I spent the last year riding my ebike test mule to work every day, rain or shine – partly as a personal challenge to improve my fitness, and partly as a long term test of my electric bike – the durability of the components, different gear, and different configurations.

If you’re already shopping for your first ebike, I’ll give you the TLDR right now: DO IT. It’s like having a cheat code for the city. I would arrive to work amped for my day, and although I have a shower at the office, it actually wasn’t necessary. On all but the muggiest mornings I could roll right in and sit down at my desk without dripping sweat on the keyboard.

The Bike

I picked up a gently used Giant Rainier a few years ago, stripped it for a full service and added “500w” (actually 780w) GNG Electric mid drive motor. Originally, I was running RC Lipo batteries – 2 x 6s 5000 mah bricks, but at the official beginning of my Year, I treated myself to a new 52v 13ah downtube mounted battery from Unit Pack Power.

In addition to better range, over-volting the controller slightly added a bit of extra top speed that makes it possible to keep up with the deranged rush hour traffic on my commute.

The Route

My current commute is 4 miles each way, mostly on Connecticut avenue, a high speed 6 lane artery that links the city center with the beltway. It’s not a particularly popular cycling route given the lack of bike lanes, the cars drag racing between stoplights, and the long grinding hills, but it’s the most direct path between my house and my office. I occasionally bicycled to work before, and particularly on the uphill ride home, the cars whizzing by my left shoulder were terrifying. With power assist, I could stay in the flow of my lane without fear of being run over from behind.

My usual door to door time is around 18 minutes for an average speed of just over 13mph, but the bike spins out in top gear (34×11) just shy of 30mph. I typically pedal hard and use the throttle at the same time, cruising at max speed unless I have to filter between cars or wait at a light.

On the way home, I’ll sometimes divert through the neighborhoods along the way to run errands or just avoid the chaos of the main road, and even with some fairly circuitous routes I have never run the battery down to the low voltage cutoff. In fact, I found that I could comfortably make 2 round trips on a charge.

My main complaint with this setup is the chain drive connecting the motor to the cranks. It’s simple, cheap and powerful, but it’s louder than a hub motor or an internal gear mid-drive (like the popular Bafang). It requires a bit more maintenance to keep the extra chain lubed and correctly tensioned. The only time I was forced to ride my “analog bicycle” this year was the week the freewheel at the cranks exploded and took the drive chain with it. The replacement freewheel seemed much better than the one that came with the conversion kit and so far it’s holding up well.

The Mods

Because I can’t resist tinkering and because the bike saw a lot of miles, the year involved quite a few tweaks, upgrades and repairs. Most were wear items – a chain and sprocket set that I replaced along with the aforementioned Chinesium freewheel, a set of big sticky Maxxis Hookworm tires, several brake pads, and one shiny new rear wheel after a high-speed pothole snapped 3 spokes and put a nasty flat spot in the rim.

Powerful brakes are essential equipment on an electric bike. I ended up having to replace a warped front disc due to the heat and abuse. It might even make sense to go to a larger rotor (185mm or 203mm) if you’re heavy or your ride is hilly. I spent quite a bit of time adjusting and rebuilding the Hayes Prime hydraulic disc brakes to eliminate some annoying drag and get them to bite they way I wanted.

I played around with a variety of fenders but I have yet to find anything that doesn’t look stupid, flop around, or break immediately. I recall a few stormy days when I ingested an alarming amount of dirty road water, so this is something I’ll need to work out in the future.

I also added small rechargeable lights front and rear, and the new battery has a USB port, so I could even power them directly from the main pack. The location made me nervous about snapping the cable when riding though, so I would like to wire up a more elegant permanent solution.

The biggest changes were to the ergonomics of the bike. I pretty quickly swapped in a much shorter stem and some swept back handlebars so that I could comfortably sit upright and pedal. I also upgraded the seatpost to a Satori suspension unit that adds about an inch and a half of much needed squish under the tailbone.

Finally, after a few months, I noticed some pain and numbness in my throttle arm from the preposterously long throw of the twist throttle that came with the kit. The repetitive strain of contorting myself to reach full power was giving me something akin to tennis elbow.

I know there are kits with torque sensing pedal assist, and perhaps this is the best solution, but coming from a motorcycle background, I preferred the control of a manual throttle.

There are several rather expensive quick turn throttles on the market, and I have even seen some relatively low power bikes that operate with a simple on/off switch that you mash to apply the throttle, but without a special controller programmed for gradual acceleration, that’s asking for power-wheelies in low gears.

I ended up sourcing a thumb throttle, and after a few minutes of splicing and soldering to make the stock connectors mate up, I was back to riding pain free.

Thumb throttle was a simple fix.

Last but not least, my bike sports a small connector on the rear dropout that allows me to hook up a Burley bike trailer to easily haul a couple of kids or a load of groceries. I don’t know how mere mortals pull these things around without a motor, but my knees hurt just thinking about it. The added weight of this setup slows me down noticeably on big hills, and if I were towing all the time I would be looking at more powerful motors. But for occasional trips, it does just fine and allows us to leave the car in the driveway.

Final Thoughts

After a year of commuting by e-bike, I can’t imagine going back to a car or public transit. I actually look forward to the ride (bicycles are fun!), I’ve lost about 15 lbs, and I’ve saved thousands of dollars. Using current IRS mileage rate of 57.5 cents per mile, plus $200/mo to park in my building’s garage, I would have spent $3,320 to get myself to work last year, not including the purchase price or insurance. That’s enough to cover the cost of a pretty nice electric bike.

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