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>> Court: So this is two electric bike kits from Leed Bicycle Solutions. They offer a
wide range of kits that basically you can add to almost any bike and sort of electrify
it. I opened this earlier and kind of sorted through but I wanted to give you the full
experience of what it would be like to receive this in the mail. What we're looking at here
is a pre-spoked rim with a 250 watt geared hub motor, along with the cabling there for
running it. So this is what you mount to your bike. And then a bunch of accessories in here.
We've got the PBJ, which is actually a project that they were working on through Kickstarter.
And essentially, it's just super light. It's about one pound and it's not going to take
you nearly as far but it's super small and just really meant to be convenient. It's very
portable. And then a couple of bike bags here for mounting it to your frame. And a Specialized
Speed Zone wireless computer to help you understand how fast you're going and stuff. That might
come in handy later... and then some Quick Release Pro axle release levers here. And
then there's a charger and some instructions and stuff. I'm going to dig in a little bit
deeper and set this thing up and we'll go from there! So this is my regular bike, it's
just an older GT Timberline. Its got 26 inch wheels with basically just V-Brakes, they're
very simple. So the Leed kits do work with disc brakes but this is an inexpensive bike
that I felt was sort of representative of what people might have out there. You'll note
that it does have a suspension fork and they actually recommend a steel fork for the Leed
kits because it's going to be a little bit more sturdy. But, given the smaller 250 watt
geared motor on this thing I thought, well it will probably be okay... That's my choice,
I don't want to recommend that to other people. Okay, so I've flipped the bike over and I'm
getting ready to install the front wheel. And what you'll notice is that the 8FUN logo
here has an arrow and that arrow points the direction that the wheel spins. So, we want
the wheel to spin this way, to make the bike go forward, so I'm going to point the arrow
in that direction. And then I'm going to slide the wheel onto the bike. This is just a basic
test here, I'll use this on/off switch here. [soft motor sounds] There we go! It's pretty
quiet. Let's get a little close-up action here. So there's the button and there's the
motor. Nice and smooth, there's those quick release levers we were working with earlier,
getting it all set up. And there's the switch showing that it's on, black is off. One thing
I noticed is that the hub motor here can get pretty close to your fork and actually, when
I crank this down it can rub right there, so they do include extra washers. And on this
side you can actually add them to sort of create a spacer so that you aren't getting
that rubbing. That's just something to listen for if you start the bike or you spin the
wheel and it's not spinning freely. One of the more impressive parts of the Leed e-bikerig
kits to me has been these bags. You can see, this is sort of a medium sized one and it
fits really well. It's very well secured, its got one, two, three, four Velcro pieces
and then also two straps. So, here's a super-wide one, sort of a smaller one and then this is
sort of a saddle pack that could go on a rear rack. So this is the completed Pocket Bike
Juice setup; one of the lightest weight electric bike kits available. I'm just going to run
through the specs here. So, it retails for about $469 dollars unless you got it on Kickstarter
for a little bit less. The range is about five miles. Top speed of this motor system
here, which is powered by 8FUN, is about 15 miles per hour. The weight of that motor along
with the wheel is about seven pounds. The battery and controller weight is just about
one pound, which is what's really cool. And it actually does fit in your pocket, might
be a little bit bulky though. The battery size is 24 volts, which is kind of on the
weaker side for sure. But this is a light weight kit and it offers five amp hours of
capacity for a total of 120 watt hours. That's not a whole lot but it means it charges quickly,
one to two hours. The ride time is about 20 minutes. It will get you about five miles
total. So, let's just hop on and give it a go; I'll show you what that's like. So one
of the first things you notice about this bike kit is that it's just so light, and that's
by design. In total it weighs about eight pounds, that's with the wheel, the hub motor
and the battery. So I would say this is an average weighted, just a hybrid sort of city
bike that I've got here about 25 pounds. So we're talking about a 33 pound electric bike.
That's pretty good but it doesn't give you a whole lot of extra boost. It's not the same
as a full purpose-built electric bike. And, when you use the throttle you actually have
to hold that button. So, I'm going to go ahead and do that real quick and you can kind of
see how it works. There we go [motor whirring] You can probably hear the motor kicking in.
We're up to 12, 13 miles per hour, 13.2 and this is where it kind of stalls out. They
say it's up to 15 miles per hour but I really think it depends on whether you're pedaling
along. And it's a very still day so... and this is a relatively flat surface. I think
this is a pretty fair test. I only weigh 135 pounds so the motor is not having to do a
whole lot. [motor sounds] Oh, there we go, 15 on a little bit of a downhill. Nice, okay
we hit the 15 mark! Not bad, not bad, it's pretty quiet. I'm not pedaling at all. [motor
whirring, braking sounds] There you go, ha! I'm pleased. You know, it's a relatively affordable
way to convert your bike to electric and I think your hand might get tired after a while
if you're constantly pressing that button or if you're like me and you've got that twist
shifter setup, but it's a neat kit you know. And it's nice that someone's out there making
a super small battery because if you want to keep your bike light weight, maybe you've
got a road bike or something, this is one way that you can actually do it. A lot of
times the other kits are just really big and the battery kind of bounces around. I do like
their mid-frame bag that you see here, that's nice and it's a bummer that you've got to
pay extra for the tire and the tube and all of that but it's encouraging you to sort of
recycle. And the 250 watt geared motor works pretty well. I mean, it's small but that's
kind of what they use in the UK and being geared it gives you a little bit more torque
at rest which is nice for climbing, that kind of thing. I'm going to unzip the pack one
more time just to show you what's in here. You know, I took a while setting this thing
up. I was trying to do a good job, I was learning along the way and trying to illustrate some
of the hang ups like adding that extra washer there so it doesn't rub and getting the tire
and the tube setup right. But once you've got it going, it's not too bad and I'm sure
I could put this on and take it off very quickly now that I've got it set up. There's the Pocket
Bike Juice in there, there's the connector and there is the controller along with the
on off switch. So, that's it! For more info on this and other electric bike kits and bikes,
check out ElectricBikeReview.com and I'll see you there.