How to Convert an Analog Bike to an Electric Bike (2025)

Say you want To obtain a bike from top to the hills with a minimum quantity of pedal. What are you doing? The first option is simple: buy an electric bike. However, bikes are not cheap. Nowadays, the cheapest but always reliable avoidance you can buy is AVENTON SOLTERA 2.5, which costs around $ 1,200. You can rent an Ebike or find a city bicycle program that uses them, or, if you are really lucky, find a evacuation vehicle in a loan library.

Or you can simply transform your ordinary bike into an electric bike. In other words, you can slap a spare unit on your traditional bicycle, creating a motor vehicle vehicle with a little more than your bike and a variety of sources of supply on the secondary market. What was previously a niche area with only a small handful of offers has become a cottage industry full of contenders, and a certain number of startups offering a reapted conversion for your bike.

So how do you transform your traditional bike into a bicycle? And what are the best offers? We will guide you through. If you don’t see anything you like, be sure to consult our guides to the Best electric bikes or the Best electric scooters.

Hot to strangle

Photography: Ryan Waniata

Well, you must first decide the type of conversion you want. There is Two types of avoidance basePedal-Assist and Throttle, with many more recent models offering a combination of the two.

Pedal assistance is a mechanism that provides an additional boost of electrical energy when you pedal. Via the use of cadence and / or torque sensors (how fast your pedals are running and the power applied to them, respectively), the pedal assistance units are launching at a certain point, which facilitates pedaling. Sometimes, assistance to the pedal can be so minimal, it is difficult to say how much you do work compared to the load of your bicycle.

Accelerator units Act more like a motorcycle or a moped, allowing the cyclist to twist a tube mounted near the handle or to use a button based on a thumb to provide immediate power to the wheels. Accelerator vehicles can be mounted without pedaling.

Regarding Ebike conversions, where your power comes from and how it is delivered can look like several different ways. Some mechanisms provide energy in the rear center or before your bike. Others are located in the lower support (that is to say where the cranks meet the bicycle frame). And some more recent conversion kits act something like a treadmill mounted on your bike, using rollers to help you propel your wheel forward.

Ride the clip

Photography: Stephanie Pearson

That said, it is important to consider your level of know-how of bikes with regard to the type of conversion of the evacuation that you wish to undertake. If you are a cureau, the conversion process is generally simple, regardless of the type of unit. If you can change a tire or exchange your cassette, you will probably be good with a little test and error and the help of the YouTube tutorials. If you are wondering: “What is a cassette?” It is probably better to visit your local bicycle store and manage professional work.