IamGroot wrote:What are you guys/gals riding that's well made, well serviced and do enjoy.
... good for a 6 foot guy.
If I could begin by answering your first query, three bikes, home made, depends, most of the time. None of them would suit a frame your size. 5'9" is probably the biggest who'd fit on either of the two 26", the blue Tequestra the Tequesta - 48v 1,000w, or the black Giant, 36v 250w. The third is a 24" Apollo 24v 500w which is too small for my 5'8". You'll want a taller frame, and long is good for electric.
250w is currently the legal maximum unless you want to emigrate to Shenzen Province or some capitalist land of the free like that. With 36v on my old legs and weak lungs, 250w is just acceptable up the steepest hill I usually have to ride. I can keep over 25km/h after a few months' weekly practice, and not feel any unhealthy kind of pain.
There is probably quite good sense in 250w for commuting in the city, considering the test ride I did at Christmas on the 48v 1,000w Tequestra the Tequesta. It was
not enjoyable from an old man's frame of reference. Thrilling yes, Merry Christmas!
Safe and comfortable over potholes without suspension at 60km/h? Most definitely
not. Not meaning to brag but half the adults who tried a 48v 1000w bike with a 19x700C front wheel and no suspension would come unstuck in the first month, admittedly probably myself included. That is why Tequestra the Tequesta is now off the road until I can source a new frame with tough tyres and proper suspension, and probably take it over the pits before I take my chances in Perth.
I hope that one day it is affordable to register 48v 1,000w electrics as green-friendly half-price rego' mopeds, since 'mo' stands for 'motor' and electric motors are not also 'engines' like those noisy, smelly 2-stroke monstrosities. DIY is important for some enthusiast's budgets, but I would stress that, along with the usual 12v lights, indicators, horn, they must also have a 'mountain-bike' kind of frame with full suspension and disc brakes. Otherwise, without suspension, their life-expectancy would be in the weeks or months, not years.
36v 250w power-assistance seems to be cruisy enough to work fine with front suspension but unsprung rear in my last six or seven months casual commuting encounters. I'm tempted to mention AliExpress if you're a long way out of the city, but it could be bad advice if you don't have the time for a fair bit of trial and error and a lot of research. Don't forget the horns! 48-12v convertors are easy to wire in.
PS: Incidentally, Tequestra's 48v 1,000w rear hub motor is exactly the same size and weight as Apollo's 24v 500w model. They are identical to look upon. This tells me that a switch on the handlebars running to relays shunting the 4 x 12v sections of a 48v battery, (series=48v offroad, parallel=12v long range), you could detune a 48v 1,000w to a road-legal 12v 250w system that would operate slightly less responsively than one of the small 36v 250w motors on the market (usually silver), but they'd probably wear a lot more gracefully, and you've always got the switch if you want to ride offroad ... maybe it would be too tempting to too many hooligans, admittedly myself included.
Of course, it would need two controllers, 48v & 12v, but they could easily build both into the same box up in Shenzen if you ask nicely, and the legal question could be answered with a built-in flashing light that turns on when the switch is on 48v mode.
