New Fat Tire BBSHD Build From Scratch! Need HELP Selecting Components!

[Cyb0rg d3ck3r]

I'll absolutely be doing a full build thread with tons of pictures here soon. But I'm not 100% sure about some parts, and I was hoping some more experienced riders might steer me in the right direction. Thanks in advance!

Kinda Light vs Kinda Heavy? I don't want to go 40mph, but do I want range and nimbleness? Or heavy duty with more float?

Priorities: I'm building a commuter that will spend most of its time on gravel or pavement, with the occasional singletrack/cornfield in mind. Deep snow maybe once or twice a year if I'm ahead of the plow trucks somehow, but not a backcountry trailblazer per se, nor a downhill bomber. I don't want to buy a bunch of parts and then upgrade them, and no current models really check all my boxes, so I'm starting from frame. I have a lifetime of experience on rigid MTBs and I love them, and fat tires alone are such an improvement in ride, I don't want suspension (if I find out I was wrong about that I can maybe add a suspension seat post, MAYBE suspension stem, most likely neither).

Motor/Battery: 100% going with a BBSHD, probably with a half-grip throttle and a 500c or Eggrider display, and Ludicrous controller. For battery, I will probably either try to cram in the biggest one possible, or keep 2 small ones. Probably Luna.

Rigid Frameset: Probably going with a BikesDirect level frame for cost. I was looking at a Gravity Bullseye Monster frameset, or a Motobecane Boris frameset, both $200 on Amazon (pictured). At 5'10" 170lbs, I can run either medium size (16-17") for handling or large size (18-19") for stability, both comfortably. However, the Boris has a modern geometry that might require a large's triangle for a battery. I have no idea which frame is lighter, but the Monster has hub spacing of 135mm/170mm (4" tires max, = lighter?) and the Boris has 150mm/190mm (5" tires max, = optionally heavier). I wish they were thru-axle rear, due to power level. ALMOST CONSIDERING a Surly Wednesday/Ice Cream Truck frameset for the steel construction and TA spacing, but it's another $600-800 so that's quite a choice. Any experience with either? SUPER OPEN to other suggestions too!

Wheelset: I consider "default" to be like an 80mm Mulefut with 4" Maxxis Minions. The "light" option, maybe Alex Blizzerk 70mm with 4" Kenda Juggernaut Pro? The "heavy" option might look like 100mm HED Big Aluminum Deal with 5" Snowshoes/Cake Eaters or some such? Haven't decided between tubeless or ultralight tubes yet. Definitely interested in any notable options here!

Freehub/Cassette: I want inexpensive all-steel stuff to handle the BBSHD torque confidently. Might get a wheelset through Bikesmiths with the Novatec D101SB/D102SB hubs. Cassette somewhere in the 8-9-10 speed range.

Brakes/Rotors: Noticed everyone suggests nice big/strong hydraulic disc brakes, but I've also heard only hydraulics can fail at high (ebike) temps. I was unwilling to accept "Powerful Hydraulic Disc Brakes" from BikesDirect lol. Not sure how "nice" these need to be, but I DO like the low maintenance of mechanical discs, if they'd be enough with huge rotors, maybe 200mm front/180mm rear, maybe Ice Tech? Wildly open to suggestions here, but will probably go with bb7 and metallic pads unless/until I NEED hydraulic.

Chainring/Crank Arms: We'll see. I want to see how the stock Bafang stuff lines up before I choose a Lekkie or Luna ring. I like the idea of longer crank arms but I'm concerned about pedal strike so who knows. Any input appreciated!

Derailleur/Shifter: We'll see. Not too picky here, I'll go with something serviceable. Suggestions welcome.

Stem/Handlebar/Seatpost/Saddle/Pedals: I'll basically pick this stuff up last, when the rest of the bike is pretty much done. Not sure how I want to set up a cockpit until I can see my frame size choice in real life.

Thanks for reading, I GREATLY appreciate any advice/experience/input! Once these decisions are made, I'll be starting. This will be posted on a couple different forums, feel free to chime in wherever! I can't wait to get this daily driver started!

 

[qwerkus]

This should probably go into the Ebike Build Threads subsection...

 

[Chalo]

I wish they were thru-axle rear, due to power level.

Then it seems you don't understand how dropouts work. The only thing through axles do better than proven traditional QR axles is resist being shifted around or ejected by incorrectly oriented disc brakes. (Oh, and bungle their threads, and present all kinds of incompatibility issues when trying to replace them.)

Wheelset: I consider "default" to be like an 80mm Mulefut with 4" Maxxis Minions. The "light" option, maybe Alex Blizzerk 70mm with 4" Kenda Juggernaut Pro? The "heavy" option might look like 100mm HED Big Aluminum Deal with 5" Snowshoes/Cake Eaters or some such? Haven't decided between tubeless or ultralight tubes yet. Definitely interested in any notable options here!

If you stick to rims in the 65-70mm size range, you will be able to use either the fattest tires available or a range of more normal sized tires nominally 2.25" or bigger. A 65mm rim adds about 1/2" of measured width to those narrower sizes. A 2.5" smooth treaded street tire will give you much better handling, range, speed, and efficiency than a fatbike tire, for those times when that's what you want.

I've said it before and I'll surely say it again, but fat knobby tires are a severe handicap everywhere other than very soft surfaces. If you gotta have fatties but this is going to be your regular transportation bike, I recommend EBC Rhino 3.0", Vee Speedster/Origin8 Captiv8er 3.5", Origin8 Supercell 4", or Vee Apache Fatty Slick 4.5" tires.

Don't go tubeless. That will only waste your time, make messes, and crud up your tires and wheels. If you want sealant, put it in the tubes.

Freehub/Cassette: I want inexpensive all-steel stuff to handle the BBSHD torque confidently. Might get a wheelset through Bikesmiths with the Novatec D101SB/D102SB hubs. Cassette somewhere in the 8-9-10 speed range.

I highly recommend Microshift Acolyte 8 or Advent 9 for cassette, derailleur, and shifter. Nothing else works as well for the price.

Wildly open to suggestions here, but will probably go with bb7 and metallic pads unless/until I NEED hydraulic.

If you NEED brakes, you don't need hydraulics. Many of the problems with hydraulic brakes result in zero braking, and most of the rest result in seriously diminished braking. Mechanical discs don't have nearly as many (or as difficult to fix) failure modes.

Avid BB7 or TRP Spyke with sintered metal pads and 200-203mm rotors (preferably 2.3mm thick) will give you all the braking you can stand, along with long life, easy maintenance, and field serviceability.

I like the idea of longer crank arms but I'm concerned about pedal strike so who knows.

The BBSHD likes to turn faster than your feet do, especially if (like most hot rodders) you use 52V rather than 48V. For this reason, shorter than normal cranks are better because they're easier to wind up to high RPM to harmonize with the mid drive.

I took the 170mm cranks off my BBS02 in favor of 152mm unicycle cranks, even though I'm 6'8" and prefer 200+mm cranks on my acoustic bikes.

Stem/Handlebar/Seatpost/Saddle/Pedals: I'll basically pick this stuff up last, when the rest of the bike is pretty much done. Not sure how I want to set up a cockpit until I can see my frame size choice in real life.

When you're not pushing pedals as hard because the bike is taking care of the heavy lifting, the natural inclination is to want to sit up straighter than you would as prime mover. That implies a higher bar position and wider saddle. Even when you have big poofy tires, high speeds make a sprung saddle more desirable.

 

[scianiac]

I just built a bike with a Gravity Bullseye Monster frameset, it's cheap but I have nothing bad to say about it except maybe the bottom headset cup was not fun to remove, it has the races installed but doesn't come with the bearings.

Mine was built purely for deep snow so not a lot of crossover exactly with this build. I'm not totally sure though given your use case a fat bike makes sense. They are kinda worse in every way unless you are riding on snow or sand. At least in my experience fat tires are a pretty poor excuse for suspension as they have almost no damping, even less so once at the tire pressures you are going to want for pavement. I would much rather have a bike with suspension and some 2.5-3in tires.

 

[jonsully]

Motor/Battery: 100% going with a BBSHD, probably with a half-grip throttle and a 500c or Eggrider display, and Ludicrous controller. For battery, I will probably either try to cram in the biggest one possible, or keep 2 small ones. Probably Luna.

Not that I don't love the BBSHD (I do), but why are you 100% going with the BBSHD? Tell me about how you desire to ride the bike. Do you want to pedal with it? Ride it throttle-only and never pedal? The best motor (and even battery-) setup will be inspired by the desired riding style you have with the bike, not just the legend of the systems used happy to provide some advice based on what you're after there!

 

[DaLanMan]

I literally have no input on most of this, enjoy reading it though.

The one thing that I can add is simple. If you are looking for a frame selection look around your area for dead bike projects or last bits left after a theft etc. There are a *lot* of frames available in the 2nds market. Most of them are never bought by bike people. I have a large boneyard here. Included in it are 3 frames that when I was told what the bike originally cost about lost it. I have 2 Yeti frames that I have since cleaned up, and put on the market. I am delivering the third one tomorrow to a bike store owner.

I do every possible safety check I can on these, I do measure all the holes vs the desired shape and size (don't ask, i learned that I had to ) and I check all the bits that are supposed to be threaded with actual thread testing kit. I would reccomend if you are buying a used frame, find someone who is re-conditioning them. The one I just sold I am told new is in the multiple of hundreds. I marked it up 400% and added 50 bucks for my time in testing. Comes out to 170 bucks total with my guy charging 20 bucks to run it out to the shop.

With all that said. Damn Chalo, you are bigger than me? and still bike that much... Huzzah my friend.

 

[Cyb0rg d3ck3r]

I literally have no input on most of this, enjoy reading it though.

The one thing that I can add is simple. If you are looking for a frame selection look around your area for dead bike projects or last bits left after a theft etc. There are a *lot* of frames available in the 2nds market. Most of them are never bought by bike people. I have a large boneyard here. Included in it are 3 frames that when I was told what the bike originally cost about lost it. I have 2 Yeti frames that I have since cleaned up, and put on the market. I am delivering the third one tomorrow to a bike store owner.

I do every possible safety check I can on these, I do measure all the holes vs the desired shape and size (don't ask, i learned that I had to ) and I check all the bits that are supposed to be threaded with actual thread testing kit. I would reccomend if you are buying a used frame, find someone who is re-conditioning them. The one I just sold I am told new is in the multiple of hundreds. I marked it up 400% and added 50 bucks for my time in testing. Comes out to 170 bucks total with my guy charging 20 bucks to run it out to the shop.

With all that said. Damn Chalo, you are bigger than me? and still bike that much... Huzzah my friend.

Great suggestion, thanks!

 

[Cyb0rg d3ck3r]

Not that I don't love the BBSHD (I do), but why are you 100% going with the BBSHD? Tell me about how you desire to ride the bike. Do you want to pedal with it? Ride it throttle-only and never pedal? The best motor (and even battery-) setup will be inspired by the desired riding style you have with the bike, not just the legend of the systems used happy to provide some advice based on what you're after there!

Purely just love its attributes vs the main contenders "in category" (as I see category). Lot of throttle. Also, common motor for apocalypse scavenging LOL

Edit: I AM slightly interested in a torque-sensing alternative (that will actually fit a 120mm BB) and I've had the CYC Photon and ToSeven 1000w (only 100mm...) suggested elsewhere. Curious what you WOULD suggest in this realm?

 

[Cyb0rg d3ck3r]

I just built a bike with a Gravity Bullseye Monster frameset, it's cheap but I have nothing bad to say about it except maybe the bottom headset cup was not fun to remove, it has the races installed but doesn't come with the bearings.

Mine was built purely for deep snow so not a lot of crossover exactly with this build. I'm not totally sure though given your use case a fat bike makes sense. They are kinda worse in every way unless you are riding on snow or sand. At least in my experience fat tires are a pretty poor excuse for suspension as they have almost no damping, even less so once at the tire pressures you are going to want for pavement. I would much rather have a bike with suspension and some 2.5-3in tires.

In a word, versatility. I have my heart set on rigid frame because I don't really care about damping. As long as the fat tire doesn't have LESS than the 26" mtb I'm used to, I will occasionally appreciate the option to slightly soften up. The aspects of fat tire I dislike are nicely absorbed by the motor

 

[Cyb0rg d3ck3r]

This should probably go into the Ebike Build Threads subsection...

Sorry, is there a way I can easily move it? Or ask an admin to?

 

[Cyb0rg d3ck3r]

Then it seems you don't understand how dropouts work. The only thing through axles do better than proven traditional QR axles is resist being shifted around or ejected by incorrectly oriented disc brakes. (Oh, and bungle their threads, and present all kinds of incompatibility issues when trying to replace them.)


If you stick to rims in the 65-70mm size range, you will be able to use either the fattest tires available or a range of more normal sized tires nominally 2.25" or bigger. A 65mm rim adds about 1/2" of measured width to those narrower sizes. A 2.5" smooth treaded street tire will give you much better handling, range, speed, and efficiency than a fatbike tire, for those times when that's what you want.

I've said it before and I'll surely say it again, but fat knobby tires are a severe handicap everywhere other than very soft surfaces. If you gotta have fatties but this is going to be your regular transportation bike, I recommend EBC Rhino 3.0", Vee Speedster/Origin8 Captiv8er 3.5", Origin8 Supercell 4", or Vee Apache Fatty Slick 4.5" tires.

Don't go tubeless. That will only waste your time, make messes, and crud up your tires and wheels. If you want sealant, put it in the tubes.


I highly recommend Microshift Acolyte 8 or Advent 9 for cassette, derailleur, and shifter. Nothing else works as well for the price.


If you NEED brakes, you don't need hydraulics. Many of the problems with hydraulic brakes result in zero braking, and most of the rest result in seriously diminished braking. Mechanical discs don't have nearly as many (or as difficult to fix) failure modes.

Avid BB7 or TRP Spyke with sintered metal pads and 200-203mm rotors (preferably 2.3mm thick) will give you all the braking you can stand, along with long life, easy maintenance, and field serviceability.


The BBSHD likes to turn faster than your feet do, especially if (like most hot rodders) you use 52V rather than 48V. For this reason, shorter than normal cranks are better because they're easier to wind up to high RPM to harmonize with the mid drive.

I took the 170mm cranks off my BBS02 in favor of 152mm unicycle cranks, even though I'm 6'8" and prefer 200+mm cranks on my acoustic bikes.



When you're not pushing pedals as hard because the bike is taking care of the heavy lifting, the natural inclination is to want to sit up straighter than you would as prime mover. That implies a higher bar position and wider saddle. Even when you have big poofy tires, high speeds make a sprung saddle more desirable.

Thank you, I really appreciate your time! There is a lot of information here.

First, thanks for reassuring me about QR sizing! I was just worried about a couple "horror stories" I'd heard and figured I should hedge my bets if possible.

Super awesome tire suggestions! Googling them extensively, I really appreciate the benefit of your experience here. Also, I'm quite reassured on my rim size preference of 70-ish and NOT tubeless, I really wanted this to be tradeoff-free as possible (and with low snow priority it seems that way).

I keep hearing of the happy BB7/Spyke users, and the overrated nature of Hydraulic. I'm terrified of hydraulic, so it's nice to hear the same caveats come an experienced source.

You kind of blew my mind with the crank length thing! If that's your experience at 6'8", I'm unlikely to experience it differently at a long-legged 5'10". This is a GOLDEN piece of anecdotal evidence. I'll reference it directly.

Good to know about posturing, as I would naturally tend to prefer more aggressive lean. Maybe not. Noted!

Again, I really appreciate your time, and the benefit of your experience. Thank you!

 

[Bullfrog]

BBSHD is an excellent choice for the riding you described.

You can use Unicycle crank arms on your BBSHD and get a larger variation of lengths.

I agree with Chalo "fat knobby tires are a severe handicap everywhere other than very soft surfaces." I'd get two wheel sets if you really want to run the fat tires some of the time. AND put the sealant in the tube.

As for chain rings...the Lekkie rings have worked great for me. I run a 28 front Lekkie chain ring with a 22 freewheel and a 52v battery...that gives me a top speed of about 18 mph...but I only use it off road so 18 mph works fine for me. With a multi speed freewheel/cassette you could shift as necessary.

 

[calab]

Microshift Acolyte

As stated by Chalo in a post he made last year, the Microshift Acolyte requires matching rd and shifter as the pull ratio is different.

Derailleur compatibility

I put a BBS02 on an old Norco Kathmandu bargain basement mountain bike. The installation was pretty straight forward, and it works well, but am running into some problems with shifting. I installed a Gustavo (leckie knock off) 42 tooth chainring on the front, so I wanted a larger toothed...

endless-sphere.com

 

[Cyb0rg d3ck3r]

BBSHD is an excellent choice for the riding you described.

You can use Unicycle crank arms on your BBSHD and get a larger variation of lengths.

I agree with Chalo "fat knobby tires are a severe handicap everywhere other than very soft surfaces." I'd get two wheel sets if you really want to run the fat tires some of the time. AND put the sealant in the tube.

As for chain rings...the Lekkie rings have worked great for me. I run a 28 front Lekkie chain ring with a 22 freewheel and a 52v battery...that gives me a top speed of about 18 mph...but I only use it off road so 18 mph works fine for me. With a multi speed freewheel/cassette you could shift as necessary.

I appreciate the advice. Yeah, I'm definitely going with tires more suited to gravel/pavement. Considering my real off-road use of this daily driver may only be 5% of total riding maximum, I'd imagine the better-rolling tires would probably at least function on singletrack. Enough that I've basically abandoned the idea of full-time knobbies, even the Jumbo Jim probably.

 

[Cyb0rg d3ck3r]

As stated by Chalo in a post he made last year, the Microshift Acolyte requires matching rd and shifter as the pull ratio is different.

Derailleur compatibility

I put a BBS02 on an old Norco Kathmandu bargain basement mountain bike. The installation was pretty straight forward, and it works well, but am running into some problems with shifting. I installed a Gustavo (leckie knock off) 42 tooth chainring on the front, so I wanted a larger toothed...

endless-sphere.com

I appreciate you pointing this out. I would not have realized this quickly lol.

 

[Chalo]

I appreciate you pointing this out. I would not have realized this quickly lol.

Microsoft Advent and Acolyte derailleurs and shifters are dedicated to each other, but the cassettes are just cassettes. Their spacing is compatible with others of the same gear count.

 

[Bullfrog]

I run 2.6"-2.8" wide tires and they work great everywhere I ride except super deep sand and as long as I keep my speed up, they do OK in the deep sand. Only time I'd go with fat tires i.e. 4"+ is if I was riding in snow or riding for more than a couple minutes in deep/soft sand.

Just FYI, I live in Florida so I ride a lot of sand .

My BBSHD is mounted on a Mongoose Hitch Fat Tire Bike and I laced a 27.5" rim to one of the rear hubs I had that is 190mm OLD. I swap back and forth between the 27.5"x2.8" Maxxis DHR II and a Maxxis FBR 26"x4". It is super easy to swap wheels with a mid drive.

If you really want to run fat tires, I would get a fat tire bike that has a narrower distance between the rear frame rails than 190mm...why, because I have bent several axles. Something narrower would not bend as easy. You could go larger in diameter as well...the Mongoose Hitch axle is 9mm in diameter. I eventually plan to build a hub with 10mm axle using fairly high strength threaded rod I bought at Fastenal.