An Instant E-Bike: Electrifying a Bike Can be Electrifyingly Easy

In 2009, I wrote in these pages about my efforts to add an electric motor to a bicycle—a project that involved a considerable outlay of money and many hours in a machine shop behind a lathe. At the time, e-bikes were still rather exotic, at least in the United States, so it seemed worth the expense and effort to build my own.