Bike Swift

Tom Butler: 0:04

This is the cycling over 60 podcast, season two, episode 32 bike swift. And I'm your host, tom Butler. Thank you for joining me on this season's journey as I look to continue building my health up with cycling at the heart of my fitness program. I have to admit that I slacked off after the chilly hilly, so I've gotten quite behind on my goals again. It was a combination of not having an immediate challenge to push me and the fact that we got a cold spell. I keep looking for things to warm up and I wimped out a few times when it was cold. It was snowing a few days and that was enough to keep me from going out on a ride. The 10-day forecast shows that things are definitely warming up. In fact, I see a 68 degree day coming soon with not much chance of rain. Maybe I should look to do a century ride that day. The longest I have been on the Roubaix for those of you don't know, that's a newer bike for me is 50 miles, so I should get out for a longer ride soon. I'm doing my first cascade bicycle club group ride tomorrow morning. I've gotten up the courage to join other people based on how I did on the chilly hilly. The cascade rides are categorized by pace. This 21 mile ride is a quote steady pace, which means the target is 12 to 14 miles per hour. It is also a stay-together ride, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that works. I know the trail that we will be on really well, so there won't be any surprises there, and it's flat.

Tom Butler: 1:46

It's been a while since I've given an update on my gym goals. Basically, I had to drop plans to go to the gym. It just wasn't working. But I do have a home gym. I actually prefer going to the gym because of the variety of equipment, but obviously if I don't go to the gym, it doesn't matter what equipment they have. I am trying something new. I read that spreading out workouts throughout the day can allow more recovery between sets and ultimately pushing higher weights. So I'm going to try that. I will be doing a set in the morning, one at noon and then one in the evening. I'm doing chest press, seated rows, lat pull downs, overhead press, bicep curl, tricep push downs and seated flies.

Tom Butler: 2:28

Flexibility continues to be a problem for me. My wife, kelly has urged me for a couple of years to do a functional flexibility method called Egoskew. Egoskewcom is a website for the Egoskew method. A section of the website reads our muscles work best when our body is balanced. Eliminating strength and flexibility in balance increases the capacity and efficiency of our muscles, which elevates our ability to perform and enhances the ability of our body to absorb the gains of exercise.

Tom Butler: 3:00

I don't know a lot about the philosophy of Egoskew, but there are some really interesting testimonials about how people have been helped by the Egoskew exercises. I hope to find somebody in the future to come on the podcast who can go in depth about the philosophy behind Egoskew. We are planning to take a trip soon and have Kelly try out a cruise bike. I'm quite confident that we will end up getting her an S40 model. Because of my interview with Jim and Maria Parker from Cruise Bike, I know that Kelly will need to do 100 miles on the bike and then she can decide that it doesn't work for her. Once she has done those miles, I'm quite sure that she will prefer the bike position to that of a traditional bike. If she does like the bike, we will need to have it fitted with electric assist.

Tom Butler: 3:54

I took some time to look for a place locally that could do an e-bike conversion and found the awesome people at Bikeswift in Seattle. I had such a good time talking with them on the phone that I asked if I could have someone from the shop join me on the podcast. This week I sat down with Bikeswift founder and CEO, henry Kellogg. It was a treat to do the interview while sitting at the shop.

Tom Butler: 4:15

I like hanging out in the service area of a shop and watching what is happening. You might notice a beeping sound in the background a few times. That sound is to alert people in the back that someone has come in the front door. So hearing the beeping basically is a signal that their business is thriving. Here is our conversation. Well, this is a special opportunity for me because I'm setting in a bike shop which is such a cool place to be, and actually I'm setting in the maintenance area. I'm looking at all the tools and everything. So it feels really cool and I'm here with Henry Kellogg. Thanks, henry, for joining me. Thank you for having me, tom, and talk about where we are, this space. What are we in today?

Henry Kellogg: 4:55

So we're at my shop, bike Swift. This is a funny bike shop in that we make regular bikes electrically assisted, so we convert bikes to be to be e-bikes, so a lot of the tools that you're seeing are not tools you'd seen in a normal bike shop. We have a 3D printer and a CNC mill so we can custom make the parts that we need to convert bikes one off. Got a big focus on wheel building, because every conversion that we do just about is has a custom built wheel for that particular bike. And then, yeah, there's all the regular bike components as well bike tools that you see as well.

Tom Butler: 5:29

And all kinds of bikes. I'm seeing recumbents and older bikes and newer bikes and cargo bikes.

Henry Kellogg: 5:36

Yep, we do it all. There's this tadpole trike right here and that's a fun project that customer wants to be able to do a I think it's an 80 mile round trip commute every day on this thing, so he's going to be setting it up for a lot of range, a lot of power and higher top speed than we usually do. But yeah, we can really do anything from just a lightweight little folding bike all the way to something like this cargo bikes tandem.

Tom Butler: 6:02

Nice. Talk about your personal experience with bicycling.

Henry Kellogg: 6:06

My journey with bicycling started, I think, in the same place a lot of people's did, which is I got a bike when I was a kid and I loved riding around, like I would get home from school and then run to the alley where my friends would hang out and we would just ride up and down and try to ride downstairs and see how many stairs we could do.

Henry Kellogg: 6:25

And for me bicycling was just fun and free and so I always really loved it. And then I realized in high school that I could bike to school faster than I could take the bus and I would get in good shape, and so, starting my sophomore year, I just bike commuted and then I ended up dropping out of college when I was 20. And I just didn't really have a sense of what I wanted to do with my life, and so I hopped on a bike and I just rode south and ended up in southern Mexico, and that was really the genesis of starting the business. I left on this trip hoping to find some sort of like purpose or direction in my life, and I came back and thought well, I don't really know what I want to do, but I do still love bikes, so I'm just going to try out building bikes and curious about electric bikes and cargo bikes and just started, got a business license and started a little Craigslist service when I was like 21, doing e-bike conversions.

Tom Butler: 7:17

That's so cool. Yeah, seems like a trip from where did you start from? Here, here, so we're in Seattle.

Henry Kellogg: 7:25

Yeah.

Tom Butler: 7:25

And it seems like that ride gives you some time to think.

Henry Kellogg: 7:29

Yeah, it sure does.

Tom Butler: 7:30

Maybe too much.

Henry Kellogg: 7:33

It was a challenging trip. I was solo for almost nine months but, yeah, really great opportunities to think and to meet new people. And it's actually. I met someone on my way back in Northern California who was really passionate about electric bikes and I had hardly heard about them and he actually had a little online business selling electric bike conversion systems and this was back in 2008. So these were not even lithium ion batteries. These are nickel metal hydride and sealed lead acid batteries, but they worked and he was just so passionate and excited and we hung out for a few days as part of this wilderness skills training property that we were on and unfortunately he was actually. He tragically died just a few months after I met him.

Henry Kellogg: 8:17

And I didn't know until a couple years later. But I ended up kind of carrying that torch, I guess, Like he got me inspired and I just kept going with it.

Tom Butler: 8:25

That's cool, yeah, and you opened this place. You started out online, but eventually you opened a location.

Henry Kellogg: 8:33

So I actually we have had an online presence, but mostly I was. I actually returned to school. I got a mechanical engineering degree at University of Washington and the whole time I was just building e-bikes out of whatever garage space I could find, basically. So this space opened in 2017. So we've only been here for a little over six years.

Tom Butler: 8:52

And was it bike Swift from the beginning?

Henry Kellogg: 8:56

Bike Swift was bike Swift from the beginning, but I used to be called Lion Tail Cycles. Okay, yeah that was the name of the business before bike Swift. I like bike Swift yeah.

Tom Butler: 9:04

I do too.

Henry Kellogg: 9:05

Unfortunately, a lot of other people do as well, and so there's Best Buys. E-bike brand is Swift and we get a lot of calls about Swift bikes and people being angry that their bike has broken because they're not very good quality electric bikes. And, yeah, we're having to explain that no, that's not us, unless you bought like a custom e-bike conversion in Seattle.

Tom Butler: 9:26

We're not affiliated and there's a few other Swift related e-mobility brands, so one of the interesting things about running a business that a lot of people wouldn't think about that kind of brand confusion. Yeah, exactly, you are in a particular location in Seattle and I'm wondering for people that aren't from Washington or from the Seattle area, how would you describe where you're located?

Henry Kellogg: 9:47

Well, we're in the city center. Here we're very close to RAI's main flagship store, which is a very iconic spot in the region. It's a great location for us because we occupy a niche we do e-bike conversions and no one else in the city really does e-bike conversions themselves. There are some companies that will sell systems like e-bike conversion systems for people to do themselves, but it's nice that we're essentially located so people, came from anywhere, can easily get to us the bike's set up.

Tom Butler: 10:15

You're pretty close to Lake Union, which is kind of more, maybe, a tech place.

Henry Kellogg: 10:20

Yeah, yeah, we're right. In the heart of Amazonia. There's like 30,000 Amazon employees within a few block radius of us.

Tom Butler: 10:28

Do you think that makes a difference as far as what you see here? Kind of maybe a younger crowd, but the city of Seattle as a whole is maybe more conscious about biking.

Henry Kellogg: 10:40

Yeah, I would say being in Seattle in particular is really helpful because it's a city with good bicycle infrastructure. People are more bike conscious, ecologically minded too, which is sometimes a motivation to get an e-bike rather than drive as frequently as some people would. Seattle is somewhat affluent, so there's some surplus money that people can spend on higher and electric bike conversions, which is also helpful.

Tom Butler: 11:04

So it's probably a good place to have this kind of focus. Yeah, it's a good spot.

Henry Kellogg: 11:09

That said, I think that we don't even really advertise, so I think that there's a lot of market opportunity to do something like what we do, and this kind of business model could thrive in other places as well.

Tom Butler: 11:22

Nice. Where do you feel people's awareness is about e-bikes at this point? Do you think most people know about them, or do you still think there's a lot of education that people need about e-bikes?

Henry Kellogg: 11:34

Yeah, it seems like most people have heard about electric bikes at this point. They've seen them, they know they exist, but they don't really know what they are, and so a lot of the common questions that we get are things like, literally, how does it work? Like, do you, as soon as you pedal, do you always get full power, or do you have to pedal, like really just trying to get their head around the interface of the system? Like, how do you actually interact with it? Is it a motorcycle? Like what is really going on? And so I mean to briefly answer those questions. If people are curious.

Henry Kellogg: 12:08

There's a lot of different ways that you can activate the motor of an electric bike and typically you set some sort of power level on a display and then, when you pedal, you get an assistance that's at least related to the power level you sent. Maybe you've just done a very low level of assistance. You get just a gentle boost on your eco mode and then, as you go up to the higher levels, as soon as you pedal, you get a lot of power. You can also have systems that are sensing the power that you are putting into the bike and scaling based on that power. So if you're pedaling really hard. At three or 400 watts you're going to get more power, regardless of level you're in, than if you're pedaling at, say, 100 watts. You can also use a throttle, a handlebar mounted throttle, to activate the motor system, which allows you to use the bike without having to pedal, which is a nice option for some people as well.

Tom Butler: 13:02

We own an e-bike, so I think I probably know more about an e-bike than people that don't own an e-bike. I imagine there's still a lot of questions I have, which is you know, part of this I'm learning, and one of the things that I'm interested in is categories, Different categories. I'm wondering what is the function of e-bike categories?

Henry Kellogg: 13:25

Yeah, it's a good question. So the US has really standardized around three different classes for categories of e-bike class one, two and three. And I guess there's a fourth class which would be off-road only. These classes allow municipalities and just allows you to control how much, how fast, e-bikes are going on the roads or paths or infrastructure that you have. So class one and class two e-bikes only will assist up to 20 miles an hour. So I guess I'll briefly run through the classes.

Henry Kellogg: 14:00

Class one e-bikes will only assist when you're pedaling and will never assist you past 20 miles an hour. That means you can still go past 20 miles an hour if you're going downhill or pedaling really hard, but only assist while pedaling and only up to 20. Class two is the same as class one, except you can have a throttle, so the system can assist you even if you're not pedaling. So hypothetically you could just hit the throttle and go up to 20 miles an hour. Class three the motor can assist up to 28 miles an hour and you can use a throttle up to 20 miles an hour. So you can not pedal go to 20 or pedal go to 28. And so if you're trying to decide what e-bike should be allowed on your trails, limiting bikes to only class one or just class one and class two. It means nothing's going over 20 miles an hour on an electric motor power, and if you don't want people to just cruise around without having to pedal, then you would just limit it to class one, and so those are probably safety concerns.

Tom Butler: 15:00

I can't think of something else.

Henry Kellogg: 15:02

Yeah, those are primary. I think. Faster going, the higher the risk of serious injury if you get into an accident. So just trying to keep people from zipping around at really high speeds on electric bikes is a priority for some. Yeah.

Tom Butler: 15:15

I mean, there is an element that I don't truly understand. I guess I felt it a little bit, but when you're on a trail, particularly going up some hill, and you're struggling and somebody like kind of just goes by you on the e-bike, there's this. I don't know if it comes from jealousy or a sense of entitlement. I don't know, but it's like this oh, you know they shouldn't be allowed. You can be a little demoralizing.

Henry Kellogg: 15:39

Yeah, you're working so hard and they're just flying up the hill by you. I get that, I think, especially on a recreational trail where the expectation is more that people are out there for fitness. Maybe that can be especially frustrating for some, but really I see it as I want people riding electric bikes to be safe and to be courteous, but really it's just another means of transportation and recreation. They're not really affecting you. Flying by you, you know at 20 miles an hour up that hill.

Tom Butler: 16:05

They didn't slow me down Exactly.

Henry Kellogg: 16:07

Yeah, they're not keeping you from doing what you're doing, you know, unless they are, if they're cutting you off on a single track or something which I've heard of, you know people really abusing the power they get with electric bikes and making it worse for everybody else on the trail, which is a different story.

Tom Butler: 16:21

I've never met anybody over 20. That was being irresponsible. Yeah, well, that's really… Maybe a couple kids. Do you mountain bike?

Henry Kellogg: 16:29

at all times. I don't mountain bike. Okay, yeah, I've seen some people on mountain bike trails be a little irresponsible.

Tom Butler: 16:37

Yeah, I could see that A little bit tighter space.

Henry Kellogg: 16:40

Exactly, yeah. So if you're not expecting someone to pass you as you're going uphill on a trail really made for one bicycle, it can be a little disconcerting.

Tom Butler: 16:49

Yeah, for sure. But I did have a really cool experience when I was doing the Kitsap color classic, which is a hilly ride, and so I'm chugging up a hill, low gear, trying to make it to the top of the hill, and this woman about my age, maybe even a little bit older, comes up beside me on an e-bike, going along, and she was just super encouraging You're doing great, keep it up Awesome and I really feel like without pedal assist she wouldn't have been on that hill giving me encouragement. So I thought that was really a cool illustration of e-bikes opening up access for someone like that Exactly.

Henry Kellogg: 17:34

And that's what I'm passionate about. It's allowing more people to bike who otherwise it wouldn't be accessible to.

Tom Butler: 17:39

Yeah, Now another question I have is wattage.

Henry Kellogg: 17:43

Oh sure, yeah, that's a big question.

Tom Butler: 17:45

Yeah, because I see all kinds of different wattage but it's like, okay, what does that mean? And it seems like there would be different motors that would be more efficient. It seems like there'd be a lot of advancement where this wattage two years later could produce a lot more because of efficiency or something like that. So it seems like maybe a moving target and just not a real, immediately understandable thing.

Henry Kellogg: 18:11

That's a great way to put it. I think if there's one thing about wattage that your listeners might take from this conversation to be, take any number, you see, with a big grain of salt. I know you can get a little bit technical during some of your conversations, so maybe going a little bit deeper. Yeah, you can think about. So wattage is a measurement of power, of instantaneous power that is being generated, and a microwave is typically about a thousand watts. A pro cyclist will output maybe 300, 400 watts kind of continuously over the course of a particular ride. You can think about wattage as electrical wattage and that would be the highest that you'll get. So if you go to an electric bike specification page you'll see the voltage of the battery and the peak electrical amperage that the controller allows. If you multiply those two together you'll see the maximum possible electrical wattage, the maximum wattage that that system could output. So it's a 36 volt battery and it's a 20 amp controller. That would be a maximum of 720 watts that system would output.

Henry Kellogg: 19:10

But you could also think about wattage not in terms of electrical power but also in terms of mechanical power, and there's typically you mentioned the word efficiency. So there's going to be some efficiency losses. If you're putting, say, a thousand watts into a motor, a certain amount of that is going to be lost, primarily as heat, some as vibration and sound. So most motors are operating, say, between 60 and 85 percent efficiency. So if you're putting a thousand watts in, maybe you're getting 800 watts out.

Henry Kellogg: 19:43

The last thing and this is what manufacturers actually use is there's the continuous wattage rating of a motor. So you could think about motors and this is when you see 250 watt, 350 watt, 500 watt, 750 watt. This is usually what manufacturers are trying to talk about is how much power could that motor take indefinitely without overheating? So that's the continuous wattage rating of a given motor. Now that's also not well defined. So how, what temperature is it out? You know what's the ambient temperature while you're continuously running this motor to give wattage, and how quickly is the motor spinning, and there's a lot of other factors involved with that. So all that is to say, if you really want to know about the power of an e-bike, you really need to ride it to really get a sense, because one manufacturer might be telling you the electrical watts, another the rated watts, a third the mechanical watts, and it's just apples to oranges. You really don't know what people are actually telling you.

Tom Butler: 20:39

It seems like a value that you provide is that you guys are experiencing different things, and so you might be able to give a sense, especially somebody that's new to it. You might be able to give them a sense of what they're seeing.

Henry Kellogg: 20:52

you know in applied to the road. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we prefer to talk to people not about how many watts they want, but get to know them and their riding style and what they hope to do, and we can actually simulate a given trip at a given weight with a given motor system and C. Is this going to give you the kind of performance that you want, based on a lot more than just a single wattage rating?

Tom Butler: 21:18

Now what are some of the? There is a lot more demand. I've not seen like a curve that shows demand, but I'm guessing that for the last 10 years there's been quite a bit of increase in demand year over year for e-bikes and that means to me reason to innovate and like economic value in innovating. So I'm wondering what are you seeing as far as innovation over the last couple of years or three years? I don't know if there's been a jump in innovation that you've seen along the way.

Henry Kellogg: 21:57

Yeah, there certainly has been a jump in demand and interest in electric bikes. It's been on an exponential rise over the past decade. It's gone from really a very niche thing that very few people knew about to now completely mainstream in the fastest growing segment of the bicycle industry. So, in terms of innovation, what we've seen are that every major bicycle manufacturer not only has an electric bike but has an electric bike line that includes everything from commuter utility bikes to road bikes to mountain bikes, and that's been great to witness. We love seeing more electric bikes on the road, more bikes on the road.

Henry Kellogg: 22:36

In terms of innovation in the technology side, luckily this has corresponded with the rise in electric cars and a lot of innovation in battery technology. So batteries have shrunk and gotten less expensive, much less expensive over the last few years, and that's been really helpful, so you can get more energy on a bike for less money, which allows people to go further and pay a little less for the battery. In terms of innovation, for us on the retrofit side, we've seen basically more features available so we can now do things like variable regenerative braking so most electric bikes don't do regenerative braking, but because we really fine tune our systems and are able to use all these different parts and design the system for the customer. We often do include regenerative braking, which is just like an electric car or hybrid car, using the motor to slow down the bike and recharge the battery, and it's a great feature because you not only extend your range by somewhere between 10 and 20%, but you also save your brake pads from wear, which is nice.

Henry Kellogg: 23:48

As a bike rider, you probably have had to replace your brake pads a few times. That's almost no longer a factor with regenerative braking Nice, so that's been a great thing to be able to offer. We're also seeing better sensor technology, so you probably know that it's pretty trendy to have a power sensor on a road bike to sense exactly how many watts you're outputting. We're able to do that now relatively inexpensively, in a way that's fully integrated with the e-bike system, so you actually see your human watts on the display.

Tom Butler: 24:17

I don't know that. I want to see my wattage at this point.

Henry Kellogg: 24:19

It's a nice thing. Yeah, you have to be willing to be humbled, but I like to see it and to maybe set a goal, like for this particular ride. I'm going to try to average 200 watts, say, over the six miles that I'll be riding into work. That's right. So, yeah, basically, batteries are getting lighter and cheaper and we're able to pack more performance into the motors by doing things like regenerative braking, and we get more sensors and little parts to play with, so we have more data as we set up a system.

Tom Butler: 24:53

I'm looking at your wheel building area of the shop and I'm wondering about that whether there are things that needed to be learned about building wheels. Was the extra weight? Did that have a factor with the e-bikes?

Henry Kellogg: 25:10

Yeah, that's a great question. Actually we do mostly hub motor electric assist systems and the whole industry has really been built around mid drive or chain drive systems where the motor is integrated into the bicycle's gear drivetrain. So the reason that we're having to build wheels is because we're always installing hub motors and that motor needs to be laced to a rim that ideally matches the bike that we're converting. And there's been a big myth that hub motor wheels are very weak. And that myth has existed because people didn't know how to build them. They were using, without getting too into it, just the wrong techniques Oversized spokes at two steep angles that were prone to braking and typically not tensioning them properly.

Henry Kellogg: 25:54

So these wheels would, after a few hundred miles you'd have broken spokes that needed to be rebuilt, which is a very expensive thing. You go to a bike shop and they'll charge you $300 for a full wheel rebuild. So we've built hundreds, thousands of motors now motorized wheels and we've had a few spoke breakage issues and realized exactly what lacing patterns work. And basically there's no reason that an e-bike wheel can't be just as strong as a conventional wheel. The motor is heavy and it does apply a torque to the wheel. It's nowhere near the torque that is experienced by the disc brake. So wheels are already built to handle high torque. They just need to be. You need to account for the larger diameter hub and the additional sort of spoke lacing geometry that an e-bike wheel requires.

Tom Butler: 26:43

That's very interesting. I'm wondering about weight, the e-bike that we have. You know you could build up your upper body mass just by loading it, and unloading it and add it to your car.

Henry Kellogg: 26:56

yeah, you have a rad right. Yeah it's like 60 or 70 pounds.

Tom Butler: 27:01

Yeah, and it's the collapsible folding, and so therefore you're the free Great for weight training.

Henry Kellogg: 27:07

So the frame has been made to support that. So yeah, and it's cool, but yeah, it's, I would say the weight of that bike is not because the frame needs to be built to support the folding I would just say it's a lot cheaper for Rad to spec lower quality components and not take much time to actually engineer the frame for weight savings. But that bike could absolutely build a significantly lighter if they were interested in doing that Interesting.

Tom Butler: 27:33

Are there innovations happening that allow motors to be lighter or frames to be?

Henry Kellogg: 27:38

lighter. Primary drop. Yeah, let's see. I would say yes, frame weight can drop on a purpose-built electric bike. That's not what we do, but because most electric bikes are made out of hydroformed aluminum and with a battery that's integrated into the frame, you can really use the battery as somewhat as a structural element At least the battery mount structurally and save some weight there so that the frames can hypothetically be much lighter In terms of weight savings on the motor.

Henry Kellogg: 28:04

Electric motors have been around a long time and so there's some innovation happening there. But I haven't seen. You know, I think we're talking ounces, not pounds. And then the batteries are getting lighter, so lighter or higher energy density. So maybe, whereas before you would have a eight pound battery, that would be a 400 or 500 watt hour battery, you're seeing that now have a 600 or 700 watt hour capacity. Watt hours being a measurement of energy, yeah, I would say, in terms of weight for complete electric bikes, that's typically going down. I really do not enjoy the feel of a 60 plus pound conventional bike. I mean, if it's a tandem or a cargo bike, totally fine, but a really heavy electric bike, especially if, depending on the placement of all the components, if the battery is placed really high, or say over the rear rack or something like that, the bike just no longer handles like a bicycle. It feels more like a moped at that point, and our goal is to really try to keep weight to a minimum while giving all the features and power that the user needs.

Tom Butler: 29:04

Weird question Do you ever worry about batteries exploding in your shop?

Henry Kellogg: 29:09

No, we don't, because we spec very good quality cells and protective circuits that would prevent anything like that from happening. So we've never had a battery fire not in the shop, not from any of our customers. We're currently using the both Tesla and Samsung cells that are used in the latest generation electric cars and are built to be made into packs literally a hundred times larger than the ones that we're using and still be safe at that point. So the cells themselves have protective features engineered into them where, if I could take a cell and cut into it or I've seen videos of people shooting these cells with a gun and they do not explode it really would take a very extreme event like tossing a battery into an oven to make it a serious fire risk. So don't do that, Don't do that. Yeah, I would say in general, you want to be careful about heat as well, Not so much because you want to avoid fire, but just excessive heat in the battery degrades the battery much faster than anything else that you could do.

Tom Butler: 30:13

Is that still an important question for someone to consider? Is e-bike battery safety?

Henry Kellogg: 30:18

Yeah, I would say think about it a little bit. Yeah, ideally, the only thing you need to see is that a brand name that you recognize is manufacturing the cells. So if you're buying a complete e-bike, if you're using a brand, like a big bike brand, or if it's like Trek or Giant or Specialized or something like that, or if the manufacturer uses a Bosch or Shimano or a Yamaha system, those batteries are going to be totally well vetted. Ideally, you'll see UL certification or CE, which is the European equivalent. Or just if you're looking into an e-bike battery and you're learning about the cells, if you see a name like Samsung, lg, panasonic, tesla, etc. Those are going to be high quality cells.

Tom Butler: 31:04

What are the advantages and disadvantages of converting I don't know if I have the right word, but regular bike, I guess to an e-bike compared to buying?

Henry Kellogg: 31:15

a new e-bike? That's a great question. The primary advantage is, if you already have a bike that you love, you know you're going to like the way that it rides and handles, you're probably going to spend less money because you're no longer having to buy a whole complete bicycle. You're just paying for electric assist components. Yeah, in general it's going to be just a better value proposition. You also for an e-bike conversion or retrofit, especially if you're working with an operation like us who knows all the features that we could potentially provide. You can just get things that you can't really. You could design your own system and get a setup uniquely tuned to you. So we have customers who want to be able to go for 100 miles to a charge and we can set them up with dual battery systems and particular sort of features that will be helpful to them. Like I mentioned regenerative braking earlier, that's not something you'll see on most electric, purpose-built electric bikes, but come standard with our bikes. Yeah, so being able to fine tune the weight of the motor, of the battery, the power, the range, all that stuff is fun to be able to do. So you really get a bike kind of custom built for your unique needs.

Henry Kellogg: 32:22

You also get a non-proprietary platform. So your bicycle unless it's a really weird bicycle is built to international standards, hopefully that you'll always be able to get replacement parts for it, like now and in the decades to come, and we use electric bike components that are built for those standards. So instead of the battery going into a specially made spot in the frame and only that particular battery will work with this particular bike, we mount the battery to the down tube typically. Likewise, the motor will fit into conventional bicycle dropouts and all the parts are built to be open standard as well. So if in 10 years from now you want to replace your battery, you could certainly get a battery from us. But as long as you use the right voltage and plug it directly into the controller, it will work just fine. So it allows you greater reliability and customizability into the future.

Henry Kellogg: 33:17

Another advantage of a conversion is that you can move the system from bike to bike. So if in a few years you decide you want a different bike, you can always do that. So some of the disadvantages of an electric bike conversion is it's not going to look as clean as a purpose built electric bike, so you have to be willing to have a few extra wires run. We do try to make it look as close as possible to purpose fully bike, but we can't integrate the battery into your frame fully. We can't sneak the wires through the frame usually, so you're going to have some trade offs, aesthetically at least.

Tom Butler: 33:48

Which I think is a factor for some people. Sure, yeah. It's not a factor for me. Yeah, but you know, I could see. I mean, I know people really want their the cables hidden as much as possible.

Henry Kellogg: 34:02

So bikes are really pretty and I get that people want a certain aesthetic. It's also true that, like, if you want a classic bike look with an electric assistance, we can do that. You can take a. You know, if you have a vision of your old twin or something to be electrified, that's a cool look too. You know, if you we have an Instagram and people can check out, like what a conversion system might look like, it's not like there are wires sticking out everywhere.

Henry Kellogg: 34:25

Right, it's, it's really, it looks it looks clean, yeah, but it's not going to be quite as yeah tuned as a purpose-built bike made from the frame up to be electrically assisted.

Tom Butler: 34:34

You made a point that I think is really important, and that's the ability of having things fully or easily available replacement parts and things like that. Yeah, that's huge. I believe at this point, we know that e-bikes aren't going anywhere. You know it's not like at some point people are going to decide, uh, we have this e-bike phase, we're out of it. I mean, they're, they seem definitely here to stay, yeah, and so I like that concept that you know there's a potential of upgrading or doing things and stuff, yes, or just servicing over time.

Henry Kellogg: 35:09

At the very least, on any electric bicycle the battery will need to be replaced. If you take really good care of it and there are ways to do it you, by limiting your charge voltage and keeping it stored in a cool, dry place, all that sort of thing you're still going to have to replace it in 10 years and more likely than I said before then. And if you have a proprietary system like, there's no guarantee that battery is going to exist in 10 years and at that point you've maybe stuck with a very expensive like lawn ornament. Basically, right, you don't want to ride an electric bike without a motor system Like it's just unnecessarily heavy and unpleasant to ride that way.

Tom Butler: 35:46

Right, this is a tough question to answer, I'm sure, but is there a way of getting a sense of the cost of converting? Oh yeah, okay, like so from from us.

Henry Kellogg: 35:58

Uh, conversions are anywhere between $1,200 at the low end, and that's we. We focus on higher, like a quality system. So that's still a 500 watt hour battery and a motor that's peppy enough to give you very significant assistance uphills. So $1,200 at the the lower end of our price range, all the way up to, like, let's say, $2,500, unless you're getting into some crazy setup Like I mentioned this trike here, who's it's getting a dual motor setup and dual battery and a lot of custom parts made for it. That can get very expensive, but anywhere between, say, $12 and $2,500. Now if you go online and search for e-bike conversion, you might be able to buy a system off Amazon for a few hundred dollars. That does not include installation, does not include a warranty and is unlikely to work particularly well.

Tom Butler: 36:46

Let's just say I think that's totally fair and I, you know, hopefully people kind of understand that. You know that there is an expertise, there's represented I've seen like four different people here. You know represented there's an expertise in a specific area that you're not going to just find everywhere.

Henry Kellogg: 37:07

Right, yeah, most bike shops even aren't comfortable with working with the electric side of electric bikes. They can service them and they'll do the basic diagnostic tasks and things like that.

Henry Kellogg: 37:16

But yeah, I think it's important to, when you're considering an electric bike, make sure that you're getting it from a place that can service it and it's really comfortable with with it. And if you get an electric bike online, you just have so many stories of customers either getting a conversion system online or electric bike online that ends up they end up needing more support than they're able to get online, and oftentimes the support that's available is zero, and so they come to us and it's a tricky thing to have to navigate where. I don't want to punish people for trying to get into electric bikes, but same time, we can't run an effective business, a profitable business that can exist over time, by servicing all these online e-bikes that were purchased.

Tom Butler: 37:55

So yeah, it gets tricky. So I'm thinking that this scenario is possible, that I bring a bike in. I have a conversion done. You know I'm liking the bike, but then I find another bike and I'm like you know what. I think I'd like to switch over to this other bike. I'm not buying another e-bike, I'm buying another analog bike or whatever? How probable is it that the system that I had on the bike I had converted is going to transfer over to my new bike?

Henry Kellogg: 38:27

That's a great question. Generally it's going to work Okay. The wheel size is a factor. So we're building the wheels specifically for the bike that you originally had us convert, and if you want to transfer that system to another bike, if it happens to have the same wheel size, great. Otherwise we may need to rebuild the wheel, which is, say, $165 or something like that not an obscene cost and then, depending on the system, it'll take maybe a couple hours to transfer it to another bike and it's important that the battery can be mounted into the frame or fits in the frame of the new candidate. But we certainly have done that many times. It's not an uncommon story and it can be done. It's a feature of an electric bike conversion system.

Tom Butler: 39:07

And something you can keep in mind if you're going out shopping for a different bike is that these are the parameters.

Henry Kellogg: 39:12

I'm trying to keep within the parameters of my original bike as best I can.

Tom Butler: 39:15

Yeah, I think one of the things that's really exciting to me about bikeswift and really kind of intriguing to me is just how much customization is possible with you guys. I wonder if you could talk about some projects that you've done that you think are intriguing yeah.

Henry Kellogg: 39:34

So Right now, if you go into the front, you'll see what we're calling the banana, which is a velo-mobile with a bright yellow fairing that completely encompasses the rider all the way if it looks like a submarine. And that is a bike that we're setting up for a customer who's going to be commuting 20 miles each way and he wanted a particularly high torque motor because it's very difficult to climb hills on this crazy fairing to trike. You're in a recumbent position inside. So he got a different motor than we typically would use and it's the great motor, but it had to be special ordered and we're also fabricating mounts for lights and turn signals and things like that. So he really he loves this, this trike. Realistically, he's not able to commute using it daily to his, to his job, so we're just setting it up as kind of the ultimate electrically assisted commuter.

Henry Kellogg: 40:25

We do a lot of Brompton folding bikes. So Brompton's are these very high quality folding bikes made in England and that's kind of the other end of the spectrum where we're using usually LIGO batteries. These are travel ready, very small battery packs that can be built up like Legos, modularly, so you can, you can fly with them because they're under 100 watt hours, which is the TSA requirement for a lithium battery, but you can just put four of them together and have a larger battery. So it's always fun. You get a bike that you can easily travel with, that's lightweight, fits in a small suitcase yeah, and then a lot of commuters. So we've done a lot of like just regular old bikes, like I recently did a bike for a customer who he bought a. He bought a stump jumper in 1982. The first year that the stump jumper was made that specialized mountain bike, and it was literally the first production mountain bike.

Tom Butler: 41:14

I remember those. Yeah, you do Okay.

Henry Kellogg: 41:17

So he had this bike for about a decade as a mountain bike. He made it into a road bike because he was realizing he was riding on roads almost all the time anyways, by adding slick tires and some drop handlebars to it. And then we just recently electrified it, 40 years after it was purchased right, and I just love that. We can take something that would absolutely be considered obsolete and turn into a totally functional and fun electric bike that he's going to be able to commute on for years to come.

Tom Butler: 41:48

I love that. That's a great story. Yeah, now what about like cargo bikes? I'm thinking that you've done yes.

Henry Kellogg: 41:55

I should have mentioned we do a lot of cargo bikes, yeah. So these days most cargo bikes are sold with an electric assist kit because it's such an obvious pairing. You know you want the additional power to get up those hills, but for every electric bike or every cargo bike that's been sold it's not electrically assisted. It's cross that owner's mind at some point. It might be nice to have an electric motor. So we get a lot of the cargo bikes that were sold, say, 10 years ago, before they were electrified.

Tom Butler: 42:24

Do you have an opinion like electric cargo bike as a tool in a city for delivery? Do you feel like that is a particularly good use for the technology? Yeah, I think they're great.

Henry Kellogg: 42:38

I think that's an amazing use for that particular technology. We live in Seattle and traffic is terrible and while we have the mediating breezes from the sea to keep our air quality in decent shape, we actually have pretty poor air quality, at least in those more stagnant days. I love the idea of having fewer delivery vehicles burning fossil fuels, less traffic, all that sort of thing. We actually service a number of delivery drivers and their electric cargo bikes, and a lot of them are immigrants who wouldn't be able to like. We have a number of like West African in particular immigrants who get an electric cargo bike that they can barely afford but use it, leverage it to do a lot of deliveries and actually make a living, which is really cool. That is cool.

Tom Butler: 43:25

I think that people sometimes look at e-bikes as a lazy option, but my audience, of course cycling over 60, we have a particular audience. Talk about e-bikes as a way of being fit later on in life. Have you thought about?

Henry Kellogg: 43:46

that I've certainly thought about e-bikes as a way of being fit in general. I think that the latest research I've seen is that electric bikes are absolutely a way to get fit, is an exercise modality and it really comes down to just like really all exercises, like what you're willing to do. If you on an electric bike, yes, you could put it in the maximum power level and hardly work at all, but it really like when you're at a gym. It lets you set the amount of exertion that you'd like to do. So if you wouldn't do that long ride because the hills are too steep and it's just too much exertion for you, doing it on an electric bike makes it accessible and then you can set okay.

Henry Kellogg: 44:27

Well, maybe you have a fitness tracker and you're going to keep your heart rate in a certain zone and then you're getting your zone two training all the way through your 50 mile ride or something like that, which is assisted, but you're still getting good exercise. I think that, certainly if you're going to use an electric bike for transportation when you otherwise would drive, that's just additional exercise. And I often work up a sweat while on an electric bike, maybe not quite as hard as on a regular bike, but I would say it's 60 to 80% of the exertion of a regular bike over time in particular. So yeah, I think it's an absolutely valid means of exercise and not a lazy option at all. It's just another option.

Tom Butler: 45:05

Yeah, I think in a culture where we have so little activity really compared to what is healthy, that man, if you're going 80% of what you would normally do, even 50% of like I mean you're, the benefits you're getting that are so huge. And I've seen that. You know, we have done a few interviews now with people that are out and they're getting activity. One person said something that I think it's typical like they started out with one assist level and then now they're down to another assist level, sure, and that is just a dramatic increase in their fitness level.

Henry Kellogg: 45:41

Right, yeah, you can. It's you know, if you can't do pull ups originally, you're like right now, then you can get on machines or use bands to it to lower the effective weight you're having to pull up. Right, that's what electric bikes allow you to do. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Butler: 45:55

And then another interview was Bob Fletcher. I don't know if you've ever heard that name, but he has set the world's record for e-bike trip and he went from Alaska to Argentina. Oh wow, and he's 80 years old. Wow, he obviously was using muscles, using cardiovascular capacity in that journey. You know, it wasn't taken away by having electric assist.

Henry Kellogg: 46:23

Yeah and to I don't know if my age is obvious my voice but I'm in my mid-30s and I'm pretty fit and I love my electric bike. It's just, I have a non-electric bike and for the rides where I want to use my non-electric bike, that's great, and also for the longer trips or my electric bike is a cargo bike, when I'm carrying more stuff or just don't really feel like going really hard for that day, I take the electric bike. So it's just nice to have another option.

Tom Butler: 46:49

Yeah, it seems like for me now obviously I'm biased, but it seems like to me that every household could use an electric bike.

Henry Kellogg: 46:59

I would love, I love that vision. I mean it's common for households to have two cars, especially in the city, so many of those trips could be replaced with an electric bicycle.

Tom Butler: 47:08

I'm wondering if there are e-bike events. I don't know. You know in the past there would have been a large enough community to have e-bike specific events. But do you see that? Do you participate in events at all?

Henry Kellogg: 47:24

Yeah, we've done a few. There was an electrify expo here recently which is all about electric. Everything that did feature a lot of electric bikes, which was fun. We were at that event. We'll do bike rides associated with the shop and people can come on electric or non-electric bikes. They just better be ready to go hard if they're on a non-electric bike.

Henry Kellogg: 47:42

A lot of the events we do are just bike events, but electric bikes have earned a seat at the table in the cycling community. So recently did a tandem rally and maybe 20% of the tandems there were electric assist and a lot of people who were riding those electric assist tandems literally could not go and could not do the rides without their electric assist. So yeah, there are some e-bike specific events were not associated. I can't think of any that are coming up or that we do, although I think it'd be great if there were more. But really at this point, any bicycling event outside of a race focused event or something that would explicitly not allow for electric assist is going to be inclusive of electric bikes, or at least they'd better be.

Tom Butler: 48:23

I don't know what it's like in other areas. I get to collaborate with Cascade Bicycle Club, which is awesome, and I know that, while I haven't ridden an electric bike in their events, I get such feedback from people that have that the events are so welcoming and I know that they make an effort particularly Paul who is director of communications there to let people know hey, you're welcome here and there might be some things to keep in mind that are good, that are ways of being a good part of the community, but you're very welcome here.

Henry Kellogg: 49:00

It's great that that messaging is coming through so clearly. Yeah, I think cycling has always been strongly influenced by the racing community and I think that thinking was transposed onto electric bikes like oh, this is cheating, which technically speaking, it would be if you were in a race. But I think we've really come so much further than that way of thinking about electric bicycles. It's just another way of enjoying cycling. Yeah.

Tom Butler: 49:27

If we had more time, I would ask you about how hidden motors and professional cycling.

Henry Kellogg: 49:33

I don't know if that's something you've ever thought about. Oh, it's only thought about it. We've never done it. We've done some sort of stealthier systems, but nothing that would try to break those rules. I mean, that's problematic. I don't love that idea. It's called mechanical doping and, yeah, with the state of technology it certainly can be done, but not our focus.

Tom Butler: 49:54

It's interesting. Are there any specific laws or regulations that are governing e-bikes that everybody should know about or that you think about?

Henry Kellogg: 50:06

Yeah, we went over the classes earlier. So to be road legal, you need to be in the class three or below designation, which means no motor assistance past 28 miles an hour while peddling Beyond that. I think it's just very important to follow the rules of the road and not give electric bikes a bad rep In terms of like legality. I'm not seeing cops pulling over electric cyclists and trying to enforce any of these laws, but if people abuse electric bikes and ride them at 28 miles an hour on the sidewalk, or find ways to speed, unlock their electric bikes and ride way too fast, that's going to give a bad reputation for the entire movement, and so I would, more than anything, just encourage people to really obey the rules of the road as best they can and not exceed those speed limits that are set by the state.

Tom Butler: 50:59

Do you know anything about the awareness that local politicians have about e-bikes and their usage? Is there any misconceptions that people have.

Henry Kellogg: 51:08

No, I think they're really being embraced, certainly locally, as a very valid and important form of transportation. There's a new bill coming out I don't know too much about it, but a rebate program for Washington state residents where you're going to get a discount on electric bike purchase. I think it's a couple hundred dollars for most people, but if you're in a low income bracket it's like $1,200 or something like that. So I think, more than anything, politicians are actively trying to get more, more cyclists.

Tom Butler: 51:33

It'll be interesting to see. Governor Inslee has been a big advocate for cycling on a lot of different levels and it'll be interesting to see, if there's a big shift in state leadership, if that will result in a shift in the thought about e-bikes and yeah the rebate program I was discussing.

Henry Kellogg: 51:53

It is a state rebate program. It's been passed. I think it's just in the implementation phase. I'm trying to figure out how this would actually work and how who would get reimbursed and all that sort of thing. So I do think that's being pushed. And how do you really incentivize electric bike ridership? I think you'd do it the same way. You'd incentivize regular bike ridership, which is by building better and better infrastructure and safer People feel safe on the roads, which is still a challenge, for sure.

Tom Butler: 52:18

Yeah, looking ahead, are there some things that you're tracking, some things you're excited about for the future?

Henry Kellogg: 52:26

Yeah, there's some things that are particular to our business, which is really simplifying our systems around a particular motor made by a company in Canada that can be really configured to do sort of anything you want High power, low power, torque sensing, power sensing compatible with all different axle types. We're also going to be focusing on offering three different sizes of batteries that are going to be just plug and play with our system, so you could start with a small battery and later on upgrade to a bigger battery or things like that, and all that's made possible by advances in the larger e-bike community and industry. So these motors only exist because there's been a big demand for motor innovation and so this company has stepped up and made them. But yeah, I would say in terms of, like big picture, just e-bikes becoming more and more accessible.

Tom Butler: 53:15

What final tips would you have? Do you have anything that you can think of that you, in addition, like to share for people that are considering it? People are just starting that journey, Sure Of looking at an e-bike.

Henry Kellogg: 53:25

I would say tips to someone who's actually interested in getting an e-bike. We covered wattage ratings and things like that, but really just try to wade like, cut through all the marketing BS and test ride a bike. Make sure it feels the way that you want it to feel. Like they can have a thousand five-star reviews and big influencers saying it's an amazing bike. But all that stuff can be faked or, you know like, given a certain light, that may not really be fully true. And so, yeah, test ride and also make sure that you're thinking about the long-term servicing of the bike.

Henry Kellogg: 54:02

So is it realistic that this bike is going to be able to last five or 10 years and at that point, are you sure you're going to be able to get a replacement battery for it? What is the warranty? Is it serviced locally by an actual shop that you can go to? Like can you yell at someone when it breaks, or are you just, you know, writing an email into the void and not getting anything back? Generally, I'm certainly biased, but I say this not because we're trying to maximize our own profit, just because we've seen so many horror stories. Buying from a brick-and-mortar shop is generally the way to go and something I highly recommend.

Tom Butler: 54:33

You mentioned your Instagram page earlier. What are some ways that people can follow what you're doing, can contact you?

Henry Kellogg: 54:40

guys. We're trying to do more, just document the actual all these fun builds that we do and then make little conversion stories and those are all going to be posted on Instagram. I think it's just at Bikeswift all one word, and I don't like social media so much so I don't actually run it, but that is our handle Bikeswiftcom. You can check out the electric assistance that we offer, but really the best way to get to know us is to come in, and you're always welcome to bring a bike in. We'll do a free evaluation, make sure that it's a good candidate for electric assistance, see if it needs additional service work to become a safe electric bike, and you can always test ride bikes as well so you can find out whether that lower cost system would be a good fit for you or if you want all the bells and whistles and power of the higher end systems that we offer.

Tom Butler: 55:26

I hope you do a fairly thorough job of the Velomobile because I'm just really curious. You know, that's kind of to me a particular application of the technology and Velomobiles haven't been adopted widely from people, but that's a really interesting aspect of it.

Henry Kellogg: 55:48

Yeah, it's particularly cool because we live in Seattle, which is so rainy and you're basically fully enclosed in this thing. I doubt Velomobiles are going to take on. I think it's just a little too nerdy. For most people it's definitely a luck, but for those who have the confidence to ride them, I salute them.

Tom Butler: 56:06

Yeah Well, henry, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for inviting me to come step down with you check out your shop, and I really appreciate all the information. It's been super fun.

Henry Kellogg: 56:16

Thank you, Tom. Yeah, I really enjoyed it too. And I'll be talking to you more Sounds good.

Tom Butler: 56:29

I am really glad I found BikeSwift. The Cruise Bike is fairly expensive and I want the eBike conversion to be done by pros. I do believe it will be done right by the BikeSwift crew. So something that Henry said that resonated with me was that the components that they use are non-proprietary to a single manufacturer. I like that part of it. I like that, if something would happen to BikeSwift, that I could find parts directly from the company. But I do love that we can go back to BikeSwift with questions or any issues that come up.

Tom Butler: 57:00

I definitely do not see myself as having good information about what to do if an eBike breaks down. It makes me wonder how the big companies are handling service. It's hard to imagine that all their bike techs are fully educated in motors and sensors and all the other components of eBikes. I hope you've enjoyed that exploration of eBike conversions. I would like to hear from anyone who has had an experience with converting a regular bike to an eBike. You can find my email and the Instagram link in the show notes. Please take a moment to send me a message. I hope you are doing a better job than me sticking to your training plan. I hope you have fun in all your cycling adventures and remember age is just a gear change.