36V lithium ion battery directly. There is no regulator between the panel and battery so electricians will likely tell you that this isn't ideal but it is certainly the most direct way possible to recharge the battery via photovoltaic. I had the panels specially cut to give a closed circuit voltage of 42.5V (the same as what the chargers put out) and so far it is working as intended. From my testing so far it seems that for each hour I leave it in the sun I can travel 1km. I am also testing another direct charging system using a 100W 48V panel with a custom designed regulator that outputs at 42.5V and that is functioning well too. A 100W panel is too large to put on a bicycle but if you have space to mount it at work or home where the bike can charge directly from it during the day then it can fully charge the battery from flat in about 4 hours.

Matt - Solar Bike

Residents of Perth looking for an electric bike are very fortunate to have Cottesloe Cycles present. They can provide you with a range of bikes suited to both you and an electric conversion kit at great prices. Jack is the resident electric kit installer and is able to give great advice on the ideal bicycle and can also do excellent installations. Jack performed this installation for a customer last weekend and had this to say:

"There are many low quality Chinese models on the market that no bike shop would be interested in due to difficulty maintaining the bicycle performance and having to diagnose electrical faults. The kits are great because the bike and electric components are essentially separate systems and allow us to use a high quality bike. It's much better to get a custom job on a bike really well suited to you and of much higher quality running components all under a warranty. The electrical components all seem to be of high quality and have not caused us any problems to date. This is an electric bike I set up for a customer recently. It's a Giant Cypress a customer had sized up for himself and it was fitted with a 200/350W interconvertible motor for both on and off road. The bike costs $500 and the kit $950 so all up for a fantastic bike and electrical components it adds up to $1450. This is a really great commuting machine and I welcome anyone into the store to discuss options to get one like this or similar made up for themselves."

Jack, Cottesloe Cycles

Peter and I traded ideas, design (see some of his work below), skills and solar bike components about 2 years ago. His bike has been running well since then and he recently sent me a short review on its performance.

From Peter: "Bike still going great. I'm able to make it all the way to work and back (via my gf's house) on a single charge. This is a round trip of about 35km with a 300m altitude change! Of that, the motor was in use solidly. A quick thermal check over the whole kit after ariving home found everything to be in good order. Only the fuse holder and controller were remotely warm and I'm confident that the fuse would give out long before anything else. The bike and I weigh about 115kg together so it was a fair old effort on the part of the kit. Of course, I was also pedalling, probably putting in about half of the energy moving the bike on the steepest hills and all of it on the flat. Having ridden up that road on a lighter but un-powered bike, there is no contest in my mind which I'd rather be on after a long day at work. The old prototype battery, controller, charger and switch fit perfectly into the ammo box mounted on the back. I'm sure there would be lighter solutions but this just looks the business. Planning to grab some kahki paint and redo the rest of the bike to match. Being able to carry the charger everywhere makes the idea of riding it a long way much more appealing."

Jacqueline from Canberra sent in this review after converting her semi-recumbent Giant Revive into an electric machine. This was a custom order straight from the factory and took about 3 weeks to arrive as it was a 20" rim with mini-motor. There was a little playing around to get it fitted and a few emails passed between us but she succesfully installed the kit - replete with white unicorn and a lot of other paraphernalia - and it seems to be serving her brilliantly.

From Jacqueline: "It is absolutely wonderful. I can't stop grinning! I pedalled as usual on the flat, freewheeled down hills and used the motor to assist my pedalling uphill, just using it to take up the strain so I wasn't pedalling any harder than I would on the flat. It was as if the hills had all been flattened out! Which is saying something, out here on the Western fringes of Canberra; especially as I had two panniers of shopping on the back that I didn't even notice! There was no strain on my legs or my heart. I even kept up with my athletic husband on his lightweight carbon fibre racer! You have my utmost gratitude for excellent customer service and a superb product. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping to restore freedom to this arthritic granny!"