Hey everybody

Kinda new to the forum, but I am attempting my first electric bike,
and thought I might share what I have done so far, and see if
anybody has any ideas. First I am using a "dynoglide" bike, old
style curved shwin frame, looks classic, and has a great motor mount
spot near the rear wheel. For the motor, I am using a winch motor
from a superwinch T1500, its a .71 horsepower 90amp max DC motor.
The great thing about this motor is that it comes with a planetary
gear set up that has a 153:1 ratio. While this is waaaaay to much,
taking one the last gear out brings it to around a 15:1 ratio which
can be stepped up a little to get more speed out of the bike. A
little backwards from some some of the other set ups, but it is very
compact. Now, for the battery pack. I have used some deep draw lead
acid batteries, but am actually building a NiMh battery pack from
double A batteries. I have a very cheep source for them, and right
now have about 80 of them, and am working on connecting them in
cells consising of 50 batteries at 12 volts. If anybody has tried
anything like this and has any suggestions or questions, shoot me a
line, I would be more than happy to hear from you.

One question I do have though, (and yes I am a little ignorant of
this) Is why people invest so much money on a DC speed controller, I
understand they have some advantages such as the option for recharge
breaking, but could one not use a large Potentiometer for speed
control?