Last month I was living in Menlo Park on the Edge of Redwood City so that I could work at a place called The TechShop without having to drive too far. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, TechShop is a 15,000 square-foot membership-based workshop that provides access to tools and equipment, instruction, and a creative and supportive community of members and instructors. They’ve got everything from band saws to welders to plasma cutters and it’s open for use as long as you’re a member and have taken relevant certification classes (through TechShop).
I was actually living in the spare room of the house of one of the TechShop directors named Tom and he was renting the third room out to a fellow named David who was building an electric bicycle from scratch. Below I’ve posted a couple of photos but the gist of the story is that David is from Vermont and lives off of the land. He has a small company that he founded and runs that specializes in cordyceps mushrooms and herbal teas which are sold nationally (I tried some of his drinks and I highly recommend them).
So this guy, David, is all natural and since he already has welding skills and is into construction and fabrication, the EV bicycle project was no problem. In fact, during the bicycle construction he was simultaneously building a biodiesel powered VW bug!
The bicycle cost ~$1,500 total to build (including spray paint and welding supplies from TechShop) and featured a 37V 21Ah(H) Polymer Li-iON Battery Pack used for electric remote control planes and cars. The motor and controller were very unique and the whole thing was designed to be able to carry wood and other supplies around on the extended rack. It also featured pegs just behind the bottom bracket and cranks for a second passenger to stand on. All in all, a very cool project and a great use of electric vehicle technology, but if you’re looking to build something a bit less robust (and less expensive) there are a few complete packages available around the net to convert a bike to electric or just buying a brand new complete electric bike.
David let me try the bike once it was nearly complete and I was pleasantly surprised. Considering the relatively small motor and battery, the bicycle performed like a champ! I used the hand grip twist throttle to gain speed and then once it was rolling I would peddle like a normal bike and conserve the battery. Using this technique the battery could last much longer than if it was being completely relied upon for power. For this reason it’s hard to quantify the range but according to David the bike could easily be ridden 50 miles with intermittent motor support.
