I am test riding a Bionx electric motor system. Our shop is now carrying the product and electric bike technology has come a long way the past couple years. The entire system, including the motor and battery only adds about 14-17lbs to your bike.
I, actually Alex, hooks up the Bionx PL-250 to my Xtracycle. I also have to carry a kettler trike home for a customer as well as my mobile office bag. The total weight of the bike plus cargo was around 90lbs. The 250 motor is the less powerful of the systems from Bionx so I was curious to see how it would do. I decided to take the longer 9 mile route home and Tim decided to join me. He was on his Surly Cross Check. Tim is fairly fit so it did not take long for us to be cruising at 20mph. I think I had a smile on my face the whole ride. Riding 20mph with a trike hanging off the back of my Xtracycle was awesome. Bionx must build a little lag or stepdown power output into the controller so the power delivery was really smooth and extremely quiet. The only two times I heard the motor was using the regenerative braking and on hard accelerations.
I have been trying to figure out in my mind if I had one of these systems would I use a car less? At this point I think the answer would be yes. I could have all the conveniences of using the Xtracycle while traveling at road bike speed. Not that it would substitute for every car trip but I can envision many scenarios that it could be a substitute. Maybe that is all the reason I need.
