Electric Bike Conversion Kit

Karl Gesslein / June 27, 2015 The cheapest fat-bike build I’ve made and the most fun to ride on dirt single-track The favorite bike of my collection previous to this build was the Sun-Kiss Deadeye Monster that I built specifically for single-track snow riding. I wanted to build something a little lighter that would be dedicated to single-track dirt and mud and not so much for snow. What I ended up with has quickly become the favorite trail bike in my 6 electric fat-bike fleet. It is a cheap and easy build that can be done in about 6 hours and will cost less than...

Karl Gesslein / August 5, 2015 Dark Matter – this Bluto BBS02 build provides the ultimate street legal trail-riding experience I have been procrastinating for months about buying a Bluto Front suspension fatbike to convert. When I finally broke down and did this build the results were astounding. The biggest problem I have found with the Bluto fork (review here) is how hard it is to go back to all my other rigid framed bikes for trail-riding after several weeks of riding Dark Matter.   When riding on snow you can carve up the trails like butter and when there is a few inches of...

Karl Gesslein / November 6, 2015 I wanted to build a gas car replacement for my 17 miles each way commute into town. After not a lot of deliberation, I settled on the Haymaker 1500 from Bikes Direct which was the least expensive (<$300 shipped) aluminum framed bike with a decent shock I could find. I didn’t do a lot of upgrades to the bike other than adding a rear rack and bag for holding my larger 25Ah batteries as well as adding a cheap ebay kickstand. I swapped the front brake with an Avid BB7 although for some reason I could not get a...

Karl Gesslein / November 7, 2015 Is this nut job of a blogger really starting a build thread for an ebike he calls “My Little Bronie”? You bet your sweet ass I am. This was the bike that started my love of singletrack riding 15 years ago. It was also the first e-bike that I ever built that wasn’t a total piece of crap. There were other DD & geared hub builds that I had done, but none of them felt the way that I thought an electric singletrack trail bike SHOULD feel. “My Little Bronie” forever changed the way I looked at riding in the woods, for the...

Karl Gesslein / November 5, 2015 I realize that nothing is farther from a real fat-bike than my Death Trap 2000 build, but bear with me. About 8 years ago I thought I would buy some spandex grab some power bars and join the road-biking crowd (Insert gratuitous epic rap battle link here). I ended up buying a Dawes 1500 from Bike Island with a replacement carbon front fork for only $400 (they usually go for $550). Unfortudently I found out that I totally hated road biking and my ass looked fat in spandex, so the bike mostly just gathered dust in my barn. A couple...