Very scary thing I just did. A major dilemma - make it so my "perfect" bike could get up the hill out of my driveway so I could ride it everywhere or risk ruining the ride on my perfect bike, not to mention making it a little heavier to lift for the bike rack. But we had to do something so we took the leap.
We had a shop in Pacific Beach (San Diego area) install the mid-drive kits purchased from Luna Cycles. Took our first ride Wednesday and went up the hill like it wasn't there. We set it up for maximum 20 speed and did not put the throttle on, so just using the pedal assist. It took a few minutes for me to get used to the feel of the pedal assist and how to shift now using a combination of the gears and the assist. I thought the ride was "different" but very good, a slightly different version of biking. Chuck thinks I over-analyze and is just extremely happy with his new set-up on his Space Horse. I turned the system off completely after our first stop out of the neighborhood and left it off until close to home again. Went up a hill I am used to without any assist and it didn't feel much different, maybe a little more effort required due to the added weight. That made me very happy because I want to be able to ride "normally" as much as possible. I had to give up my rear rack space for the battery. Maybe that wouldn't be the case for a larger Cheviot - could it be installed where the bottle cage goes? Chuck only had to give up 1 bottle cage spot. Since I will just "borrow" one of Dave Carroll's pannier sets (he'll never notice), I will be just fine. Joe Bernard expressed concerns about the brakes on the Cheviot relative to adding the kit. I understand what he is saying because it is a powerful machine. But I am a slow, conservative, rider so I think I am ok. Part of my agonizing was not knowing how much power I needed to add to the bike to accomplish what I needed. I now know I probably have twice as much as I need. Guess I'll be ready for anything. When Keven spec'd my bike he said I would be able to go up a tree trunk. He was wrong, but now I think I can. And, very important, my bike is still beautiful. One added note. In my research leading up to the decision, I spent some time thinking about battery fires and made sure it doesn't affect my homeowner's insurance. My agent assured me it doesn't. BUT I did discover that once you electrify a bike, it is a motorized vehicle and not covered under your homeowner's policy. So not only does it not cover a loss to the bike, but you are not covered for liability if you hurt someone while you are riding it. I didn't want that added risk so I purchased liability insurance for $108 each a year. To avoid the very high cost of coverage for loss to the bike itself, I declared the value at $500, matching the policy deductible. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
