Converting a Bakfiets?

Since aquiring a e-fiets (an electric assisted bike), I've been toying around with the idea of making an electric motor retrofit to the cargo-bike (bakfiets). If we could cut down the use of our car (a little one... Peugeot 107) then we would be making a huge dent in our carbon emissions as well as making a huge monthly savings in petrol and parking costs (not to mention the occasional speeding ticket..).

The single person electric bike has been a huge godsend for my wife and I, meaning that we can easily make single person trips within a 100km total distance without needing to consider using a car. It still means that you are working out on the bike, but not ending up exhausted with distance and weather effects.... and more importantly, it takes away that initial hesitation to taking out a bike for the medium-long distances and opting to jump in the car instead.

However, the critical point is that it is a SINGLE PERSON transport option.... which means that I'm still using the car to take the kids to school (we live further than normal away from our school for The Netherlands...), doing the shopping or extra-curricular parent runs. Of course, there is no real reason that I couldn't just take out the bakfiets... and on occasion, I do actually do it.... but it is pretty damn heavy, and after riding 20km or more in it.. you are ready to drop dead!

So, we could replace it with a commercially available electric bakfiets direct from a shop... however, those things START at around 2500 euros and go up to nearly 5000 euros! Plus, I'm pretty sentimentally attached to this particular bakfiets as it is the one that we've had since the kiddies were little! So, I rang around to see if it was possible to retrofit some sort of electric motor system to this cargo bike... of course, seeing as I'm not so handy, I would have to ask the bike maker to do this!

Anyway, it turns out that there are retrofit kits available... and I've had the advice that it should be possible to do within an afternoon!

Now, for an electric bike, you are looking at some critical choices:

1. Motor Location
2. Motor Power
3. Battery size
4. Brakes

The cheapest conversion kits are for the front wheel (these will be the cheapest ebikes as well..), but the feeling is not great as it feels like you are being towed, and the cornering experience isn't that great either. For the Bakfiets, it is also impossible to have this selection. So, you are looking at either a middle-mounted motor or a rear wheel motor. Now, for the conversion kit, it was highly suggested that I opt for a mid-mounted motor as it meant that I could keep the existing gearing system... sounds good enough!

For the engine power, well... it would need some decent power for the starts and stops seeing as the bike is pretty heavy. However, unlike the regular single person bikes, you aren't trying to keep up huge speeds on this bike... in fact, it would be pretty dangerous to do that. So, a power level that is more suited to starts and stops.

Battery Power is always another critical component... this defining your effective radius that you can use the bike in. It really depends on how you ride... but I was told that the bakfiets (due to the heavy chassis) would probably take a 50% penalty on the effective radius. Well, that was to be expected... and frankly it is better than I was expecting!

Lastly, the most overlooked part in the excitement of getting the motor... is the brake system. When looking for a regular ebike, I was reminded about this by every blog and review! After all, going splat at 10kph is going to feel quite different to doing the same splat at around 25-30kph! Even more so, when you aren't wearing a helmet! So, according to the bike maker... the brakes (from the pedal backbrakes and the handbrakes) on this bakfiets are more than adequate, although he told me to consider assisted braking on the motor as well.

So, after the appointment with the bike-maker... I have lots of ideas and will need to research the various options.... but in principle it is possible, so that is quite exciting! It will breathe new life into my adorable little (not so little...) bakfiets!

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