Electric bike project

Electric bike project from Bill, and his last name is Craft!

Hi, my name is Bill Craft and I read your blog pretty much on a daily basis. It’s good to know that there’s so many people out there who are that creative. I live in a very small town in Alberta and I find there’s not much to do with my spare time but make things with what I can find around here or order over the net. I made an electric bike to get around here. This is actually my second one, I should have taken pictures of the first but oh well. This one has a range of 20-30 km. and a top speed of 65km/hr. and the weight is about 60 pounds. I’m not sure if thing is actually legal to drive but like I said it’s a very small town.

The bike itself started as a $150 walmart special. Within 30 minutes of getting it home I had stripped everything off the frame. Then bolted on 2 brushless hub motors rated for 500 watts. Next came drilling some holes through the frame and bolting on some sheet aluminium panels to hold the electronics. There are 2 battery packs( 36volt 8amp nimh cells ), 2 36volt 3 amp charges for them and 2 speed controllers. Both speed controllers are tied to the throttle grip and you can switch between front wheel drive, rear wheel or both. 2/wheel drive is a lot of fun when you go offroad with it. And the side covers and tank where made from scrap pink insulation core then covered with fibreglass cloth and epoxy resin. I was trying for a Thunderbirds look, maybe I need to make wheel disks.

These are a few pics of the build.