Torque arms arrived today!!!!
Spent the afternoon getting everything put together. Took about 4 hours. The biggest time consumer was figuring out where and how to mount stuff like the controller and battery.
Took it for a spin around the block and topped out at 32mph! It was kind of scary at that speed, fortunately the speedometer that came with the motor kit allows me to limit the top speed, I set that to 27mph. After making sure it wouldn't fall apart, I let my wife go for a little ride on it, now she wants me to drive the Prius and she'll ride the bike.
I rode it to work in about the same time it would have taken by car, so work well as a car replacement.
The battery and controller are both mounted to the rear rack for now. You can definitely tell that there's more weight back there and that most of it is fairly high. I haven't weighed it yet, but total weight should be 70-75lbs, before weight was 34lbs. I cut out the bottom of the bag that came with the motor and set the rest of it over the battery and controller as camouflage.
Disc brakes are definitely going to be a future upgrade. The speed increase doesn't seem that big until you're trying to stop from 25+mph. The current brakes do the job for now, but I would much rather have a non-structural part being worn by the brake pads. The motor came with a rear disc and caliper, but the caliper seems junky. My bike does have the mounts for a rear caliper, so I think I'll convert the rear in a month or two with a disc set that is bigger/better than the one that came with the motor. Not looking forward to eventually paying to do the front, but I think it'll be necessary.
Thanks everyone for your advice. I can see why guys that are into ebikes are crazy about them.
