another Bike Stolen and that was the end of that.

July 2008 and someone actually came into my garage and cut the chain and took my electric bike charger and all! It took until may 2009 for me to save a few bucks so I could afford a new bike. I found that at this time instead it was cheaper for me to buy a gas powered Chinese scooter form Dr. Credit here in dunedin, FL. I have found out 1 thing and that is don't depend on them for repairing or up keep of your scooter else you will find yourself spending twice as much on maintiance as you did to purchase your bike. I did let them try though, but when they charged me 150.00 to replace a perfectly good carburator,30 minutes personal time to change out. and over 60 bucks to fix a flat aproximatley 30 to 45 minutes personal time to change, and at least 25 bucks to change the oil. 10 minutes personal time to change and 3 bucks in oil. including the rear tranny which they wanted another 10 for, and 25 bucks to change a headlight should have been more like 15 and when asked about the CVT belt as it was wearing out at 2500 miles they said it would be around 45 for labor and at least 20 for a belt. I decided to buy a belt from ebay for 15 bucks total and change it myself in less than 15 minutes personal labor including cleaning the crankcase side and the front variator. anyone know a good scooter mechanic that doesnt want to be paid like the family doctor let me know.
Thanks
Tim

Batteries

I originally had the Idea the Batteries would be lasting about 6 months or more anyway the first set started dying around 800 or so miles. I then found I could get batteries from batteries plus as in http://www.batteriesplus.com these were supposed to be for electric bikes and warrentied for a year but aftet 4 months my first set was dead then 2 months the second set the 3rd set didnt even last a week this has given me the feeling that I have been getting perhaps "refreshed" batteries on my following visits as the manager did slip and say that my batteries still showed 12 volts so they were still good and he was going to sell them for used. if he actually does he is totally forgetting to check in anyway the amp/hrs as these batteries weren't even getting me 5 miles down the road at < 15 mph so I would say they were a bit toasted. at this point he did give me a 100% refund and told me to take my buisness elswhere so I gladly did! :) hard to beleive the previos manager always said he would exchange but never give back the cash this also means Ive been riding the last 6 months for FREE! so I'm not complaining just beware batteriesplus does not use brand new batteries all the time and does try to scrap by on 2nd's also I called their corporate headquaters about their "refreshed" batteries and they said all their shops are franchiesed and can do whatever they want and that they donot need to honor any warrenty so even though they advertise it BUYER BEWARE. This did show the original batery lasted 4 months 800 + miles the batteries plus batteries never even reached 3 months and never over 600 miles never top end speed usually reduced to 16-18 the entire baterylife and the range was never over 10 to 15 miles.
After this I went back to http://www.bernsonev.com bought a new pack and have had my 30 mile range returned and my top speed back to 20 to 22 with a bit of pedeling.

Getting started

To get started I built/modified My Bike starting in June of 2006 and had been riding my bike to work for over a year but the hard way.(Pedel Pedel) and was looking at giving it up as I changed jobs and the milage was increasing to over 10 miles one way and it was June Hot and sweaty. This at the time was coming out to about 40 minutes one way. After switching to the wilderness brushless 400 watt kit my time was reduced to between 20 and 25 minutes. Since then I have changed Jobs yet agin and in the last month alone have only had to resort to driving my gas guzzeling van only twice, and in the last 6 months including rain days and other nessesaties only driven to work maybe a total of 10 times maximum. The rest of the burden has been up to my Bike. For a more complete log of my bike building troubles and problems take a look at my BBS at
http://www.lockardtechnologies.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=ebike1
All together it has been well worth the buck and I'continue to ride and am looking at building a new faster ebike.