Disaster or Do Thomas's Dream of Electric Bikes?

Well, my personal project to electrify my recumbent have ended up in flames. I tried unsuccessfully for nearly 6 months to get the local recumbent shop to get me one ordered.

I had him modify my SatRday with a Schlumpf front end (its a set of planetary gears that gives you integrated gearing as part of the crank shaft), since we would be removing the 3 speed integrated rear shifter (taking me from 27 gears to 9). With the schlumpf I would have had 18 speeds.

Well, it turns out that the satrday aliment is very touchy. He had to completely re-tool the bike, which cost me $600.00. The dumb part comes on me. I borrowed a $1600.00 recumbent from him, and through my own stupidity and anger I destroyed the loaner. Add another $1200 after parts.

I called Bike Friday, since I no longer trusted the words of this fine salesmen, and looked at the mechanical laws myself: My satrday has 350 rims. The nearest bionix motor to this is 18 inches. That's 457mm, The satrday people said I MIGHT be able to fit it on the satrday, but that would require disc brakes (about $350.00), and that the satrday itself would have to be further modified to allow for such brakes ($60.00). The labor and parts for just the disc brakes is going to run $550.00, not including shipping ($60.00 w/ insurance), not including the $1600.00 cost of the bionix motor itself. There is still NO guarantee that this will all work together.

So rather than continuing to spend money on a lost cause, I have decided to give up the reality of the electric Bike, and wait till next year (more likely 2010!) to try again. Maybe by then my Scorpion folder w/ full suspension will be working. The cost (in today's dollars) for this: $6,000. Kind of more than I am willing to spend in this climate.

Thomas