Simple ways to make your e-bike faster
There are a few easy things you can do to make your ebike faster that don’t involve modifying it or it’s settings.
1 – Always ride with a charged battery
The voltage your battery produces is always the most when it’s 100% charged. As the battery discharges the voltage drops off. A fully charged Lithium cell will produce 4.2 volts. At 50% charge it will produce 3.6 volts and it will get down to close to 3 volts when it’s fully discharged. Your bike will go faster at 4.2 volts per cell then it will at 3.6 volts per cell. Top off your ebike batteries before riding if you want to go faster.
2 – Change the tires
If your electric bike came with off road or mountain bike tires, change it to road tires. Road tires are smooth with much lower rolling resistance. If you have knobby tires, swap them out with slick tires. Your ebike will go faster since it won’t be working against the tires.
3 – Add more air to the tires
Adding more air to your e-bike tires will reduce their rolling resistance. It will increase the diameter of the wheels meaning you go a little bit farther with each wheel rotation. This will make your electric bike a little bit faster. The downside is that the ride quality will get rougher. You will feel cracks in the pavement more. You will have less traction from over inflated tires as well.
4 – Remove any speed limiter
Some electric bikes have a wired in speed limiter that can be disabled. To turn off the speed limiter you disconnect this wire. It is usually one of the wires connected to the speed controller. It can be different for every ebike. Different colors, different locations, etc.. The below video shows and example of how to disable it on one type of ebike. Search for your particular electric bike to see if there is a wired in speed limiter for it.
5 – Make the speed sensor think you are going slower for mid-drives
If you have a mid-drive ebike, they use a wheel speed sensor on the back wheel. They do this instead of measuring the speed through the motor which won’t work. There are a few ways to trick the speed sensor into thinking the bike is going slower than it is.
The best way I have seen is the move the sensor to your crank instead of the wheel. Your crank will almost always be spinning slower than your rear wheel. Your speedometer will no longer work because it will be based on your crank speed instead of the wheel. You won’t have a speed limiter anymore either.
Post time: Jan-25-2022
