What makes up an electric bike?

In this blog we will go over a few of the important parts of an electric bike. I will concentrate on LifeCycle rear hub motor bikes as that is our core product here at Electric Bike World. For all intents and purposes an electric bike is just a normal bike with some additional electrical equipment added. Some bikes from other manufacturers have the electrics added almost as an afterthought but the LifeCycle range of bikes have been designed from the ground up as electric bikes and this is why they ride so much better. Let's start with the beating heart of any electric bike and the singular most important part, the battery. Initially lead acid and incredibly heavy they were soon superseded by li-ion or similar types of lithium cell assembly. There are a couple of things to bear in mind when looking at batteries, the quality of the cells that make up the whole battery which is simply many smaller cells soldered together and the voltage/ampage of the battery. There are 24V systems out there still on cheaper/value bikes but most decent bikes will have batteries supplying 36V. At Electric Bike World we specify Samsung or Panasonic cells for our batteries and they are wired to produce 36V 18Ah as standard. The amp hour figure is important as it determines how long the battery can go on supplying power before fading. 18Ah is one of the highest figures you will find out there. Next, lets look at the brain of the system, the controller. This reads the inputs from the user and the bike sensors and works out the optimum supply of battery power to the motor. Inside the controller is a piece of firmware that does this, and this is why not all controllers are created equally. Our controllers have unique software developed in conjunction with our own components so it can be fine tuned to give a great riding experience rather than a generic approach. It tries to give the best ride whilst at the same time preserving battery life and we know we have found the right balance with our bikes. The final major component is the motor and the principal of the motor is the same as any motor such as found in washing machines, lawnmowers etc Feed it electricity and get a rotational force in our case to drive speed converter gears which rotate the motor hub and therefore the wheel. We specify a higher torque model of motor and as any rider of LifeCycle bikes will know they are very responsive in real life riding. Other parts of the electric bike will be the handlebar display components which include the LCD display and speed selector , brake sensors, throttle ( if applicable ) , then the loom which connects all the handlebar gubbins to the controller and finally the pedal sensor which picks up the cadence of the pedals as another input to the controller. That's about it, we have a great system on our bikes fine tuned over many years but don't take our word for it, come down to Electric Bike World for a test ride and see how it compares to other electric bikes you may be familiar with.