Electric Mid-Drive?
Many manufacturers make excellent recumbent bicycles. No one, until EcoSpeed, made an electric assist specifically designed for recumbents.
Electric assist conversions built for conventional bicycles
can be adapted to recumbents. The only problem is, they don't work very well. Recumbent bicycles often have smaller wheels, especially the popular and practical Compact Long Wheelbase (CLWB) design that typically uses a 20-inch rear and 16-inch front wheel. The smaller wheel means that the assist motor is effectively geared too low. This means a motor that would propel a conventional bike with a 26-inch wheel at 15mph will only propel a CLWB recumbent at 11.5 mph.
Also, every conventional bike has more or less the same frame design. Electric assist conversion kits are built to take advantage of this fact. Recumbents have widely varying frame designs. Getting an assist built for a conventional bike to fit is always an iffy proposition.
Our patented Electric Mid-Drive™ is designed specifically for each model of recumbent that we convert. The unit mounts midway between the bottom bracket and the rear cluster and drives the rear wheel via a chain. Two freewheels allow the pedals and motor operate independently of one another. You can pedal, motor, or do both. And, unlike most hub motors, the motor is stationary when it's off so there's no parasitic drag from rotating motor magnets.
The major advantage of this design, which no conventional bike conversion can match, is that the motor drives through the bike's gearing. So, you've got the very low gearing needed to climb hills with a weak battery and tall gearing for top speed on the flats or climbing fast with a fully charged battery. You've also got direct mechanical drive for efficiency and reliability.
How does it perform? An Electric Mid-Drive equipped recumbent can easily climb a 25% grade with no more pedal effort than cruising on level ground. By comparison, the steepest grade allowed on interstate highways is 6%. Even 30% grades are possible in the lowest gear without straining --enough for serious off-road riding.
How fast you can ultimately go depends on the gearing you choose, how hard you pedal, and the aerodynamics of your bike. Any recumbent with with our system can easily exceed 30 mph. Aerodynamic aids can add 5 to 10 mph to that. More useful is efficient cruising at moderate speeds. With a properly set up bike, you can cruise at 20 to 25mph for 30 or even 50 miles while pedaling no harder than you would cruising at 10 to 12 mph.
