I want to put a front hub motor on my 2011 Trek Navigator hybrid. Was looking at Bafang. I am looking for help getting started. It's a great bike and I hate to ditch it for a pre-made Ebike. Help. Thanks, Bill
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I would not go front hub for a whole lot of reasons
If you don't need to climb anything steep a rear hub would be a ton better and a mid even better than that -
Front hub motors are the easiest to install and work fine if you are on pavement and just need a little boost and you just want to ride at normal bike speeds. If that is you then go for it. Bafang is a reasonable choice. I think they started doing a private label things for other e bike brands but started selling under their own name and got a really good reputation around the world for being a good value. The are not the absolute best out there but they generally deliver what they promise and have been consistent over the years so they are a good value. Being one of the originals they sort of ended up setting many standards others have copied and have a pretty strong user community doing hacks, mods, and in some cases manufacturing hardware upgrades.
One thing I don't like about many of the hub motor kits is most of them don't really have any real mounting method for the control box which has most of the wires going in and out of it. Kinda of leaves it up to the installer to figure out. There are 3d printed options and I have seen lots of installs where they are mounted in some sort of bag or pack. Down side to many of those routes is you can't easily remove it from the bike which may or may not be an issue depending on where you use and store the bike.
One solution that I think is pretty cool that I actually own and have assisted a few others with is from an English company called Swytchbike. Their wiring all goes to a handlebar mounted bracket that holds a pack that has the controller, battery, and display. The bracket pack has a quick connect deal on it so you press one release tab and lift the whole pack off, no separate connections to mess with. It also has a headlight but its more of a be seen light, not a see where you are going light. Its a pretty neat clean package. I think like may things lately they are almost always out of stock but if you have some time you can get on their wait list.
The swytch bike I have is my 4th bike so I rarely ride it. Basically that and my 3rd bike which is a BBSHD like 1 and 2 are spares I can loan to people so I have someone to ride with. 3 and 4 are similar 1990's era bikes and most people like the BBSHD one better but are also tending to be younger folks are are tending more to speed than just a little help. The bikes I ride are a 29er that in the summer has pretty much slick tires on it and I ride on mostly pavement. The other one is a fat bike that I take offroad and in the deep snow. Both of those are BBSHD mid drives. The Swytch kit was something I found open box on craigs list locally. I new of them at the time but never really researched em or experienced one at the time. Like I said its a little help. You can for sure tell if its working or not working but its not something a 250 pound guy like me can run throttle only unless its down hill.Comment
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With a front hub plan on replacing the suspension fork with a solid fork
Or just don't do a front hub, they generally are the worst choice for most (but admittedly not all) use cases and applicationsComment
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There are a lot of different Navigator component levels. But any of them with a suspension fork I think would be weak. The Trek and Gary Fisher Dual Sport models started to have forks with some off road capacity. But I don't think any of the Navigators did. At low power it would be OK. But for anything fast or ridden hard I wouldn't do it.Comment
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Front hub motor is the worst choice for a number of reasons. The worst thing about them is they are not geared. They are single speed only. That's not so bad on very gentle grades but on steeper hills the motor will be forced to run at low rpm and lug hard which is very inefficient. When they lug they convert a lot of electricity into heat rather than torque to the wheel. Don't think this is just a minor issue because it's not. On the same hill, same watts and volts motor, same weight, a mid-drive will eat a hub motor's lunch and consume half the power doing it. The steeper the hill the worse it gets and geared rear hub is no better because the gears allow only the pedals to gear up/down, not the motor itself.
Mid-drive definitely wears out chain and gears faster but think of this.... you'll be recharging your battery more often with a hub motor. You can recharge a battery only so many times and then they're junk. How many chains and cassettes can you buy for the price of one battery, hmmm? Get some tools, learn how to change a cassette and chain, get a mid-drive, be happy.
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I'm not really concerned about the "additional" wear and think this is often a bit overblown... once my BBSHD was tuned well and my riding habits developed I get well over 3000mi on a $30 chain riding hard on and off-road... last one had only about 1.5mm overall stretch at 3500mi so didn't even worry about changing the ring or cassette (although I did eventually change them out for larger gearing on both)... I don't spend a lot of time on the 11t rear, it's just there when I need it...Comment
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On my 26" road burner wear on the small cogs is a given, and now with a 24Ah battery I run it even harder than I used to. So I may be the worst case scenario for casette wear. Hard launches from traffic lights don't do the chain much good either. I keep them lubed but at the first sigh of trouble they get replaced. You need to figure out what works for you. I would say most of us here with BBSHD mid drives have gotten pretty good at driveline maintenance and repair.Pushing a 60# E bike home at night provides some pretty good motivation for that.If that's not your thing then I would suggest a rear hub motor as a compromise.
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Thanks for all of the advice on a HUB motor vs. a MID-DRIVE. I bought the MID-DRIVE conversion from Bafang and so far I am pleased with the performance. Nice product.Comment
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That was pretty fast to order a kit and get it installed. Glad you like it so far. Gonna do a build thread?Comment
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The order to delivery time is about a week, maybe 10 days. Packaging is excellent. I converted two TREK bikes. One 10 year old Hybrid street bike and a 30 year old TREK 700. Once you have all of the right tools it will take a full day to get things done on one bike. I had to change/replace brake cables and inner tubes, so you need to think it through. Bafang has excellent YOUTUBE video for the install process. Older bikes have the individual brake/shift controls and the kit has new brake controls, so the install is pretty straight forward. Newer bikes have a combo brake/shift cluster that creates the need for brake sensors. The brake sensor is connected to the main display/control unit and comes in handy for turning when you want the ability to pedal and not have the pedal assist kick in during your turn. Not sure a "build thread" is required.Comment
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One thing I would like to add is that bikes beyond a certain age wont have disc brake mounts on the fork or frame. Also a bike that didn't come with discs, even if the mounts are there, will require a new wheelset or hubs to get them. If you want to end up with good brakes, get a donor bike that has them already. Bigger rotors and brackets don't cost too much.
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The build thread is useful to others considering the same kit on the same bike. What others would want to know is which specific kit you used, BBS02, BBSHD, or the newest M625 (if its an M625 I know lots of us would like to hear details since not many of them seem to have made it into the USA). If that kit comes in different widths which one? Then did you need any special adapters or spacers or any mods to the kit or frame to make it work? What brand and size chain ring did you use? New or have to extend chain? And are you able to reliably access all the gears?
Old bikes like the 1990's tend to be a lot fewer issues than more recent ones designed for wider tires and suspension. As you noted yours happened to have separate brake and shifters, many people don't think to look for that till they are sitting there with a bike all taken apart. I had that problem with the 1990's bike I did. 2019 no problem, just go to your local bike shop and they will have anything you may need in stock but the last couple years there maybe say only a dozen 7 speed shifters for sale in the entire USA and you have to find em and pay what ever they are asking .
Its also just cool to see what others have done just to get ideas for your own build. Some people have done some really cool and creative things to hid wires and mount batteries.Comment
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