After a season of commuting, I thought I would post some of my experiences.
I now have a little over 2,300 miles on it, and have had a few problems, but
overall am quite happy with it.
The worst problem was an issue with the motor. Not long into its life it
started occasionally having some roughness, that I would call a rumble-thump.
It was a rough rumble over a small section of rotation of the wheel. It would
come and go, so I didn't worry too much about it. Then one day on the way
home it was solid. Rough rumble all the way around, while delivering almost
no power, and the controller would cut out completely after a few seconds.
So I limped home that day.
( The problem turned out to be a broken lead to
one of the hall sensors. The wire to it stuck out a little too far an would
rub against the side of the hub during one part of the rotation. That eventually
wore through the insulation, which probably shorted out to the hub, causing the
intermittent rumbles. But then repeated press and release with every revolution
eventually fatigued the lead until it broke. Grin Cyclery was very helpful, and
with the wheel under warranty, gave me the options of sending it back to them
for repair or sending me a new hall sensor with detailed instructions for
installing it. I opted for the latter, and was successful on my second attempt.
The first time I did not replace the sensor, but was able to solder the lead
back onto the tiny stump on the chip. Then I made the poor choice of securing
it all with hot glue. Seemed like a good idea at the time, till I thought about
it a bit when I was putting it all back together. Hubs do warm up a bit....
so of course that glue didn't hold. Got me to work and half the way back. Next
time I did a full replace of the one sensor chip, and used epoxy to secure
everything. It's been running smoothly since.
One other minor failure was the bracket I made that attaches the seat rack
reinforcement bars to the seat tube of the frame. It was made from pretty thin
aluminum, and didn't hold up. One end broke off, and the other end was pretty
close to breaking off as well. I made a new one from much thicker aluminum,
and it is holding up nicely so far.
I hate flats, so I run tire liners in addition to the heavy duty slime-filled
tubes. I had one flat that demonstrated the slime tubes at their best. On
the way to work I heard and felt a loud pop at the rear wheel. I hoped it had
just shot a rock the way that sometimes happen when you hit it just right. I
didnn't stop to check it, and things seemed pretty normal till the final turn
into the parking lot, at which time I got a thump thump thump, then nothing as
I straightened out. At the bike rack, I took a look and found a big green spot
where the slime had done its job. There was still decent pressure in the tire.
At lunch time I checked and it was totally flat. I could see a piece of metal
in the green spot, so I pulled on it. It came out two inches, then didn't want
to come out further. After prying a bit I got it out. It was a nail, and had
entered the tire head first! The head measured a quarter inch in diameter.
Anyway, I rotated the wheel to put the wound on the bottom, then pumped it up
partially. When it was time to go home, there was still some pressure in the
tire, so I pumped it up more and made it all the way home! I didn't hold
forever though, so I did have to replace the tube, and replaced the tire while
I was at it since it was such a significant puncture. But still, pretty
impressive!
At one point I discovered three spokes were broken. I ordered some new ones
and replaced them, and also tightened them all up a bit. Since then a few more
have broken, so I keep a better eye on them and replace them as they break. I
got those from ebikessf.
I have found the cycle analyst (computer) to be quite worth the money. I use
the programmable limits to limit the current to 25A and the speed to 31 mph.
I find that to be sufficient power while still maintaining decent range. The
speed limit serves as a cruise control of sorts. 31 mph is what I find to be
about my maximum comfortable cadence, so it's nice to be able to just hold
the throttle open and contribute whatever amount of effort I want to the pedals,
while maintaining a nice cruise speed.
I've found people's reactions to be entertaining on occasion. First of all, it's
always fun to pass the lycra guys. Some of them don't seem to figure out that it's
motorized, and why they're being passed by some dufus wearing a cotton T shirt on
a mountain bike. One of the funniest experiences was after passing and being passed
by a motorcycle several times (I would pass him at the stop lights), he pulls up
next to me and paces me on my the big uphill of my commute. He yells over, "How
are you doing that?". I point to the hub and tell him it's electric. "That's
fuckin awesome!" he yells back, then pulls away.
Toward the end of the summer I finally added a front fender for the few occasions
when I do find myself riding in or after rain. Without that, I would take quite
a bit of tire spray in the face. The spray from the rear seems to be mostly
caught by the rack and battery case.
