Riding info

Here's some info I posted as a comment and I'd thought I'd add as an entry:

I just rode to town today and back (as I do often) to get groceries. There's a very steep up hill on the way home. I always pedal up the entire hill because if I don't I believe that I'd slow right down and most likely stop, but I could be wrong since I haven't actually tried it. With full throttle and pedaling my speed stays above 20km/h on the hill drawing 17A with the voltage usually dropping to around 53V from the normal 60V.

With normal riding (always pedaling) on the flat/slight down hill/ slight uphill the speed stays around 45km/h - sometimes 50, sometimes 40. At 60V this motor will not really go any faster than 50km/h, or pull you up a big hill without pedaling.

I have had no problems with the shaved axle, but please don't come after me if you shave yours and it falls apart or brakes. When I ground mine down with an angle grinder, I was extremely careful to not take any more material off than was completely necessary. I still don't have torque arms on the axle, so I never accelerate too quickly, and just hope that the aluminum doesn't crack. I tightened the nuts on the axle extremely tight so it won't spin and it never has.

For others wanting to purchase this kit, please note that my run time is not extremely long. I use the bike for riding to work (flat 12km), and riding to town and back (huge hill 10km). I always charge after the 10km - 12km as the batteries don't last 24km. The three 20V, 6AH Yardworks Lithium batteries won't go much further than the 12km or 10km, so if your plan is to ride 20km, you won't have enough stored power with this setup - that is if you ride at full throttle, as I do, which keeps the current between 10A and 17A (5A coasting down slight downhills). If you ride slower (30km/h), you should be able to go twice as far because the current draw is around 6A or less. Since I can ride my road bike at 30-35km/h to work, I don't see the point. I got the electric bike so when I don't have much time to get to work, I can still ride.

Additional info:

I'm 6' tall, weigh 170lb. The bike is steel and weighs 50lb with everything (including 3 batteries). A heavier rider/bike would not take you as fast/far or have enough torque to pull you up a steep hill without pedaling.

I like the lightness of the motor and the fact that it freewheels because if the batteries do go dead or something happens to the wiring, the bike isn't that bad to ride.

The motor is geared, so it does make noise, and people do notice that you are riding an electric bike.

I forget if I mentioned that I also had to grind down the bushings between the motor and the fork because they were too wide and I had to bend the fork out too much. Everyone suggested I lathe them down so they were perfectly flat, but I just used a file.