The first step is to flip your bike upside down with it resting on the handlebars and remove the original front wheel, which will be either quick release or threaded with nuts. If you have rim brakes on the bike you’ll need to loosen the brake cable or deflate the tire to slide the wheel out from between the brake pads.

Using the tire lever, or an improvised lever, carefully pry off the original tire from your front wheel being mindful not to mash the inner tube inside.

Once the tire and tube are off, install them on the hub motor wheel by reversing that process. Anyone who has fixed a flat tire will be familiar with this sequence, and it’s usually our baseline question on whether someone has the comfort level to install their own kit.

Here’s where things can get a bit challenging. The hub motor wheel should slide right into the fork dropouts if they have a 10mm opening, but sometimes the dropout slot isn’t quite wide enough. If that’s the case, use the hand file to enlarge the slot until the axle just fits.

Some kits use tabbed anti-rotation washers inside the dropouts to keep the axle from spinning; if these are used it’s important that they’re oriented with the tab pointing down. For this G311 kit, we’re replacing the tabbed washer with a torque arm plate that provides much better spinout resistance.

When you install the front motor, make sure the cable exit is rotated to point downward and the disc mount is on the left side of the fork.

The torque arm is designed to screw into the fender eyelet hole that is present on the majority of front forks. It’s held on with an M5 bolt, and a slotted channel allows it to adjust to different geometries and hole locations so that it lines up. For low-power motors like this, the torque arm isn’t always required but it’s a good safety measure to install one regardless, even with steel forks.

Make sure the motor axle nuts are quite tight, since there’s a lot of rotating torque on the axle. (We recommend at least 40Nm or 30ft-lb if you’re able to measure.) At this point, the motor is installed on the bike. You can inflate the tire and flip the bike right side up again so it’s resting on the wheels.

Now make sure your front brakes are working again. If you have rim brakes, you might need to adjust the pad position to account for the width of the new rim. If you have disk brakes and installed a disk rotor on the hub, then adjust the caliper left or right so that it spins without rubbing.

The battery pack fits on the down tube of the bicycle, where it locks into a cradle that’s held in place by the water bottle bolts. If your bike has mounting bosses (aka eyelets) for a water bottle cage that are in the right location then you’re set, just use the supplied low-profile bolts so the head doesn’t protrude.

If your bike doesn’t have water bottle eyelets or they’re located too far back for the battery to fit, then you need to use the bottle-bob clamps. These attach securely to your frame tubing with hose clamps and allow you to position the battery anywhere you like.

In order to fit the thumb throttle on the handlebars you first need to remove the grips and sometimes the brake lever too. These grips have Allen screws for cinching to the handlebars; simply loosen the screws and slide them right off.

TIP: Some rubber grips are challenging to slide off, in which case a spray of WD-40 or compressed air can help.

The thumb throttle can be located on either the left or right side, and because it adds some extra width you may want to loosen and reposition the shifter and brake levers so that they can be reached comfortably without your hand feeling squished.

Slide the throttle into place and find a comfortable location for it and the brake lever and shifter, then tighten them up and slide the grip back on.

At this point, all the key hardware is on the bike and it’s just a matter of plugging the parts together and securing the cable run. Route the throttle cable to follow one of the brake or shifter cables, using the spiral wrap tubing. It comes forward from the handlebar and then loops down along the down tube to the throttle plug on the motor controller.

On the front hub motor there’s an extension cable harness that links the motor to the motor controller. This cable runs up the side of the fork, held in place with cable ties, and then follows the down tube to the matching plug on the motor controller. Use cable ties as needed and snip off the offending pieces.

You’re ready to slide the battery into the cradle and go for a rip! But before running the system, always double-check these details:

• The motor axle nuts are done up nice and tight
• You’ve reattached your front brakes
• The front tire has been inflated
• The battery key lock is locked ON so that the pack won’t fall off when you hit a big bump.

With this done, you should be able to flip the battery’s on/off button to the On position, see the controller LED glow steady red, press the throttle, and watch your life about to be transformed as the youthful joy of riding a bike returns in glory. Grin away!

Your newly converted e-bike will easily cruise at 20mph on flat ground. It will go up modest hills (3%–6% grade) fairly well, but will struggle on really steep hill climbs unless you supply a decent amount of leg power to the equation. That said, it’s still a lot easier than not having the motor.

The basic throttle control allows you to determine exactly how much power you want from the motor at any time. You can save the power just for hills and headwinds, or use it all the time to maintain a fast average speed. It’s also possible to add torque sensors or pedal sensors to the bike frame so that the motor engages automatically when you turn the cranks, but those usually require more specialized bike tools to install.

The range you can get from a given e-bike battery is no mystery, but it depends heavily on how it’s used. Most people with a bike setup like this will consume about 15Wh/mile. That means a 500 watt-hour battery would have a range of 500 / 15 = 33 miles. Going up hills you’ll need more like 30–40Wh/mi, while downhills consume nothing, and it averages out fairly consistent. If you don’t pedal at all, your average consumption would be more like 20–25Wh/mi, while if you use the motor more sparingly you can easily get down to 8–10Wh/mi and have great range up to 50+ miles.

If you’re purchasing a kit and want an estimate on how far it will go on a charge, it’s best not to compare the claimed range, but just look at the size of the battery in watt-hours.