ELECTRIC BIKE KITS

TONGXIN / NANO The lightest-weight motor tested here is the Tongxin. In the UK it’s become known to some as the ‘Nano’, thanks mainly to Nano-Brompton, a company that showed great promise but now appears to be struggling to fulfil orders. It merits the ‘Nano’ name, and at 2.3 kg it is by some way the lightest motor out there. It proved easy to fit to my sister’s fairly standard el cheapo mountain bike-style hack steed. Once I’d had the motor itself professionally spoked into a spare rim it was simply a case of slotting in the

away from you. For me this was a confusing and pointless feature – though I understand it’s to be discontinued on the next version of this kit. Once you start to feed on the power with the thumb trigger all is forgiven. The steady thrust from such a small hub was amazing, both to an experienced cyclist like myself and also to my sister Beth, who’d be the first to admit she’s more of a fair weather pedaller. Because of the way the Tongxin was geared it certainly helped to wind the speed up a little before approaching steeper hills – as you would do on a non-motorised bike anyway. From

about 6 mph to 13 mph the power is steady, silent but very appreciable, rather like an invisible magic hand pushing you along. The technologically curious will be fascinated by the silent performance of the Tongxin: it is achieved through the use of a roller friction-drive system, rather than the normal sun and planet gears. I’d heard a lot of good comments about the Tongxin from other electric bike enthusiasts but this was my first taste and I was impressed. The only note of caution was sounded by the front wheel wobbling alarmingly when freewheeling

front wheel and fixing the rack, which houses battery and controller. Then, the most time consuming bit was replacing the brake levers and fixing the acceleration trigger to the handlebars. I didn’t bother fixing the pedal motion detector inside the crank as I simply don’t see the point of such devices – they mean the pedals must be turning for power to feed through to the motor, limiting the utility of the thumb throttle switch, not enhancing it. This is often billed as a ‘pedelec’ option but is really nothing like a true pedelec system – merely an add-on to make the system conform to the law in some European countries. Had the brake levers not been permanently wired into the system I wouldn’t have bothered with these either. A spin up the very small but naggingly constant gradient of the Spen Valley Greenway (a splendidly surfaced example of Sustrans’ finest work) notched up around 25 miles range. Rather bizarrely, the motor powers up even on a standing start, as soon as you switch it on via the battery-mounted ignition key, and then knock the bar mounted ‘on’ switch. If you aren’t sat on it the bike magically starts to run

ISSUE 32 DECEMBER 2008 VELOVISION

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