Anyone into electric cycling? Electric Bicycles

[LeftieBiker]

It's been too long since I posted here. I'm still riding, albeit with pain in my legs and feet. I'm in the process of converting the Metro to a 1kw direct drive. It's been slow, laborious...and now I think the motor may be defective. I have it mounted but not connected. The thing is, it's so hard to turn the wheel, it's as if there is an invisible rim brake holding it. I'm discouraged.



The ST700 is pretty much finished, and is my daily ride. I had a bike mechanic look at it while he was here mounting the tire on and truing the Magic Pie 5 wheel. The factory had installed 2 lower races, and that was messing it up. Now it steers as well as the Metro. I have it set for 7 assist levels, and when I select the 7th the bike surges forward even if it's already over 20MPH. Ludicrous Mode for bicycle.





Finally, I refurbished my old spare EZIP for my sister, with new tires and tubes, brakes, seat and mirrors. Took me just one evening, for once.





So the Metro may never get done, at this rate. I spent $100+ getting the wheel motor ready to mount, $600 for the wheel kit, and more hours than you'd think mounting it. If it's defective I may try for a refund and put in a cheap Ebay DD motor. I'm very unimpressed so far with Golden Motor products.

[LeftieBiker]

With the advice of a helpful regular (Mod?) at the Golden Motors Forum, I found the problem with the new motor. It's one of those crazy things that are too common, especially with Chinese manufacturers. The motor accepts disk brake rotors in the usual manner: six pre-drilled holes in the case, to accept the six industry standard M5 x 10mm screws. Except that the holes go all the way through the motor case, and terminate in a tiny space between the case and the internal controller housing. It seems that when you use those standard brake rotor screws, there is a fairly high likelihood that the screws will go past the little cavity, and dig into the controller housing, thus locking up the wheel, more or less. The fix is to use a washer or two between the screw heads and the case. So assuming that I didn't actually damage the controller, I can proceed with the installation, and deal with the next problem: the cables for the throttle and e-brakes are far too short. I'll have to get extensions for them. I also need to solder an XT-90 connector on the end of the motor power cable, and on the power cable running from the battery holder. I also want to incorporate a fuse there.

[jjeff]

^^^ interesting, you'd think they would make a better stop for those screws.
Speaking of E-bikes, what do you think of this folding step through E-bike with fat tires? Heybike brand, ranger model. Sounds interesting, they stress how expensive it is and it's not cheap but I've seen far more expensive E-bikes although I haven't really looked into folding models.
For those of us Metrically challenged:
Total bike weight-About 70lbs
48v 15ah battery-23lbs of the above 70.
Payload-330lbs
48-mile pedal assist range
28mph governor restricted top speed
500w hub
Tires-20"x4"
Price-$1400 which again from what I've seen with E-bikes isn't too bad, if it's a good bike........
https://insideevs.com/news/587637/heybi ... tric-bike/
https://www.heybike.com/

[LeftieBiker]

I just last month sold one. I'd had it for years, but didn't use it that much - especially with the pandemic. It was a Greenbike USA BG-500. The problems I had with it were that it was VERY loud on pavement because of tire noise, it was a little anemic (500 watt, 48 volt hubmotor), and almost immediately after buying it, it became too heavy for me to lift into a vehicle. I would have gotten the non-fat-tire version, but the other features on that one were so much worse (no display, just a panel with LED lights, 3 speed assist rather than 6, rear rim brake, etc) that I couldn't do it. It was a Class II, rather than the Class III you reference. It did easily do 20MPH; by "anemic" I mean that it had little power to spare for off-road riding. Not a bad little bike for gentle trail riding, though.

[salyavin]

Last year I think it was I got a Yamaha Urban Rush and speed boxed it, got a rack, put on fenders, got different pedals. I started having to go into the office a couple weeks about 20 miles away and have been doing that entirely by ebike. As you can imagine with the distance the motor really helps me keep that speed up to keep the commute right about at 1 hour. We have an indoor bike room at our office and showers and lockers so I don't have to be shy about working hard. I let me wife use the LEAF to do school runs, shopping etc.
It would be nice if I am able to do all my stuff I do alone an on ebike and we could go back to having just one car.

I do more of a road bike like configuration as I am more comfortable going long distance and at higher speeds that way. I will probably go to a social meeting downtown this weekend on it again which is about 30 miles (way across town).

[jjeff]

I just last month sold one. I'd had it for years, but didn't use it that much - especially with the pandemic. It was a Greenbike USA BG-500. The problems I had with it were that it was VERY loud on pavement because of tire noise, it was a little anemic (500 watt, 48 volt hubmotor), and almost immediately after buying it, it became too heavy for me to lift into a vehicle. I would have gotten the non-fat-tire version, but the other features on that one were so much worse (no display, just a panel with LED lights, 3 speed assist rather than 6, rear rim brake, etc) that I couldn't do it. It was a Class II, rather than the Class III you reference. It did easily do 20MPH; by "anemic" I mean that it had little power to spare for off-road riding. Not a bad little bike for gentle trail riding, though.

Updated my previous post to include brand and link to mfg.
So are you saying that's the same as a Heybike or just a similar folding bike? Looks quite similar and I agree, e-bikes do seem to be rather hefty, many around 70lbs but they do make a lighter <50lb bike and quite a bit cheaper too at just <$800 called a commuter bike RACE but lacks the versatility I liked about the folding model, most of the bikes I've seen with much versatility top out around 65-75lbs.
Now that you mention "loud" I'd probably be better off with a more "urban" or "commuter" type bike/tires. Not skinny racing tires but probably not big baloon-type tires either. I was also thinking the fatter tires would probably eat into the range a fair bit too, compared to smaller tires.

[alozzy]

The value of the Lectric XP 2.0 ebikes is hard to beat:

https://lectricebikes.com/collections/ebikes

Don't be fooled by the modest 500W rating of the motor, the peak is 850W.

[LeftieBiker]

Updated my previous post to include brand and link to mfg.
So are you saying that's the same as a Heybike or just a similar folding bike? Looks quite similar and I agree, e-bikes do seem to be rather hefty, many around 70lbs but they do make a lighter <50lb bike and quite a bit cheaper too at just <$800 called a commuter bike RACE but lacks the versatility I liked about the folding model, most of the bikes I've seen with much versatility top out around 65-75lbs.
Now that you mention "loud" I'd probably be better off with a more "urban" or "commuter" type bike/tires. Not skinny racing tires but probably not big baloon-type tires either. I was also thinking the fatter tires would probably eat into the range a fair bit too, compared to smaller tires.

No, it isn't a Heybike, AFAIK, just a similar configuration.

Don't be afraid of balloon tires. They aren't generally loud like fat bike tires - I've been riding on them for years. Schwalbe makes great balloon tires, although you might want to have someone else mount them, as they can be kind of "tight." Schwalbe Super Moto tires are fantastic for street use with a little dirt or rain included. They also have a wide pressure range, so you can run them hard for range, soft for dirt traction, or something in between, as I do.

Aren't Lectric bikes the brand with good components but no suspension? I've never had anything but hardtails (I use suspension seatposts), but I wouldn't buy an e-bike with no suspension forks. Too jarring for me.

[LeftieBiker]

I crested a big hill last night and got the Goldenmotor wiring harness tacked onto the Metro. I was only able to connect the cruise control/horn switch, and the main power cable, but later last night I went back out, and painstakingly made adapting connectors for the brake switches. I do have a full twist throttle that I no longer plan to mount on the bike, and that has a matching connector for the harness, so later tonight I just may go out and get it ready for some bench testing, using the tired old Metro battery rather than the new one, with the throttle off the bike but plugged in. The first step is to try to get the Bluetooth controller in the wheel to accept some nice, mild programming parameters. Fingers crossed...

[LeftieBiker]

Two days later, and after doing two work sessions a night, the bike is ready for a test ride. I wrestled the right grip off, and installed the full twist throttle. I decided that since I rode motorcycles for 50+ years I'm not likely to have trouble both holding on and using the twist throttle. After a ridiculous amount of effort, and ending up with the higher gearing I wanted but a front chain ring with 4 good screws/nuts and one defective one, and about 10 tries to get the chain on and linked, the pedal drivetrain is working, with all new parts except the derailleur. There was yet another problem that turned up last thing this morning: the powertrain comes on when the battery is charging, and the only way to get around it until I install the DC breaker I picked up as a main power switch is to remove the battery to charge it. Having struggled mightily to get the battery lock mechanism working again after having it apart, that worried me, but it seems I really did get the lock working properly.

So sometime this evening I'll be taking the first test ride on my 1kw direct drive Magnum Metro step-through. I finally got the Bluetooth interface working with the 5 YO smartphone I'm using as a display, and I entered some gentler parameters, both to spare the elderly battery I'm using for now, and to make riding the bike less dangerous until I get used to it. Wish me luck - and no injuries.