Thread: Ebikes for hunting

I’ve got a Giant Trance and have shot a number of deer off it. The ones I’ve had to carry boned out have caused the greatest issues as having a heavy load on your back changes the centre of gravity, quite a bit. On steep uphills the front wheel lifts a lot easier with a load on your back. To counter this I’ve got a front carrier that I put a couple of back steaks and some of the leg muscles in.
Very quiet and can go a fair distance, but you do have to watch battery levels on steep hills. You never want to have a situation where you run out of batery!

Originally Posted by craigc

I’ve got a Giant Trance and have shot a number of deer off it. The ones I’ve had to carry boned out have caused the greatest issues as having a heavy load on your back changes the centre of gravity, quite a bit. On steep uphills the front wheel lifts a lot easier with a load on your back. To counter this I’ve got a front carrier that I put a couple of back steaks and some of the leg muscles in.
Very quiet and can go a fair distance, but you do have to watch battery levels on steep hills. You never want to have a situation where you run out of batery!

How steep will it go?

Originally Posted by zeropak

I like the concept. What do you suggest

If you are wanting it for use in a two wheeler environment and want it as quiet as possible, the only practical option really is a SurRon. They have been around longer than most wannabe electric dirt bikes and cover the range well: A light bee is a beefed up MTB, an Ultra bee is the best option (85kg,140km on flat tar seal range, 240mm suspension), and their Storm bee is the uprated give-a 450-MX-dirt-bike a run for its money. The SurRon will handle water far far better than the Ubco. Ubco have tiny wheels, the insignificant suspension travel means the two wheel drive can't really do its job properly, and those tiny wheels kill it in lumpy terrain. Water up to the axle, and its good night nurse for the elece motors

Otherwise just go a reliable quad.

Originally Posted by JemO

How steep will it go?

As steep as you can ride a push bike up.
They are not motorbikes you still have to be able to peddle them and keep the front wheel on the ground.
But you can cover alot of ground pretty quick.

Sent from my CPH2145 using Tapatalk

I’ve used a mates suron and rate it, it doesn’t have the load carrying capacity of a ubco but two guys I know used them for hunting work and they both had issues. They certainly have their place. Once I have the work to justify one I’ll be getting one

Originally Posted by zeropak

Yeah the thing that has put me off them is the fact that if you get into water up to or over the level of the hubs you risk stuffing the electric motors. Then you have a $8000, 200kg back pack

Don’t buy a hub drive, they don’t like water, crank motors are much better

Originally Posted by craigc

I’ve got a Giant Trance and have shot a number of deer off it. The ones I’ve had to carry boned out have caused the greatest issues as having a heavy load on your back changes the centre of gravity, quite a bit. On steep uphills the front wheel lifts a lot easier with a load on your back. To counter this I’ve got a front carrier that I put a couple of back steaks and some of the leg muscles in.
Very quiet and can go a fair distance, but you do have to watch battery levels on steep hills. You never want to have a situation where you run out of batery!

Get a clip on battery extension and put your seat down

Originally Posted by XR500

If you are wanting it for use in a two wheeler environment and want it as quiet as possible, the only practical option really is a SurRon. They have been around longer than most wannabe electric dirt bikes and cover the range well: A light bee is a beefed up MTB, an Ultra bee is the best option (85kg,140km on flat tar seal range, 240mm suspension), and their Storm bee is the uprated give-a 450-MX-dirt-bike a run for its money. The SurRon will handle water far far better than the Ubco. Ubco have tiny wheels, the insignificant suspension travel means the two wheel drive can't really do its job properly, and those tiny wheels kill it in lumpy terrain. Water up to the axle, and its good night nurse for the elece motors

Otherwise just go a reliable quad.

These are awesome. I've spent some time on a mates one in chch. We did temporarily kill it driving through water, but unplugged a particular sensor and it was fine after that.

Ubcos are ok for farm tracks etc, but being without any clutch they do have a tendency for the front wheel to lift when climbing steep hills, and then you don't have two wheel drive as one wheel is off the ground.
Riding them in steep country is a different technique to riding a petrol two wheeler but they are very quiet when compared to the petrol. The newer ones have sealed hubs so the water thing is less of an issue.

A E-mountain bike can pretty much go anywhere a normal mountain bike can go, you still have to pedal but you will not burn as many calories. They are a heavy bike to ride when the batteries go flat.
Center mounted motor is a much better way to go than hub too, more weight forward and the motor drives through the gears, so you can get balance speed and torque better compared to a direct drive.

One option is to get a bafang kit, if you are halfway skilled in diy you can retrofit it on a normal mountain bike in a few hours. I have fitted a two of them.
It has a throttle in addition to pedal assist, so you can just sit on it and roll along, but with this you aren't supposed to ride it on public road, you can leave the throttle disconnected and it will still work as a pedal assist. These kits can be very grunty, a 250w isn't overly strong, makes it feel like you have a tailwind but wouldn't be much help on a steep hill, a 500w really throws the bike forward as the assist kicks in, again this level of power is verboten on the road. They also go up to at least 1000w. This would be cargo bike territory, it would eat batteries fast and would probably flip a mountain bike on a steep track.

Originally Posted by RUMPY

That's what you'd have to research a bit if using on public land. Getting hard to distinguish between an E-mountain bike and an electric motorcycle these days.

yes a certain well used public land block around these parts really lends itself to these machines....there are heaps of guys do it on normal MTB so electric would be too easy,Ive done first bit of track on my old shitter with locked up front forks so a good bike would be childsplay... the no water bit would mean getting off and carrying it over wee streams I guess..small price to pay for ease of transport..large ticket item to purchase one of the electric jobbies all the same...wait 5 years and price should be much lower.

Originally Posted by longshot

Ubcos are ok for farm tracks etc, but being without any clutch they do have a tendency for the front wheel to lift when climbing steep hills, and then you don't have two wheel drive as one wheel is off the ground.
Riding them in steep country is a different technique to riding a petrol two wheeler but they are very quiet when compared to the petrol. The newer ones have sealed hubs so the water thing is less of an issue.

A E-mountain bike can pretty much go anywhere a normal mountain bike can go, you still have to pedal but you will not burn as many calories. They are a heavy bike to ride when the batteries go flat.
Center mounted motor is a much better way to go than hub too, more weight forward and the motor drives through the gears, so you can get balance speed and torque better compared to a direct drive.

One option is to get a bafang kit, if you are halfway skilled in diy you can retrofit it on a normal mountain bike in a few hours. I have fitted a two of them.
It has a throttle in addition to pedal assist, so you can just sit on it and roll along, but with this you aren't supposed to ride it on public road, you can leave the throttle disconnected and it will still work as a pedal assist. These kits can be very grunty, a 250w isn't overly strong, makes it feel like you have a tailwind but wouldn't be much help on a steep hill, a 500w really throws the bike forward as the assist kicks in, again this level of power is verboten on the road. They also go up to at least 1000w. This would be cargo bike territory, it would eat batteries fast and would probably flip a mountain bike on a steep track.

Awesome bro. Do you have pics @longshot of your ones
So would you recommend the 500W one?

Originally Posted by JemO

Awesome bro. Do you have pics @longshot of your ones
So would you recommend the 500W one?

Depends what sort of country you want to take it and how far and how much you want to pedal. If you are just going where a quad would go, you should be all good with a 500w. One thing with the bafang kits is that the front chain ring ends up further outside the bottom bracket then when it is just a standard bike, so you end up with a fair bit of cross angle in the chain when you go to the larger rear sprockets for more torque. Most of the time that is fine at higher speeds because you don't want to be pedaling really fast anyway, and on the flat you don't feel the need for extra torque when the motor achieves that for you.
You can get an aftermarket dished in ring and if you get a low tooth count aftermarket ring this helps.

If you want to go in steeper stuff, it might stall a bit here and there if you have a load on, and old mate with the knees may have to hop off and push. I will get a photo up when I get a chance to take one, hopefully later tonight.

This has been a good machine for relatively flat land. Big tyres give good traction on softer ground.

[QUOTE=JemO;1509563]How steep will it go?[/QUOTE

As steep as you can ride a mountain bike. It all really depends on your skill level.

The extra weight on the front obviously makes a huge different, as does body position. You need your weight further enough forward to keep the front wheel down, but far enough back to stop the rear wheel from skidding.

Get a Suron mate you won’t look back . Had mine for 18 months now , been awesome . Mates have sold their ubcos and bought surons . Goes up steep as hills and does 45-65 kms I think on a battery . You can’t beat ‘em for hunting . They are pricey tho . Maybe $8k possibly