Posting to end my break from EM and a little update on the ebike.
At about 1250 miles on this kit, or about an average of 20 miles a month since I last posted about it. Good news is I moved to a much more bike friendly city, so biking/ebiking is a viable option for most of my local travel. Bad news is I only live a mile away from where I now work, so ebike miles from commuting won't amount to much more than the last 8 months' average. :P Mods done to ebike since posting are removing the rear rack (it never really fit right) and relocating rear light to the backpack and doing the trick of putting another tire between the tire and tube to the front wheel. Puncture hazards are much lower here, so I'm going to see about doing a cheap tubeless conversion similar to
this to reduce weight and tire stiffness.
Now I get to decide if I want to put another rim on my original kit and get another battery to use on my wife's bike, get plain road bike(s), or some combination. Ebike seems kinda silly when I could pedal pretty much anywhere local in under 30 minutes on mainly 25-30MPH roads. I do have to keep in mind that winter here will be much colder and actually have snow.