A friend's just asked if I know anything about them (there's lots of hills round here) and I don't. Do you? Any hints, tips, recommendations, words of wisdom much appreciated.
Hi
As a newbie I would like to tell my story, I have a Specialised Crosstrail hybrid and as I am 6'3" it is a 58 cm frame, this suits me and is comfortable, but now at 73 and having had both knees replaced I was finding that my riding was getting painful and no longer enjoyable,the hills around here in South Wales were getting hard work and I found myself making excuses not to go out.
So the alternative I thought was to give up cycling or investigate an Electric bike, I found that the ready made bikes were not to my taste and also very expensive considering that I was about to purchase two bikes, as my wife was also not enjoying riding as much.
So the next step was convert my Crosstrail ( my wife has the same bike but a ladies frame) as we both find them comfortable having fitted stem extensions and the very comfortable Butterfly handlebars also I like having hydraulic brakes to slow me down when I go quite swiftly downhill (my weight aids this!) after spending hours searching I decided to drive to Cyclotricity near Aldershot I took my bike with me to ensure that the front wheel conversion would in fact fit my Front suspension forks and clear the hydraulic calipers
after confirming that it should be ok I ordered 2 front 250w conversions with the larger batteries which fit in the supplied rear rack.
Two weeks later they arrived and the fun began, as I am a little particular it took about 4 days to fit both bikes and route the wiring as neat as possible using lots of cable ties!, I am very pleased with the quality of these kits all connections are colour coded so you cannot make mistakes.
Well the first ride was amazing I went out looking for all the hills which I had avoided before,as I elected for both a throttle and pedal assist You still have to pedal but I was now using much higher gears and was easily riding at 12 to 15 mph and the "granny" gear has not been used!
So I am now out most days and riding about 25-35 miles, considering the bad weather at the moment the cold is making me go home rather than going further, also my knees are feeling better as I still have to pedal!
Now waiting for the better weather and in May we are away for 2 weeks cycling in Holland
My feeling is it was either give up cycling and sit watching TV all day or spend 1000.00 for 2 conversions and continue riding it just makes sense, and it is NOT cheating
Ken