Historical Electric Bike Selection — Archive
29/09/2025Meeting Sam: My First Ride on a Custom Electric Bike
04/10/2025
Rockrider Electric Bike Kit:
Since a bicycle is not always available for everyday use, it is important to have faster, less polluting ways to travel. This article explains how to use a mountain bike such as the Rockrider.
It is a bicycle with steel wheels that can be used for personal or work journeys.
Electric bikes generally have less power than bicycles fitted with a Power E-bike kit.
The bike’s power should therefore suit the work it needs to do. For sport, you can choose a high-performance electric bike. For going to the office, you could choose a conventional bicycle.
At 59, mountain biking calls for fitness that I sometimes lack, depending on the effort required and the route. My playground is organised, waymarked weekend rides of about 35 km, averaging 400 m of climbing, often on muddy hills.
After a herniated disc 2 years ago and 1 month in a wheelchair, I regularly have to walk the most demanding sections. My heart rate spends too much time in the red, leaving me frustrated and exhausted because my body no longer matches my technical ability.
My choices were to reduce the effort by taking more family-friendly routes of no more than 25 km with little climbing, or to move to an electric mountain bike.
That choice often faces a psychological barrier: purists, usually young and very fit, regularly call it a bike for the lazy or for cheats. There are also doubts about the effectiveness of these bikes, particularly off-road.
I wanted to keep my Rockrider as close as possible to a true mountain bike, without turning it into a pretend moped. I therefore chose the high-torque RH205 version (180/280). Speed mattered less to me than the ability to tackle difficult terrain.
Rockrider Electric Bike Kit
Assembly:
Once the conversion kit arrived on time, the complete installation took me a short day. I wanted a tidy build, without turning the wiring into spaghetti as I had seen online.
The powered wheel fitted the RR 6.3 rear triangle like a glove. I had first fitted a Schwalbe Nobby Nick 2.10 tyre and a puncture-resistant tube inflated to 3 bars to transmit torque effectively to the ground.
For the freewheel I chose a DNP 11-32, as befits a mountain bike.
I used a frog-style battery. The narrow RR 6.3 frame leaves no room for a bottle or trapezoid battery inside the triangle. The other options were a rack, which I found too ugly, or a backpack, which I considered dangerous and uncomfortable.
Rockrider Electric Bike Kit
The frog battery has advantages in appearance and practicality: it is removable, has a lock and key-operated switch, and includes a housing for the 17A controller. It sits behind the seat tube, close to the centre of gravity. I chose a 36V, 10Ah model weighing 3.5 kg.
For the connections, I replaced the controller’s Anderson plugs with 2 cylindrical connectors compatible with the battery.
The other wires were easy to connect using the illustrated tutorial. The P.A.S. was the exception: it would not fit my bicycle as supplied. The rotor on the square-taper bottom-bracket axle locked up when I tightened the left crank, because there was not enough space between the bottom-bracket shell and crank body. This destroyed the small plastic teeth that drive the rotor from the square axle.
After some thought, the best solution was to cut a disc out of the centre of the PAS rotor so that it could sit on the crank body without touching the bottom bracket. But how could I secure the rotor firmly to the crank? I used a right-hand crank intended for the chainring side, removed the chainrings and kept only the spider. The empty holes provided fixing points for the rotor, held with tightly fastened Colson cable ties.
Although this is something of a DIY arrangement, it has proved very reliable off-road.
The rest of the wiring was straightforward: LCD and 3-ratio switch worked fine.
To complete the picture, the electric mountain bike has a Raceface Narrow-wide single chainring with 30 teeth for chain retention and a medium-cage SRAM X7 derailleur. The front tyre is a Maxxis Medusa 1.80 inflated to 2.7 bars.
Shimano hydraulic disc brakes handle stopping, with 180 mm at the front and 160 mm at the rear.
On the road—or rather, on the trail…:
Battery charged (5h), ignition on, LCD lit up: everything looked perfect.
On my first electric-bike ride, I had a very pleasant surprise. I instinctively looked behind to see who was pushing me: nobody—or rather, the RH205!
Acceleration was strong but progressive, and the motor almost silent. Impressive!
I could not wait any longer and headed for my favourite singletrack, where I so often struggle with tired calves or shortness of breath.
A miracle: the bike tackled everything, with intuitive assistance exactly when needed. Pure pleasure.
It did not go faster, but it cleared the obstacles that used to stop me. I started seeking out the hardest sections just to surprise myself. You forget that your legs are getting a substantial helping hand.
My Rockrider electric bike kit: the conclusion
Pleasure replaced the struggle. Enjoying the handling and good lines took over from the frustration of not making it through, or finishing exhausted and needing a 3-hour nap to recover. All good!
My new electric bike also remains very well balanced, with no unexpected front-wheel lift, and stable on fast descents. Small fallen trunks across the trail are easy to hop over. PAS assistance works perfectly and I pedal just as much, but with the legs of a 20-year-old.
I am amazed by this build and how it has kept its mountain-bike spirit intact.
