Powered Bicycles


We’ve started to noticing a lot of commercial electric bikes on the street. Last year we looked at an electric trike project, after the break find out what people have been up to lately with similar projects.

[Jeff Radtke] and [Hans Noeldner] are two engineers who put together a self-contained electric powered bicycle wheel. The unit can attach to just about any bike and covers around 10-20 miles on each charge. By using standard Dewalt 36V battery packs, new batteries can be easily swapped out when needed. Overall you are getting about 1HP with this setup and maximum speed of 28MPH.


Inventor [Eric Peltzer] recently announced his electric bike project was going open source. After sharing his experience through on his website for years he is now looking for contributors to help develop and monetize the project.


[Frankg] lost his license some time ago so he built himself another form of transportation. He candidly takes us through the building and tweaking of his electric bike conversion through his website. He even takes us through the process of how not to build an electric bike as well.

17 thoughts on “Powered Bicycles

  1. If electric bicycles are banned in New York, that is most unfortunate, and may be subject to change. China banned electric bikes in several cities, but has since repealed those bans.

    Small two-cycle internal combustion engines lack emission controls and are notorious noise polluters as well. An electric motor combined with advanced batteries (such as A123 lithium nanophosphate) can move a person very quietly using energy generated at an efficient central powerplant, wind farm or solar array.

    1. well i have a 2 stroke and a 4 stroke that are carb certified and legal in California and the 4 stroke is near silent…. don;t get me wrong here i also have 5 ebikes and love them all the same.

  2. Ha! I’ve been in the planning stages of modifications to the XR-2 carbon fiber frame, and checking out hubmotors for sometime now. It’s fun, and not really too difficult. I think we’ll see more and more of these types of projects everywhere. If only carbon fiber were a little less messy to do…

  3. excellent post. to be honest i am not sure i fully understood your point completely. but, wanted to stop inand leave a note anyway. are you a freelance journalist by trade?, because your posts are really good.

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