Bafang BBS01B 36V 250W Mid Drive Motor Kit Electric Bike Conversion Kit for Mountain Bike Road Bike, No Battery

So, am not normally one to write a review, but figured this one deserves it. Firstly the shipping, the motor was really fast, had to wait an extra week for the battery, but that had to travel by land, and after all, I do technically live on an island.Installation was relatively easy, but I did run into a few issues. So you have to remove the peddles, and you are going to have to have a crank puller. Unfortunately, when taking the pedal and cog side off I striped the threads, thus leaving me with with only one option... I do love my angle grinder. Hopefully you won't have to resort to that, but it was my fault.Next the installation. This would have been super easy, however there was a small imperfection on my bike, where the frame was welded, and would not allow me to slide the motor on through the frame. 5 minutes later with my dremel and the motor slid in perfect. Realistically it would be an hour's job to convert, but took me around three.Use. Now I have only been using it a few days, but the commute to work is so much nicer. Don't get me wrong, it's still a work out, however my commute take me through forest parks with lots of hills. And on my way home at 10pm it's lovely not to have to get off and push it up some of those hills. One extra thing I bought was a gear change sensor, and I think it is well worth it, you can feel the motor cut off every time you change gear. It only cuts the motor for like a second, but I think that will let the motor last longer.I bought the bottle battery, as it's a 20 mile round trip to work, and it has plenty of juice.Tools that you will HAVE to have.Crank pullerChain splitterAllen keysSpanners for peddlesThere are a few other types of spanners, I basically bought a kit from a local bike shop for like £35 which had everything I needed.Verdict, I love it.Oh and the free gift of a headlight, was awesome. Not great for me at night along the mountain paths, but for road use, perfect.

Excellent kit, straightforward installation, make sure you watch YouTube videos on how to install, as specialised tools are needed including a Bafang wrench that shamefully is not part of this kit. I've got 500km (300mi) on it and still going strong. Noise is low and it can do steep hills very well (46Tx28T on 26in wheels at 16kph (10mph)). I've got 8 gears, from 32T to 11T and paired with 46T sprocket, tops 45kph (28mph) with 46Tx11T (off-road).Edit: Now I've cycled 1800km (1100mi) with no issues whatsoever and noise is still not perceptible. I have upgraded the sprocket set from 8 gears to 12 gears (10T-51T) only because I've been towing a trolley loaded with 60kg (120lbs) and needed the 51T gear for the hills, off-road top speed is now 52kph (32mph). I've also added a second 20Ah battery, increasing the minimum range from 23km (14mi) to 45km (28mi), but maximum range at assistance level 5 is 90km (56mi) with 40Ah battery (no trolley).

Amazing piece of kit, fitted it to my 20 something year old Specialized hard rock MTB. I'm able to enjoy cycling again without killing myself up steep hills. Mine did develop a fault after about 55 miles of use but after emailing Junstar they asked me to do a few quick checks to verify it was an issue with the motor and then send it back. (Just to note, the postage was over £50 from the UK and I don't think you can claim it back) I received it back with a new controller fitted a week later and it's all up and running again. Hopefully the fault was just a one off as these kits are generally very reliable for lots of miles.A big thanks to Katie at Junstar as she was very helpful at getting the issue sorted quickly.UPDATE: Now over 2 years later and still no further issues to report. I only tend to use the bike for weekend rides but everything is still working as new even though I've used the bike in heavy rain a few times. My wife has also used it as backup to get to work when hers was off the road for a while. Also now the warranty has expired I took the cover off the charger and drilled some ventilation holes which helped a lot with cooling.

The mid-drive kit was delivered quickly and packaged well. It appears to be good quality and everything was present except any form of assembly instruction. Fitting it to the bike was relatively straightforward for someone who knows what they are doing but the YouTube videos are a poor substitute for proper printed instructions. Not only that but the link provided to instructions for programming the control/display unit was just plain wrong. It took some searching on the web to find the right instructions, and those we not even from Bafang. (If you have the C965 display search for Dillenger V5.0). Note that the special bottom-bracket spanner and a crank removal tool are provided in the kit - no need to order those separately but you will need the appropriate tool to remove your old bottom-bracket assembly plus an assortment of metric hex keys. The speed sensor was an oddity as the clamp screw for the magnet is a torx drive.Having said all that, once programmed the unit seems to work well. Even the 250W kit makes for easy pedalling on hills and is a doddle on the flat. I was surprised how quiet the motor is. I bought the 10Ah battery and a five-mile hilly test circuit didn't even reduce the charge by one bar on the power display.