Endless Sphere

Since July I've ridden 870 miles on a 1997 FS bike with a rear MAC motor. Most riding is on paved bike paths, with perhaps a hundred miles on streets. This bike rides very well, comfort is much better than the rigid ebike I rode for 1200 miles during the first half of the year. 20 mph is a comfortab...

Hub motors need torque arms to prevent the axle from spinning in the dropouts. Dropouts must have enough open space around them for the axle nut and for the torque arms. Some frames have sort of hoods or flanges around the dropouts, I'd avoid such a frame. The GMAC rear hub motor avoids torque arm f...

Every other ride on the hike and bike paths I get passed by an ebike that looks much like a Super 73. They aren't going much faster than I and I'm pretty slow. They get sliced and diced by roadies on pedal bikes, just like I do.

Ride on, ride on, ride on.

The solution sort of depends on what kind of conversion you are using. Front hub motor, rear hub motor or mid drive. But first: a man's Townie has a lot of space for hanging the battery in a bag suspended from the top tube. The bag with some bubble wrap under the battery will provide cushioning that...

The Limbo and the Ray 2 look very interesting, both have rear suspension. Rear suspension really tames the additional shock caused by having a rear hub motor. A suspension seatpost can provide some rear suspension effect. The two bikes you mention look like they would work very well with a rear hub ...

Bike E is the one, it has rear suspension. A rider living nearby has one with a rear hub motor and a 20 ah battery. He rides pretty fast and told me it works very well. His longest ride, if memory serves, is around 70 miles. Like Dogman's black bike in the pic, the bike E rider can't unweight and st...

This year I've been on 3 different conversion ebikes for several hundred miles each, here's some observations. First was a no suspension mid 70's bike that was muchly like a late 80's Hardrock Sport. I mounted riser bars with some back reach to get a more upright position and put on a wider C9 seat....

The geared hub motors having positive mention here are probably good enough. I'd rather ride good enough than not ride best. Rather ride $ than not ride $$. My only significant experience is with a MAC 12 turn rear geared hub. It works very well, never a problem in 720 miles. It's powered by a 52v, ...

To me, that last post is magic, it has hit the nail squarely on it's head. Larger front chainring, larger rear cog, results in less chain pull and less pull force on the bottom bracket bearings, compared to using a small front chainring and normal sized big cog in the rear. If a hardtail has enough ...

I have 662 miles on a 1997 Mongoose FS bike, they were bike shop bikes back then, not Walmart bikes. Rear hub motor is a geared, 12 turn, MAC, torque arms are home made, on both sides and total a bit over a half inch thick. These torque arms also act as wheel retention, but the side nuts are used to...

Trek mid drive bikes I've ridden have had excellent power controllability. But, you can get smooth power delivery with a throttle, at least my first ebike, a DD hub, had smooth power delivery. My present rear geared hub motor FS bike does not have as smooth and controllable power delivery, but it ha...

It went sort of like a Woody Allen movie. The bike had eBrake levers made for V brakes but had cantilever brakes. A lot of lever force was needed to get only moderate braking. I expected to remove bolts and slide the cantis off the brake studs and slide on the new V brakes. On the Rockshox Indy C fo...

Battery location: My FS bike is much like the green bike, uses a rear MAC motor with 52v, 20ah, 14s, 8p battery. Battery in the bag made it hard to handle when stopped or riding uphill, especially in tricky conditions. I moved the battery to the left side of the mid frame tubes, adjacent to where th...

My method is to use a CA V3 on the bike, an iPhone camera and excel to keep track of battery use and charge data and do the calculations. One use is to keep track of charge Vi, Vf, Ti and Tf, from this dT/dV is calculated for each charge and averaged for all the battery charge cycles. The average dT...

A neighbor is using, I think, a QZH 52v, 20ah, 14s, 8p. He has ridden as far as 70 miles on a charge and this battery has worked very well for him. I bought the same battery on Amazon and it has done very well for me too. Amazon purchase but it shipped from China and arrived in about half the time t...

The bike is a 1997 Mongoose full suspension, the rear hub motor is a MAC. There is no usable front triangle on this bike, and thus no good place to mount a battery in the front triangle. The new battery is too big to mount under the down tube. The new battery is a 14s, 8p, 52v, 20ah, it weighs 12.2 ...

Thanks guys, you've given me the information I need.

From trying cantilever levers on V-brakes and V levers on cantilevers, it seems best to use levers and brakes made to work together.

I really appreciate the help.

Best wishes,

Mike S

For conversion from cantilever to V-brakes. The ebrake levers on my bike are made for V-brakes and require too much lever force when used with my cantilever brakes. Riding is mostly bike path, I seldom go over 20 mph and usually ride in the 12 to 16 mph range. I walk the bike down steep hills when o...

That is very interesting, you have taken this in an interesting direction.

I wish there was a resume button, that worked like resume on car cruise controls.

An alternative to torque or rpm pedal assist is to use the cruise control on a Cycle Analyst V3. Throttle along with CA V3 cruise control works very well. The only pedal assists I've liked have been on the Bosch torque sensor mid drive Trek bikes and the Bafang Ultra torque sensor mid drive. Bosch d...

Glad I read this before buying a Phaserunner. Now: No Sale.

In a few days, after 400 miles on the bike, I'll post pics of my battery mounted on the left side of the front "triangle" area. This works very well and gives a good center of gravity when stopped. When the rider is mounted, rider weight on the bike, even a rear rack mounted battery is OK.

Throttle is good, it gives you the assist you desire.

PAS is mostly bad. Only torque measuring pas is OK and then only OK, not good.

Poorly implemented pas is high risk and dangerous.

Throttle is not high risk and dangerous, it works like your car, truck, suv, motorcycle, scooter, etc.

Rpm based pas is just wrong. Torque pas is better but a BBSxx doesn't have it. Throttle is best, you add the assist that feels right. BBSxx controllers are now programmed incorrectly. Therefore, BBSxx is not a good choice.

You can easily have a good and serviceable ebike within your price limit. A used bike with steel frame and fork is a good place to start. Steel has much better metal fatigue properties than aluminum, that said aluminum can work too, especially if little used. Never drill holes in a frame or fork, ne...