A few years ago, there were very few selections when it came to electric bike kits. Now, it seems there is finally a kit for every type of build that you can imagine. So what’s next?…Style! Personalizing your ebike to match who you are, and what you do with it.

This article is not about anything practical  in ebike design. It’s all about FUN!…it’s about how your ebike looks, and about how it makes you feel. The reason this facet of ebikes has been on my mind is that…some of the kits that are out now are very easy to install, so new ebikers don’t have to learn a lot about electrical components to be able to have an ebike.

Turn-key factory ebikes are starting to add “some” variety of style to their line-ups (like the Vintage Cycles Cruz), but…they can’t stray too far from the median average of public taste, or they risk having a lot of unsold ebikes. This means that a builder adding a kit to a bicycle that they already like, will usually be the best route…if you are a creative personality, and you want your ebike to really stand out.

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What style is the best style?

Fashion  is what everyone is doing, style is what you do.

Your style doesn’t have to be outrageous, but…it can be. Style means putting together something a little different than normal, to show what YOU like. This means that the thing that one builder loves…it’s the same thing that another builder hates!

There is no “best” style, there is only YOUR style. If you have a vision in your head that you absolutely LOVE?…don’t let anything slow you down or hold you back. When you post pics of the finished product, be aware some responders will laugh at it…and others will say that it’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen. Just remember, the only opinion that matters is YOUR opinion. You may not be able to afford a customized car or motorcycle, but anyone can afford to customize a bicycle. Then, making it into an ebike with a kit is another way to create and add something truly useful to your life.

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Pre-War Motorcycles

The ebike below is the Italjet Ascot, and I fell in love with it when I researched it to write our article on it back in September of 2015. This type of leather saddle was made famous by the Brooks company. There is a wide variety of leather grips and also chrome teardrop headlights to choose from that are similar. This style of fork is sometimes referred to as a “Monark springer”, after the bicycle from the 1940’s that made it famous. If you are shopping for a Monark springer style of fork, do a lot of research. Some will have a mount for a disc brake, and some do not. The strength and quality of the different manufacturers varies widely, so beware.

These tires are 26 X 3.0-inch Kenda Flames, and they come in a variety of colors.

The Italjet Ascot

For a frame to choose, notice that there is some space between the vertical seat-tube and the front of the rear tire. This indicates that there is some “stretch” to this frame, which makes them a little more stable at higher speeds. One frame that is similar is the aluminum Electra Lux Fat 7D.

If you want a steel frame (which is much easier to alter and weld onto), the Felt Bixby is steel. Most Felt frames are aluminum, but the Bixby is steel. There may be other viable candidates, but these two are the first that come to my mind, if you want to re-create a bike from this era of style…

A smaller and shorter frame that has “just the right curve” is the Nirve Starliner. Another frame that is halfway to being complete for this style is the Nirve Street King 3-speed.

The Mental Manno

I was really knocked out by the “Mental Manno” when I wrote about it back in December of 2013. It is a retro motorcycle themed ebike with 2WD, and full suspension. It was designed by a brilliant engineer named Zlatko Vidic from Croatia, who consults at Zelena Vozila.

This style of fork is called a Girder. It is a very strong suspension fork from the early days of motorcycles. When the front wheel hits a bump, the fork moves up inline with the fork tubes. If you read the Mental Manno article, it has the contact info, so Zlatko can build a Girder fork to your spec, or even an entire Mental Manno frame.

Two more ebikes that embrace the pre-war motorcycle frame is the Lampociclo, and also the Harrison.

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Turn of the Century “Board Trackers”

In January of 2016, we wrote about the “Juicer” ebike, which we gladly refer to as the “King of the Board Trackers”. Between the year 1900, and the economic depression of 1929, there was a phenomenon of spectators watching the early motorcycles racing on a track that wa steeply banked in the curves (so riders didn’t have to slow down in the turns) and they were paved with wooden boards. Motorcycles that won, would have proven their durability under race conditions, so these were very popular for the manufacturers and spectators alike.

The “Juicer” Boardtracker, by David Twomey

There are several styles of suspension fork from the era that are distinctive, and I have also seen turn of the century themed bicycles with a “leaf spring” fork.

If you want to re-create a board-track racer like this, you could contact David Twomey to assemble a turn-key ebike made to your spec, or you could buy a steel “loop” frame from Worksman Bicycles, and build it up the way that YOU like…

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Choppers

This is the style category that almost always evokes a LOT of passion. It seems that some builders LOVE them, and others HATE them. Whichever you are, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

A Basman frame from Ruff Cycles, customized to the builders personal taste.

One unusual thing about the custom Basman in the pic above is the “Leading Link” fork. I have seen this style with two forward mounted compression springs (which is a fairly normal fork layout, shown), and I have also seen them with a single tension spring in the rear (that pulls longer when the fork hits a bump). If they are dialed-in to the weight and loads of a specific bike, they are reported to not have any “dive” during hard braking.

Back in December of 2015, we wrote about a Basman frame built by Matt Parks from Australia. This frame style was designed by Bas Pruisscher, from Project 346 in the Netherlands, and it won a custom build contest. After that, the Ruff Cycles company (from Germany) licensed the design, and I have been seeing a LOT of custom builds using this frame.

The Vanguard Zeth

I have recently seen some Chinese copies of this Vanguard Zeth  stretch cruiser. It was designed for a “build off” and won. Notice it uses a “cantilever springer” fork. The bottom of the steerer-tube (inside the head tube) has a pivot, and the suspension uses a rocker motion. When the front tire hits a bump, the front tire actually moves up and forwards, just as the front of the spring (on top) moves backwards. This style works best on a bike with a slack head-tube angle.

Look closely at the saddle. If you like this reproduction of that vintage style, search for “Hairpin bicycle saddle” on Google images.

If you like having your feet being flat on the ground at a stop, this frame has just about the lowest seat you can buy…along with the bike frame just below!

The Ruff Cycles “Hard Time” frame.

There’s a phrase that says…”there’s no accounting for taste”, and that means that if you like something, there’s no way to change the mind of someone who hates it, and vice versa. The ebike in the pic above is using the “Hard Time” frame from Ruff Cycles. To me, this is beautiful, but is it practical? Hell no! It’s all about the style, baby…

The bike above has a “triple tree” solid fork with a dual crown.

Looking over the chopper section, I noticed that most of them have a lowered chainstay, and this is an interesting feature. Of course you can add a large rear hubmotor, but…if you choose to use a mid drive (like the Bafang BBSHD or the Lightning Rods big block), the chain might wear out faster than normal. With the frames that have a lowered stay, you don’t have to break the chain and re-attach it to swap them out. You can order a new chain to a certain length, and it slips right on, by simply loosening the rear axle and moving it forward a bit.

Plus, in these “open-triangle” frames, you can mount the mid drive inside  the center of the frame triangle. Not to mention that these huge frame triangles will fit just about any size of battery you can imagine. One option to consider is the Luna Cycles “Killer Whale 48V hard case battery pack.

If you like these wild custom chopper ebikes, you need to check out Fabizio Bellagamba’s  facebook page “Extreme Bicycle Electric garage”. I noticed that there are a lot of custom builds there using the Ruff Cycles Porucho frame.

Marks Cromotor Phatrod

Also, if you like hot rod  chopper ebikes, we wrote about Marks Cromotor Phatrod back in August of 2015.

If you like the fat tire look, there are several brands of tires that have been seen on these “retro” cruiser bicycles. The Boa-G 26 X 3.45, and Hoggy-G 24 X 2.45. The Nirve Fat Ass 24 X 3 inch. The Schwalbe 26 X 2.35 Fat Frank (in various colors). The Felt 24 X 3 Thick Brick (also various colors). The Kenda 26 X 3 Flame also in 24 X 3 Flame (in various colors). The Duro 26 X 3 Soul Stomper tires. And last, the Duro 26 X 3 Beach Bum.

This frame is a Nirve Switchblade, and its been customised with a Crystalyte rear hubmotor, using 72V X 60A = 4320W of power. That’s 5-1/2 horsepower. 

I just found this awesome cruiser (in the pic above) from Lee in Vancouver Island, Canada. The frame is a Nirve Switchblade…The gorgeous battery box was hand-built, and it’s covered with a carbon-fiber wrap, and decorated with a Maltese cross, which was popular in the 1960’s southern California surfing culture.

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Vintage “Tank Bicycles” from 1930-58

Young men everywhere back in the depression years had almost no hope of ever owning a car, but just about everyone could eventually own a bicycle. The Bikes from this era were built very strong so they could last. Many of them came with two horizontal top tubes, which made it easy to add a small single-cylinder gasoline engine, similar to the “Whizzer” mopeds. This way you could buy a bicycle as soon as you could afford it, and then add an engine later on.

Even if you never intended to ever add a real engine, there were deluxe versions of bicycles that were popular, and they often had features that were reminiscent of the classic vintage motorcycles, and they came to be called “tank bikes”

The 1938-40 Deluxe Hiawatha Arrow “long tank” bicycle

The faux “fuel tanks” on these bikes often held a useful storage compartment (along with batteries for a headlight), but…their greatest appeal to their proud owners was simply the “motorcycle style” it imparted.

The 1946 Bowden Spacelander

In 1946, WWII had recently ended, and the new “Jet Age” had begun.  Rockets were also being studied by every major nation, and it was speculated that humans could go into space soon. This stirred the public’s imagination in movies, TV programs, and also in automobile and bicycle style. The late 1940’s and the 50’s were awash in jet and rocket style. The Bowden Spacelander is a bicycle that made a splash in the news, but was initially unsuccessful in business.

The prototype was made in England from hand-formed aluminum panels, but when they went into a limited production (in the United States), it used the newest “miracle material”…fiberglass!  This material doesn’t rust, it’s not electrically conductive, and it can be designed so that it’s very strong while still being fairly light.

This style never caught on, but…nobody can argue that it looks just like any other bike!

1937 Elgin Bluebird

The Elgin Bluebird has flowing lines and lots of curves, and when I was looking at pics of vintage bicycles, this one stood out as a definite influence on the bicycles that came after it.

If you like the classic vintage bicycles from the era in this section, the best website to look at them is “Dave’s Vintage Bicycles“. There are many hours worth of pictures and reading there.

The 1935 Elgin Robin. Pic courtesy of “Dave’s Vintage Bicycles”

Elgin was a sewing machine company, and they decided to add a high-end bicycle to their catalog. They designed a very upscale bicycle, and hoped that consumers would confuse their company with the luxury watch company that was also named “Elgin”. The Elgin sewing machine and bicycle company eventually stopped making bicycles in 1910, but…in 1935, Sears revived the Elgin bicycle name to promote a luxury bicycle model that they wanted to retail. The pics above show the tank and fender-mounted headlight from this elegant 1935 Elgin Robin.

Earlier (in 1927), Charles Lindbergh had crossed the Atlantic ocean in a single-engine airplane, the first to do that flying non-stop (instead of using a boat-plane that stopped to refuel, like others had done). The next two decades featured an adventurous aircraft theme just about everywhere you could imagine. The “aero” theme that was popular at the time was even carried onto the teardrop side-plates of the pedals!

There are too many interesting frames to post pics of, so here are some links to some exceptional examples:

1891 Union Full suspension, “leading link” hairpin tension-spring fork

1896 Eclipse, a back-pedal rear-wheel spoon brake

1898 Stoddard Cygnet (“Swan” in Latin) The large rear loop in the frame flexes to act as suspension.

1902 Pierce, the fork is made from leaf springs, plus a short-stroke rear suspension (with a steel leaf spring between the crank and swingarm, instead of a pivot)

1910 Pierce chainless, shaft drive, concentric swingarm pivot

1917 Columbia model 400 leaf spring fork

1938 Huffman Twin Flex (the factory had recalls, which led to Firestone changing suppliers to Colson, leading to bankruptcy for Huffman, which later became the renewed  “Huffy” (The Twin Flex is the premium example of the “long tank” theme)

1930’s Colson Imperial, art deco rear rack

1934 Schwinn Aerocycle, tank and headlight are a “streamliner” with an aircraft theme

1948 Monarch Silver King, stretch cruiser, cast lugs, hexagonal tubing, art-deco cargo rack and tail-light

1936-40 CCM Flyte, dramatically curved steel frame elements act as springs, front and rear

The owner of this bike is calling it the “Elgin Decoluxe“, and as soon as I saw it, this bike totally knocked my socks off. It has tons of style, that is reminiscent of the “Art Deco” vintage era.

The Elgin Decoluxe

It’s actually a ladies frame, which is easier to find than the more desirable “male” vintage frames. The builder is making the fiberglass “tanks” to use, and also to sell to other restoration enthusiasts. Many of the male frame bikes from this era had tanks as an option, but…these new tanks are made specifically to convert a variety of different ‘step through’ frames into stylish vintage cruisers. The decorative “3-row” horizontal trim pieces are totally hand-made custom elements.

This bike is featured in the website “Rat Rod Bikes“, and was built by Jim Henderson (AKA “The Renaissance Man”).  It’s not an electric, but…it shows the kind of style that an average builder can accomplish if they are passionate, and put in the time and effort.

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“Art” Bicycles

There are probably too many of these to list. I’ve only chosen the “Pi Cycle” as an example because…it’s actually quite functional, in spite of it’s radical shape. Sadly, they are no longer in business, but…their legend lives on.

You can say that you love the style, or…that you hate the style. However, one thing you can’t say is that is has no style.

The Pi Cycle

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Modern Body Panels

There’s no way to precisely define “modern”, but…here are two ebikes that have made a serious attempt at using vacuum-molded body panels to make something that is distinctive in its style.

The 2014 Qoros eBiqe

The Qoros eBique is an exotic that we wrote about back in 2014. The side panels and tail-light boom are the most obvious styling touches. The facets on the rear swingarm may not seem to add much, but I feel they are a subtle but effective addition, and they seem to be similar to the swingarm on the recent HPC Revolution.

The 2014 BESV LX1

The BESV company in China is a standout example of a bicycle design that retains much of the “socially accepted” bicycle style, while still adding a few elements to bring some creativity and modern style to their look. The body panels on the LX1 shown above (and also the JS1) manage to stylishly hide the wiring while being light, strong, and rust-proof.

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Lightly styled modern electric bikes

The Leaos is a carbon-fiber frame, with significant interior engineering to make up the deletion of the conventional top-tube and seat-stay

The Leaos electric bike

The Miele Evox (shown below) is from Canada. It doesn’t “scream” style, but they did put some effort into giving it’s shape a certain graceful “flow” that I find to be very engaging. It is only a mild-assist street-legal power system, but I felt is was one of the more attractive ebikes at the 2015 Interbike convention.

The Elby (shown below) also isn’t a “screaming radical” when it comes to design, but if you want to stay fairly mainstream, there isn’t a whole lot that you can change on a bicycle. I felt it did a reasonable job of adding some elegant curved shapes to the basic ebike “step-trough” frame.

The 2016 Elby. I have ridden the BionX “D-series” rear hub, and it is as silent as they claim.

The Coast Cycles Quinn (below) isn’t even an ebike, but its unusual frame is advertised to be able to hold a large briefcase for some city office-worker. Of course I immediately realized how it could hold a large and common rectangular battery pack without any modifications. That being said, it had a certain “Swedish” flavor of style to it that I found to be subtle and very appealing.

The 2016 Coast Cycles Quinn

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Whats next in ebike style?

There’s no way to tell. Style varies from one place to the other, and from one year to the next.

Chopper styled ebikes have been popular in Germany and Russia the last few years. Vintage styled ebikes have popped up in the UK and Italy. I also noticed that bobber motorcycles have been gaining popularity in recent custom motorcycle shows, so I think that there “might be” some bobber ebikes seen around here soon (it all depends on what custom builders put together!). Styling influences can come from any direction, and from completely unexpected sources.

One thing is for certain, the more that ebike builders see about special projects that have a great style, the more creativity we will see when they decide to build one for themselves…

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, July 2016

I know this is going to sound like an ad, but this really is actual news, and it’s very good news for street ebike commuters.

Ebike builders who want to add a kit to their bicycle really seem the love the hardcases. The first example of this is how many customers opted to get the now-famous “dolphin” hard case, instead of a soft-sided battery pack in a battery bag. These last few years, any major North American retailer of ebike battery packs had 18650-cell battery packs that were covered in a heavy shrink-wrap, and most customers put these in a heavy-cloth bag that attaches into the central frame triangle of their bike.

The popular “Dolphin” hard case, filled with 18650-format cells

However, a growing number of experienced ebikers discovered that…if they charged their battery pack every night, then they didn’t really need to have as large of a pack. So…when the old one wore out, a large portion of the “second wave” ebikers bought the hard cased “dolphin” pack. This last year, cells with a higher energy density have become readily available, and that fact has breathed new life into hard-case dolphin pack sales, making them a viable option to a much wider customer base. Without changing the size of the dolphin pack, it could now be had with longer range  cells inside.

This is a dolphin pack in a common “diamond” frame bicycle. Some frames have enough room in them to add another row of cells to the pack (for the absolute maximum capacity, you can see here why I like the triangle-shaped packs so much)

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Off-Road or Street?

The trend for off-road bicycles is to have a smaller frame triangle on the hardtails, and most of the full-suspension designs put the rear shock absorber right in the middle of what little space was there. This means you will rarely see a hard-case dolphin pack on an off-roader, however…for the street, hard cases have proven to be VERY popular.

One of the most popular street commuter frames is the Electra Townie. The standout features that enthusiasts like are that its frame is very strong while still being made from light aluminum, it has a comfortable upright “feet forward” posture, it will accept “plush ride” 2.5-inch wide tires, and it has very large frame triangle (for centrally mounting a battery).

Here is an Electra Townie “Go!” ebike using a slim “Shark” pack. you can see here that a much larger hard case will easily fit.

My personal street commuter is an Electra Lux fat cruiser. The Townie can be found for roughly $400 at most retailers, and the “Lux” stretch cruiser that I have is more expensive. Both are great candidates for a street commuter whether you want a rear hubmotor, or any one of the popular mid drives.

Take a quick look at the “chopper” section of our “Bicycle Style” article, and you can see that there are many street frames that will easily allow a much larger hard case to be fitted.

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Enter the “Killer Whale”…

The dolphin hard cases, and the “similar but slimmer” shark hard-cases have been around for quite a while, and many retailers carry them. However, many builders would like a hard case that is “plug and play” like the dolphin case, but maybe larger?…This really is a new thing, and it’s something that I expect to become very popular for those builders who have a bicycle frame with a large enough central triangle space on their bike.

So…how much bigger is it?

Why is he smiling? he wants you to come in the tank for a swim! This looks like a killer whale, but it’s actually a very rare vegetarian “snuggle” whale…

The quantity of cells inside is dependant on several factors. If the pack configuration was using five cells per paralleled group (5P), then…to go from 13S to 14S (48V to 52V), the manufacturer would have to cram-in five more cells. Also, the amount of current a pack can put out affects which BMS (Battery Management System) appropriate. A 5P pack of Panasonic GA cells can put out 50A peaks (5 cells per “P” group, 10A per cell).  So…in order to take full advantage of the performance of these cells, the BMS is rated for 30A continuous, and 50A temporary peaks. A BMS like that is larger than the common BMS’s found in “average current” packs, which might only see occasional peaks of 30A. Remember, volts and amps both add power, but…amps also add heat. More amp-heat means a larger BMS.

All the dimensions are almost identical to the now-common dolphin pack (the width is identical), except it is bigger enough to add 13 more cells inside. It is 5-inches tall (128mm). It easily fits in an Electra Townie frame, but if you have anything other bike than one of those, draw out a template with the dimensions shown below to make sure it will fit, before ordering one of these.

MAKE SURE TO ADD ONE INCH TO THE HEIGHT TO COMPENSATE FOR THE SLIDE-IN CRADLE!

The Killer Whale hard case

For these reasons (among others), Luna has decided that their first order of Killer Whale packs that they are stocking will be 13S / 48V, and they will use the Panasonic GA cell (10A peaks per cell, 3500-mAh per cell). In an average sized pack, this cell would be considered an “average current” pack, with “maximum range” capacity. However, in a pack this physically large, with a 5P configuration (compared to the average 4P or 3P pack), it actually also has pretty fantastic current capability.

The Killer Whale has 13S X 5P = 65 cells inside. Luna’s popular 48V Dolphin pack has 52 cells (13S X 4P = 52)

The common Dolphin case.

The dolphin pack is listed as having a height of 5-inches at its tallest point (the same as the Killer Whale), but…the dolphin is sloped down on its top (towards the nose), and it’s also sloped on the front and the rear of the case. These sloped portions help it fit into more frames that have the common triangle-shape in the center of the frame. The Killer Whale is more “rectangular” shaped, so…those extra 13 cells that got crammed inside? they might not fit in as many bicycle frames as the dolphin.

But, what if it would fit yours?…

Someone started calling these a “dolphin” case when they first came out, and the name stuck. Is the dorsal fin on the right from a dolphin or a shark? Look at the face when it pops out of the water. If it makes you smile and want to jump in the water for a swim, it’s a happy dolphin. If the face has cold, dead eyes…and you can tell it wants to consume what little life you have left, it’s either a shark, or…my ex-wife.

If you have a direct-drive hub (DD), and you live where there are long and steep hills, you can get this battery and the motor hot from constant high-amp draws. However…if you live where your commute is relatively flat, you will only experience high-amp loads for a few seconds during acceleration, and then you will enter a “cruise phase” where the motor, controller, and battery have a chance to cool off.

If you have a mid drive, they typically provide very good hill-climbing performance, while staying relatively cool, and also providing decent range-per-Watt Hour (WH) of battery capacity (as long as you shift your bike into the proper gear), so…the Killer Whale (if it will fit your bike) will provide longer range between charges. However, the shark or dolphin may still be a viable choice for a system that only draws 25A or 30A max (like the BBS02 or BBSHD).

One of the key features of this pack [using this cell, and in this configuration]… is that you can now get a 17.5-Ah’s (Amp hours) worth of range in a hard case, plus…you can use this on a hot rod  direct drive rear hub that draws 50A peaks. If raw performance  is all you want, then you should research packs that use the Samsung 25R cell, or the 30Q cell, but…if all you need is occasional 50A peaks, then this hard case pack will provide that, along with more range than the 25R and 30Q “performance” cells I mentioned.

More range for mid drives, or…now there’s a hard case that can be used on a 50A DD hub that still need 17.5-Ah’s of range.

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Here’s the feature list from Luna’s website

• USB Charge port for your phone etc. built into pack (can also be used to power lights)
• Can be used as the best phone bank charger ever
• On-off switch
• 4-LED battery meter built into pack
• Spring quick-release rack with anti-theft key lock
• Hard plastic case to protect your pack
• 850 watt hours means incredible range in small package
• 13S / 5p = 65 Genuine name-brand grade-A Panasonic GA 18650 cells
• 30A continuous / 50A maximum BMS
• 9 pounds = incredible energy density
• Life Span: 400-1000 charges
• See images for dimensional drawing

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, August 2016

This is a direct drive (DD) hubmotor that I have been waiting for someone to produce the last two years, and now, someone finally has. This article will explain what’s good about it, and why I like it. We are recommending that it works well at 52V X 50A = 2600W.

If you want to sell electric bike kits in the US, and you want a specific set of features that are not currently available in an existing Chinese factory wholesale catalog, you may have to order a Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) to get them to produce it. It can be any number from ten to a thousand. The first US-based retailer to have these hubmotors is LA eBikes  in Southern California, and they ordered 100 units (if customers buy them, they will order more).

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The Crystalyte H35, setting the standard

Let me start by explaining the DD hubmotors that were used a few years ago, and how we got to the DD hubmotors we have today (<- click there). When I started reading about ebikes (back in 2009), there were very few choices available for the builders who wanted “just a little extra” power.

Geared hubmotors are the most common ebike motor, and for good reason. They are light for the amount of wheel torque they provide, and systems that operate well at around 48V X 25A = 1200W remain a very popular combination for street commuters. However, at somewhere around 2000W, the largest available geared hubmotors sometimes experience heat distress, due to a limited heat-shedding path. Therefore, hot rodders embraced the larger direct-drive hubmotors from the beginning.

The king at the time was the Crystalyte H35 (the name refers to a magnet “Height” of 35mm, when the motor is laying on it’s side). The “kV” of a motor refers to how many RPM’s a motor will turn for each volt that is supplied. More volts equals more RPM’s. A popular retailer imported two kV models at the time, which they erroneously named HT and HS for Torque  and Speed. The “S” was a faster kV, and the “T” was a slower kV (with the slower motor being suitable for higher volts, to arrive at the same RPM’s as the fast kV model, when it’s at a lower voltage).

Adding more amps creates a lot more heat  than raising the volts, so…since the actual power limit of a motor is often simply how much heat  they can survive, early hot rodders immediately used the maximum amps that the motor would survive, and then began raising the volts (as many volts as they could afford, or…as many as they could fit into the frame). One good example of this is the ventilated motor on Nick’s eTownie from 2014.

“…Lyen’s 12-FET controller is now set at 60A battery current, and 135A phase, for driving the Crystalyte HT3525…The temp gauge in the motor never shows more than 80C [of heat] and that is with bursts of 5500W…Now, I’m hitting 42-MPH [67 km/h] on 24S (24 X 4.10V per cell = 98.4V), and…nothing is getting too hot…”

The nominal power of this system is [3.6V X 24S =] 86V X 60A = 5160 Watts (If you like 5000W, you should really use an 18-FET controller to avoid the controller getting too hot).

One of the reasons a motor with a 35mm wide stator was popular with hot rodders was that…it was the widest that a stator could be, while still leaving enough room for a common 7-speed freewheel, and also allowing the motor to fit into the common bicycle frame drop-outs with a 135mm width (of course, with two torque-arms located on the outsides of the frame drop-outs).

The popular MXUS 3000W hubmotor has a 45mm wide stator (which allows even more power), but…it is commonly used with only a single-speed freewheel.

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Leafbike 1500W, and thin laminations

The Crystalyte H35 has worked great  at its rated power (48V X 30A = 1500W), but…those who used a lot more power than that (up to 5000W) would be risking heat damage, or even mechanical damage…such as broken axles from using higher watts coupled with high regen-braking.

Nick ventilated the side-plates of his H35 to let the frequent excess heat out. However…what if he could have higher power with less of the produced-heat in the first place?  One of the sources of the high heat in his hot-rodded motor was the eddy-currents in the steel laminations of the stator (which make up the cores of the motors’ electromagnets). Thinner laminations would result in less eddy current waste-heat, and the Crystalyte has the common 0.50mm thick lams. Also!…thinner lams cost less than ten US dollars per motor.

99 laminations in a 35mm width equals a very thin 0.35mm per lam. “If you got big problems I feel bad for you, son. I got 99 problems but…thick laminations ain’t one”

Last year, a company called Leafbike began selling a hubmotor with the common 205mm diameter laminations (8-inches in diameter), and with a popular 35mm wide lamination stack (commonly called a 205/H35 by manufacturers). Also…the Leafbike hubbie had thicker motor phase wires from the factory (a common garage-upgrade for hot rodders), a stronger axle, and most of all…the thinner 0.35mm laminations.

A guy named David (ES member “Neptronix”) bought one and began testing it. The results were better than expected. He chose a faster kV so he could have a top speed near 40-MPH without needing extra-high volts, but…that choice usually meant that the motor would run a little hot. The thinner laminations helped enough that the results were impressive. If you tried hard enough, you could certainly still get this motor too hot, but…it could take more power and still survive.

Electricbike.com recommends that the stator of a hubmotor should stay below 200F / 93C, for reliable operation and acceptable longevity. Your actual resulting top-speed will be the result of motor kV, system voltage, tire diameter, rider weight, and wind resistance.

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The Cro, MXUS, and…aluminum stator supports

A few years ago, the biggest hot rod hubmotor was the venerable Cromotor (with a 50mm wide stator). It’s pretty much an electric motorcycle hubmotor that had its axles machined to fit a bicycle frame, and the spoke holes were drilled small enough to fit 12-ga moped spokes (thinner 14-ga are common on bicycles), as opposed to thick 80-MPH 10-ga motorcycle spokes.

The Cromotor had the desirable high-efficiency thin 0.35mm laminations (more of the input watts went to making power, instead of making waste-heat), AND…it also  had one other awesome feature. Instead of a thin stamped-steel stator support  to connect the central axle to the stator electromagnets at the rim…it had a thick cast aluminum stator support.

Why would they add this extra weight? The answer is…HEAT.

On flat land, you might hit the accelerator hard for a few seconds, which would draw the maximum [heat-producing] amps, in order to accelerate. Then, you move into a “cruise phase” where the amps slide down to a level where the ebike (or E-motorcycle) is simply maintaining speed. This cruise phase allows the battery/motor/controller to cool down a bit…at least until you stop, and then you have to jump at the green light again.

By swapping-in a thick aluminum stator support, any “temporary” heat spikes from using max-amps can be absorbed quickly, and then shed over time.

Someday I will make a clock out of one of these…the key feature in this pic is the thick cast “six spoke” aluminum stator support, which can absorb and shed heat spikes.

It’s important to understand this because…swapping-in an aluminum stator-support does not improve the motors’ continuous  heat survivability. By that I mean that, if you are driving up a long and steep uphill at a constant max amps? an aluminum stator support will eventually  still get too hot (however…it can delay the onset of “heat-soaking”).

Where this feature really shines is in a user-profile that runs on fairly flat land (and maybe a few mild hills). You can dramatically increase the temporary “peak” amps that you can shove down a DD hubmotors throat, if you have this aluminum stator-support feature. How much? The real number is actually…how hot is it getting? We believe 200F / 93C is a practical limit, and if you want to use more than 52V X 50A = 2600W…we also recommend you install a temp sensor with a digital read-out.

Nick used over 5000W in a Crystalyte 205/H35 motor, but…he also ventilated the sideplates, and…he had a temp-sensor so that he could “back-off a little” when he had abused the motor a little too much…(of course, he also didn’t have thin laminations and an aluminum stator support at the time….*wink).

The big story two years ago in DD hubmotors was the sudden popularity of the MXUS 3000W DD hubmotor. It had thin lams, and an aluminum stator-support. It was more powerful than the Leafbike 205/H35, and it cost less than the Monster Cromotor 205/H50 (The MXUS has a 45mm wide stator).

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Who makes the Edge?

The Leafbike company was asked several times if they would produce an aluminum-stator support version of their thin-lamination 205/H35 motor, and…the MXUS and QS companies were both asked to make a 35mm wide stator version of their “thin lamination with an aluminum stator-support 205mm OD stator” motor, but…so far nobody has agreed to make these, until now.

A certain distributor might have a product made by two different factories, in case there is a problem with production. That way, you always have at least one source running, and also…if one of them starts making a bad product, you can tell from customer warranty claims which factory was making the crap. I’ve had this motor apart, and I don’t see any distinguishing marks, so the source is probably only one Chinese factory, and it is LA eBike’s secret…so far.

The electricbike.com test mule (GT Chucker DH frame), located in our secret Kansas division test lab. Seen here with a 26 X 2.0 front tire, 19-inch moped rim on the back using 12-ga spokes with a 2.2 inch DOT tire (soon to be replaced with a 3.0 tire after a few burn-outs). Brakes are a dangerous “scrap bin” 160mm front cable disc, and testing is done on long “abandoned airstrip” straights where there is no traffic. Battery is a 70A Luna pack using 30Q cells. The battery case is an organic fiber material made from renewable resources, with the materials “re-purposed” from local bins on trash “pick up” day…because we care about the environment. Handlebars are salvaged from a trash-day BMX.

Here is a pic showing one of electricbike.com test-mules. Also, here’s an interesting story about why engineering test-vehicles are called “mules”. A mule  is a cross between a female horse, and a male donkey (assuming it’s a donkey who owns a step-ladder). The animal that results has some of the benefits of both, but is not intended for production. The joke is that…two mules can’t reproduce (the inter-species mutation doesn’t have the proper equipment). In order to get a mule, you must always use a horse and donkey for parents.

The mid-power Leafbike/Edge, the awesome MXUS 3000W, Monster Cromotor, and “beast-mode” QS 205 all look the same from the side. The width of the stator makes all the power difference. The aluminum torque-plates shown here don’t have their end-clamps on (at least, in this picture), and these plates have been hacked to fit onto three different frames so far. Be professional for goodness sakes, don’t do this…water-jet some steel torque plates.

The Edge 1500W on the right side

The pic above shows one of the reasons someone might want to get this motor. “In theory”, this motor (along with the Leafbike 1500W and the Crystalyte H35) has enough room on the right side to use a 7-speed freewheel and derailleur. I recommend a 6-speed Shimano “megarange”, because…let’s be honest…at these power levels you only need 2-speeds…second gear is “I want to pedal along with the motor at top speed so the cops think I’m a bicycle”…and also, first gear is “something on my system isn’t working, and I need to pedal home on this heavy-ass ebike”.

I am only using a 14T single speed in the pic above because…it’s what I had laying around.

The Edge 1500W on the left side. This is where you would adapt a disc brake onto it…if you were smart. You can see here that IF I had mounted the axle shoulders in the stock 135mm frame frame drop-outs, it would have fit.

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Lets crack this beotch open, what’s inside?

Some of our new readers are new to bicycles, and even more are completely new to ebikes. If a certain user-profile leads you to buying a hub-motor, it’s only a matter of time before you want to crack it open, and poke around in its guts. Plus, if you use more watts than we recommend, and then you fry a Hall sensor? you will need to “don the gloves” and perform some surgery.

Make alignment dimples. Just a tiny mark, don’t go deep. You can even just scratch the two pieces with a sharp knife, or paint a stripe with red nail polish from the dollar-store…

The hole locations for the bolts that attach the side-plates to the central part of the motor are typically symmetrical. However…take my advice, before you dis-assemble ANYTHING…mark how it was oriented before you pull it apart (don’t ask how I learned that). “A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from someone elses…”

The left side of the Edge 1500W axle. The coiled metal spring-looking thing is an “anti-kinking” support for the cable. If you use horizontal drop-outs, the cable would exit straight down as a “drip loop”

One of the top five differences between a cheap ebay kit and the hot rod motors we recommend is that…the power wires from the internal motor exit the motor case from INSIDE the drop-outs (seen in the pic above). Low powered hubs often locate these wires inside a hollow axle. Doing that makes the axle weak, and it also limits how fat the wires to the motor can be. Thin wires are bad, and should be beaten with a stick until they cry for mercy.

In the pic above, I have sliced an axle-nut lengthwise to make a standoff inside the frame drop-out. If you look closely, you can see the axle-shoulder that would normally be pushed up against a bicycle frame drop-out, with a common width of 135mm. I cut the axle-nut with a hacksaw, and smoothed the cut with an angle-grinder (yes, I have scars on my hands).

If I had used a 26-inch wheel, I would have also located the axle in the normal frame location, with the two torque-plates just on the outside. However, my decision to lace the hub to a 19-inch moto rim with a 2.2-inch tire (equaling a 24-inch outer diameter) meant that I needed to locate the axle at least an inch lower than the frame was designed for.

This bike originally came with a 9-speed derailleur, and since I already knew I was going to use a single-speed, I also took this opportunity to locate the axle about two inches farther back, so I didn’t need to break the chain and re-attach it at a different length.

The Edge 1500W axle. I had to touch-up one side of the axle-flats with a file to get it into my 10mm wide drop-outs. The flats are 10mm, the threaded portion is 14mm, and the center of the axle is 16.4mm in diameter. Thicker would be better, but…this isn’t bad.

Removing the side-plate retaining bolts with a 4mm allen hex wrench, on the cable side. If you do this, buy some 4mm stainless steel washers to put under the bolt-heads for when you re-assemble..

Set it on the ground, and push down on two opposing sides of the rim. The center should pop out fairly easy. If you put a finger in-between a steel stator and 46 strong neodymium rim-magnets, they will occasionally slam together and cut your finger-tips off. Lift the center section by the axle. This is no joke…I still have all ten of my finger-tips, so follow my example. Try it with a hot dog, and see if it’s funny when it gets cut in half.

The metal part of the lamination stack of the stator is what makes up the electro-magnets that are turned on and off rapidly. If you like using 2600W, 35mm is a good width. These measuring calipers are plastic, so they don’t conduct electricity around a 1000-WH high-current battery.

It was marked 4/6 inside, and I’m guessing that it means its a 4-turn model, using 6 strands per turn = 24 strands around each stator tooth. Notice there are slots to add a second set of hall sensors on the opposite side, if desired…Three motor phases equals three Hall sensors. Of course, you could also use a sensorless controller if you want, or…because you fried your last hubmotor’s Hall sensors with too much heat (*sips some whiskey and cries myself to sleep in shame)

The Edge 1500W cable connector. The three fatter motor phase wire connectors are obvious. If you look closely you can see the small 5V contacts around the perimeter, there are six of those.

This motor came with a cable that had a proprietary connector that was located about one foot away from the motor. I have read statements from builders where they like being able to break the electrical cable near the wheel, to make removing the wheel (to fix a flat tire?) a little easier. This connector accomplishes that, but…my personal preference is to run long and continuously-unbroken wires up into the battery box, for water-proofing, in order to prevent shorts in case I get caught in an unexpected sprinkle of rain.

The wires between the battery and controller should always be short and fat, but…the three phase wires from the controller to the motor can be as long as you like, with no adverse effects resulting from the added length. I cut this connector set off, and soldered 12-ga wire from the motor up into the battery case, using 3:1 water-proof marine-grade heat-shrink insulation. The stock phase wires are 13-ga. The Hall sensor extension wires I added were 24-ga. Since Hall wires only carry a 5V signal, they can be very thin, perhaps even down to 36-ga? However, I have found that 24-ga is easier to manipulate for soldering.

Inside the battery bag I will eventually use, the phase connectors will be 5.5mm bullets that I acquired by slicing open some of my XT90 connectors with a dremel using a thin abrasive disc (I have a pile of male/female XT90’s), which are rated at 90A (much more amps than I would use for this motor).

The stock motor has common ring-connectors for the three fat motor phase wires. I cut them off and swapped-in 5.5mm male bullets that I had cut out of XT90 connectors. The heat-shrink on the 5.5mm bullets shown here is 6mm from Hobby-King. I did  not change the stock 6-pin hall sensor Molex connector.

The copper in the stock motor phase wires are 13-ga. My wire extensions from the motor to controller are made from the slightly thicker 12-ga. For Hall wires, I used 24-ga.

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Here’s what you get

Someday soon, many retailers will sell these (or something similar) already affordably laced to a rim, but…this is what I received this month, since I was in a hurry.

The Edge 1500W hubmotor arrives. The electricbike.com “banana for scale” is calibrated in four inches and also 10 centimeters.

The first step is lacing the hub onto a rim.

The first step is to choose a rim, calculate what spoke will work, and lace that rim up. One bead of the tire (in the pic above) is mounted on the rim, the opposite side has the bead off of the rim so I can reach inside (you don’t actually need the tire to lace the rim onto the hub).

The pencil shown is inserted into the air-fill stem hole, and the first four 12-ga butted spokes are shown in a one-cross pattern. Start like this so the air-fill stem will be “boxed”, and easier to reach when you are done. Repeat the pattern clockwise, then “tension and true” them properly, or…have a bike shop do that. This rim is a Holmes MMP 1.6-inch wide aluminum single-wall moped rim, capable of properly seating a 2.2-inch up to a 3.0-inch wide tire…

By the time you read this, LA eBike will have lacing available for this hub, so email them for a quote. I suspect the majority of riders will spec either a 24-inch bicycle rim, or a 19-inch moto rim (both very similar in size), and capable of mounting 2.2-3.0 inch tires. Off-roaders have been moving towards mid-drives, and also the largest possible hubmotors (MXUS, Cromotor, and QS), but I expect this motor to do quite well with street ebikes.

How much do I like it? I usually sell the parts I test once an article is done, but….I’m keeping this one.

A customised 3000W electric Nirve Switchblade from Lee in Vancouver Canada. This type of street ebike is the perfect candidate for this new hubmotor.

16.8 lbs, or…7.6 kg. Toes included for size comparison (The motor isn’t huge, I am just a small hairy deformed mutant). This scale is calibrated for measuring the weight of my dumps after I’ve eaten a huge bowl of high-fiber chili with beans, so this weight is accurate.

Enough! I appreciate the response, but…this hub looks just like any other hubmotor…”from the outside”. I tried to make it as interesting as possible, but…I’m only human.

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What Controller?

If you are happy with 52V X 45A = 2300W, then you could get-by with a 12-FET controller if it is using the cool-running and efficient 3077 FETs inside.

I don’t know of anyone who is making a 15-FET controller, or an 18-FET with 3077’s, so…the next bump up is a common 18-FET controller using 4110 FETs, capable of any voltage up to 96V. The bad news is that…such a controller is more expensive, and also physically larger. The good news is that a controller like this won’t get hot at anything “up to” 72V X 65A = 4600W, so you will have a lot of room to play with it.

I recently bought an 18-FET controller from two separate vendors, and I haven’t been able to get either one of them to run…tests on this motor were performed with a 12-FET at 45A. I am looking forward to 40% more wheel torque once I can access 65A…

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Conclusion

The discussion over whether to get a hubmotor over a mid drive will continue as long as I can foresee. The answer between those two will simply depend on what your preferences are, and what you are going to do with the kit. Some builders are already using this hub at over 5000W. I will be writing soon about Ferro Fluid and motor-shell fins, so…any mods that improve heat-shedding will broaden the range of applications for motors that are a little lighter, like this one.

There is nothing wrong with running this motor at 60V or even 72V, but I think the majority of builders that choose this motor will likely run it at 44V, 48V, and 52V (12S, 13S, and 14S, respectively), with the main benefit being that a s lower-voltage battery pack might be more affordable, and maybe slightly more “fit-able”?

From ES member Trailblazer: “…I’m on a 26″ x 2.5 (Hookworms). And with the 25R triangle battery I got from Luna, I’m going 36-mph at 4.2KW. This thing is a beast…”

If you use this hubmotor, and it is getting hot under your particular loads, you might want to move up to the slightly heavier MXUS 3000W, which can be found at Kinaye Motorsports. I have had good luck with them. It has a 45mm wide stator, compared to the Edge’s 35mm, so it can produce about 30% more power with less heat.

If you like DD hubs, but your Edge 1500W is never even getting warm, you could likely get by with a lighter  DD hub, like the TDCM from ebikes.ca

However, I am often asked about which kit would “make me happy”, and…for most of the type of people I ride with (with street ebikes), this is it. I’d spec a steel frame (perhaps a Felt Bixby?), because using an aluminum frame isn’t going to change the fact that this is a heavy motor. And having a 6-speed megarange freewheel on this may make it look like it’s a bicycle (more than a single-speed) but that is a stealthy smoke-screen. So…this makes the Edge 1500W a “sleeper”…

…a wolf in sheeps’ clothing.

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, September 2016

We have all heard the misnomer “speed kills”…but that does not necessarily apply on an ebike. Sometimes, the extra speed an ebike provides can keep you moving closer to the speed of traffic, and sometimes…the extra power can get you out of harms way.

Most importantly the powered ebike can get you outside onto a bicycle  which can also be good for your health as well as for our environment.

Here is a recent story that was posted to our forums, along with pictures. For those that have not found the electricbike.com forum, please join us there is a good community forming there.

This is the first real-life account I have of an ebike powered by a BBSHD kit, actually saving a life told in a forum members own words:

Barb on her home-built DIY townie that saved her life :)

“…Well, here is a good story to tell the grand kids! My wife, Barb, who has recently returned to cycling after a 30 year hiatus, had gone down the street about a quarter mile to the neighbors. She was on her way back and suddenly from behind she heard a loud truck engine revving, sirens and gun shots! She turned around to see all of this barreling down on her at a high rate of speed. And here she is on a section of road with a sheer drop on one side and a wall on the other, no where to go. She said I thought I was dead! I hit the throttle and barely made it to the first turn off, and got off the road before I was hit!…”

This is the road she was on, with nowhere to get away.

Here is what the drop off looks like, that she would have to jump off if she was not on high powered electric bike

They got the guy. No injuries to people, just property. Apparently, the truck was left running at a gas station, (stupid), and this guy grabbed it! DON’T LEAVE YOUR CAR OR TRUCK RUNNING!

I’m posting this from my cell because power and cable are down. The chase took out a power pole.

Here is what the cop car looked like that got shot up at the beginning of the chase.

Reflecting on yesterdays events, I realized that BBSHD saved Barbs life before. She got back into cycling (after 30 years) to do something that I enjoy and am passionate about. But she just did not have the muscle or the endurance necessary to tackle the hills in our area, some at 22% grade. But the BBSHD changed all that! Now she goes flying up hills that can stop all but the hardiest of cyclists, with a smile on her face and laughing all the way! To see the joy, the exuberance, the youth of an 8 year old, in this old girl, well, it’s enough to bring a tear to my eye!

So Thanks, really, Thanks a lot!

–Rix Ryds

Canyon Lake, Texas

A few years ago, there were very few selections when it came to electric bike kits. Now, it seems there is finally a kit for every type of build that you can imagine. So what’s next?…Style! Personalizing your ebike to match who you are, and what you do with it.

This article is not about anything practical  in ebike design. It’s all about FUN!…it’s about how your ebike looks, and about how it makes you feel. The reason this facet of ebikes has been on my mind is that…some of the kits that are out now are very easy to install, so new ebikers don’t have to learn a lot about electrical components to be able to have an ebike.

Turn-key factory ebikes are starting to add “some” variety of style to their line-ups (like the Vintage Cycles Cruz), but…they can’t stray too far from the median average of public taste, or they risk having a lot of unsold ebikes. This means that a builder adding a kit to a bicycle that they already like, will usually be the best route…if you are a creative personality, and you want your ebike to really stand out.

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What style is the best style?

Fashion  is what everyone is doing, style is what you do.

Your style doesn’t have to be outrageous, but…it can be. Style means putting together something a little different than normal, to show what YOU like. This means that the thing that one builder loves…it’s the same thing that another builder hates!

There is no “best” style, there is only YOUR style. If you have a vision in your head that you absolutely LOVE?…don’t let anything slow you down or hold you back. When you post pics of the finished product, be aware some responders will laugh at it…and others will say that it’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen. Just remember, the only opinion that matters is YOUR opinion. You may not be able to afford a customized car or motorcycle, but anyone can afford to customize a bicycle. Then, making it into an ebike with a kit is another way to create and add something truly useful to your life.

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Pre-War Motorcycles

The ebike below is the Italjet Ascot, and I fell in love with it when I researched it to write our article on it back in September of 2015. This type of leather saddle was made famous by the Brooks company. There is a wide variety of leather grips and also chrome teardrop headlights to choose from that are similar. This style of fork is sometimes referred to as a “Monark springer”, after the bicycle from the 1940’s that made it famous. If you are shopping for a Monark springer style of fork, do a lot of research. Some will have a mount for a disc brake, and some do not. The strength and quality of the different manufacturers varies widely, so beware.

These tires are 26 X 3.0-inch Kenda Flames, and they come in a variety of colors.

The Italjet Ascot

For a frame to choose, notice that there is some space between the vertical seat-tube and the front of the rear tire. This indicates that there is some “stretch” to this frame, which makes them a little more stable at higher speeds. One frame that is similar is the aluminum Electra Lux Fat 7D.

If you want a steel frame (which is much easier to alter and weld onto), the Felt Bixby is steel. Most Felt frames are aluminum, but the Bixby is steel. There may be other viable candidates, but these two are the first that come to my mind, if you want to re-create a bike from this era of style…

A smaller and shorter frame that has “just the right curve” is the Nirve Starliner. Another frame that is halfway to being complete for this style is the Nirve Street King 3-speed.

The Mental Manno

I was really knocked out by the “Mental Manno” when I wrote about it back in December of 2013. It is a retro motorcycle themed ebike with 2WD, and full suspension. It was designed by a brilliant engineer named Zlatko Vidic from Croatia, who consults at Zelena Vozila.

This style of fork is called a Girder. It is a very strong suspension fork from the early days of motorcycles. When the front wheel hits a bump, the fork moves up inline with the fork tubes. If you read the Mental Manno article, it has the contact info, so Zlatko can build a Girder fork to your spec, or even an entire Mental Manno frame.

Two more ebikes that embrace the pre-war motorcycle frame is the Lampociclo, and also the Harrison.

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Turn of the Century “Board Trackers”

In January of 2016, we wrote about the “Juicer” ebike, which we gladly refer to as the “King of the Board Trackers”. Between the year 1900, and the economic depression of 1929, there was a phenomenon of spectators watching the early motorcycles racing on a track that was steeply banked in the curves (so riders didn’t have to slow down in the turns) and they were paved with wooden boards. Motorcycles that won, would have proven their durability under race conditions, so these were very popular for the manufacturers and spectators alike.

The “Juicer” Boardtracker, by David Twomey

There are several styles of suspension fork from the era that are distinctive, and I have also seen turn of the century themed bicycles with a “leaf spring” fork.

If you want to re-create a board-track racer like this, you could contact David Twomey to assemble a turn-key ebike made to your spec, or you could buy a steel “loop” frame from Worksman Bicycles, and build it up the way that YOU like…

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Choppers

This is the style category that almost always evokes a LOT of passion. It seems that some builders LOVE them, and others HATE them. Whichever you are, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

A Basman frame from Ruff Cycles, customized to the builders personal taste.

One unusual thing about the custom Basman in the pic above is the “Leading Link” fork. I have seen this style with two forward mounted compression springs (which is a fairly normal fork layout, shown), and I have also seen them with a single tension spring in the rear (that pulls longer when the fork hits a bump). If they are dialed-in to the weight and loads of a specific bike, they are reported to not have any “dive” during hard braking.

Back in December of 2015, we wrote about a Basman frame built by Matt Parks from Australia. This frame style was designed by Bas Pruisscher, from Project 346 in the Netherlands, and it won a custom build contest. After that, the Ruff Cycles company (from Germany) licensed the design, and I have been seeing a LOT of custom builds using this frame.

The Vanguard Zeth

I have recently seen some Chinese copies of this Vanguard Zeth  stretch cruiser. It was designed for a “build off” and won. Notice it uses a “cantilever springer” fork. The bottom of the steerer-tube (inside the head tube) has a pivot, and the suspension uses a rocker motion. When the front tire hits a bump, the front tire actually moves up and forwards, just as the front of the spring (on top) moves backwards. This style works best on a bike with a slack head-tube angle.

Look closely at the saddle. If you like this reproduction of that vintage style, search for “Hairpin bicycle saddle” on Google images.

If you like having your feet being flat on the ground at a stop, this frame has just about the lowest seat you can buy…along with the bike frame just below!

The Ruff Cycles “Hard Time” frame.

There’s a phrase that says…”there’s no accounting for taste”, and that means that if you like something, there’s no way to change the mind of someone who hates it, and vice versa. The ebike in the pic above is using the “Hard Time” frame from Ruff Cycles. To me, this is beautiful, but is it practical? Hell no! It’s all about the style, baby…

The bike above has a “triple tree” solid fork with a dual crown.

Looking over the chopper section, I noticed that most of them have a lowered chainstay, and this is an interesting feature. Of course you can add a large rear hubmotor, but…if you choose to use a mid drive (like the Bafang BBSHD or the Lightning Rods big block), the chain might wear out faster than normal. With the frames that have a lowered stay, you don’t have to break the chain and re-attach it to swap them out. You can order a new chain to a certain length, and it slips right on, by simply loosening the rear axle and moving it forward a bit.

Plus, in these “open-triangle” frames, you can mount the mid drive inside  the center of the frame triangle. Not to mention that these huge frame triangles will fit just about any size of battery you can imagine. One option to consider is the Luna Cycles “Killer Whale 48V hard case battery pack.

If you like these wild custom chopper ebikes, you need to check out Fabrizio Bellagamba’s  facebook page “Extreme Bicycle Electric garage”. I noticed that there are a lot of custom builds there using the Ruff Cycles Porucho frame.

Marks Cromotor Phatrod

Also, if you like hot rod  chopper ebikes, we wrote about Marks Cromotor Phatrod back in August of 2015.

If you like the fat tire look, there are several brands of tires that have been seen on these “retro” cruiser bicycles. The Boa-G 26 X 3.45, and Hoggy-G 24 X 2.45. The Nirve Fat Ass 24 X 3 inch. The Schwalbe 26 X 2.35 Fat Frank (in various colors). The Felt 24 X 3 Thick Brick (also various colors). The Kenda 26 X 3 Flame also in 24 X 3 Flame (in various colors). The Duro 26 X 3 Soul Stomper tires. And last, the Duro 26 X 3 Beach Bum.

This frame is a Nirve Switchblade, and its been customised with a Crystalyte rear hubmotor, using 72V X 60A = 4320W of power. That’s 5-1/2 horsepower.

I just found this awesome cruiser (in the pic above) from Lee in Vancouver Island, Canada. The frame is a Nirve Switchblade…The gorgeous battery box was hand-built, and it’s covered with a carbon-fiber wrap, and decorated with a Maltese cross, which was popular in the 1960’s southern California surfing culture.

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Vintage “Tank Bicycles” from 1930-58

Young men everywhere back in the depression years had almost no hope of ever owning a car, but just about everyone could eventually own a bicycle. The Bikes from this era were built very strong so they could last. Many of them came with two horizontal top tubes, which made it easy to add a small single-cylinder gasoline engine, similar to the “Whizzer” mopeds. This way you could buy a bicycle as soon as you could afford it, and then add an engine later on.

Even if you never intended to ever add a real engine, there were deluxe versions of bicycles that were popular, and they often had features that were reminiscent of the classic vintage motorcycles, and they came to be called “tank bikes”

The 1938-40 Deluxe Hiawatha Arrow “long tank” bicycle

The faux “fuel tanks” on these bikes often held a useful storage compartment (along with batteries for a headlight), but…their greatest appeal to their proud owners was simply the “motorcycle style” it imparted.

The 1946 Bowden Spacelander

In 1946, WWII had recently ended, and the new “Jet Age” had begun.  Rockets were also being studied by every major nation, and it was speculated that humans could go into space soon. This stirred the public’s imagination in movies, TV programs, and also in automobile and bicycle style. The late 1940’s and the 50’s were awash in jet and rocket style. The Bowden Spacelander is a bicycle that made a splash in the news, but was initially unsuccessful in business.

The prototype was made in England from hand-formed aluminum panels, but when they went into a limited production (in the United States), it used the newest “miracle material”…fiberglass!  This material doesn’t rust, it’s not electrically conductive, and it can be designed so that it’s very strong while still being fairly light.

This style never caught on, but…nobody can argue that it looks just like any other bike!

1937 Elgin Bluebird

The Elgin Bluebird has flowing lines and lots of curves, and when I was looking at pics of vintage bicycles, this one stood out as a definite influence on the bicycles that came after it.

If you like the classic vintage bicycles from the era in this section, the best website to look at them is “Dave’s Vintage Bicycles“. There are many hours worth of pictures and reading there.

The 1935 Elgin Robin. Pic courtesy of “Dave’s Vintage Bicycles”

Elgin was a sewing machine company, and they decided to add a high-end bicycle to their catalog. They designed a very upscale bicycle, and hoped that consumers would confuse their company with the luxury watch company that was also named “Elgin”. The Elgin sewing machine and bicycle company eventually stopped making bicycles in 1910, but…in 1935, Sears revived the Elgin bicycle name to promote a luxury bicycle model that they wanted to retail. The pics above show the tank and fender-mounted headlight from this elegant 1935 Elgin Robin.

Earlier (in 1927), Charles Lindbergh had crossed the Atlantic ocean in a single-engine airplane, the first to do that flying non-stop (instead of using a boat-plane that stopped to refuel, like others had done). The next two decades featured an adventurous aircraft theme just about everywhere you could imagine. The “aero” theme that was popular at the time was even carried onto the teardrop side-plates of the pedals!

There are too many interesting frames to post pics of, so here are some links to some exceptional examples:

1891 Union Full suspension, “leading link” hairpin tension-spring fork

1896 Eclipse, a back-pedal rear-wheel spoon brake

1898 Stoddard Cygnet (“Swan” in Latin) The large rear loop in the frame flexes to act as suspension.

1902 Pierce, the fork is made from leaf springs, plus a short-stroke rear suspension (with a steel leaf spring between the crank and swingarm, instead of a pivot)

1910 Pierce chainless, shaft drive, concentric swingarm pivot

1917 Columbia model 400 leaf spring fork

1938 Huffman Twin Flex (the factory had recalls, which led to Firestone changing suppliers to Colson, leading to bankruptcy for Huffman, which later became the renewed  “Huffy” (The Twin Flex is the premium example of the “long tank” theme)

1930’s Colson Imperial, art deco rear rack

1934 Schwinn Aerocycle, tank and headlight are a “streamliner” with an aircraft theme

1948 Monarch Silver King, stretch cruiser, cast lugs, hexagonal tubing, art-deco cargo rack and tail-light

1936-40 CCM Flyte, dramatically curved steel frame elements act as springs, front and rear

The owner of this bike is calling it the “Elgin Decoluxe“, and as soon as I saw it, this bike totally knocked my socks off. It has tons of style, that is reminiscent of the “Art Deco” vintage era.

The Elgin Decoluxe

It’s actually a ladies frame, which is easier to find than the more desirable “male” vintage frames. The builder is making the fiberglass “tanks” to use, and also to sell to other restoration enthusiasts. Many of the male frame bikes from this era had tanks as an option, but…these new tanks are made specifically to convert a variety of different ‘step through’ frames into stylish vintage cruisers. The decorative “3-row” horizontal trim pieces are totally hand-made custom elements.

This bike is featured in the website “Rat Rod Bikes“, and was built by Jim Henderson (AKA “The Renaissance Man”).  It’s not an electric, but…it shows the kind of style that an average builder can accomplish if they are passionate, and put in the time and effort.

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“Art” Bicycles

There are probably too many of these to list. I’ve only chosen the “Pi Cycle” as an example because…it’s actually quite functional, in spite of it’s radical shape. Sadly, they are no longer in business, but…their legend lives on.

You can say that you love the style, or…that you hate the style. However, one thing you can’t say is that is has no style.

The Pi Cycle

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Modern Body Panels

There’s no way to precisely define “modern”, but…here are two ebikes that have made a serious attempt at using vacuum-molded body panels to make something that is distinctive in its style.

The 2014 Qoros eBiqe

The Qoros eBique is an exotic that we wrote about back in 2014. The side panels and tail-light boom are the most obvious styling touches. The facets on the rear swingarm may not seem to add much, but I feel they are a subtle but effective addition, and they seem to be similar to the swingarm on the recent HPC Revolution.

The 2014 BESV LX1

The BESV company in China is a standout example of a bicycle design that retains much of the “socially accepted” bicycle style, while still adding a few elements to bring some creativity and modern style to their look. The body panels on the LX1 shown above (and also the JS1) manage to stylishly hide the wiring while being light, strong, and rust-proof.

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Lightly styled modern electric bikes

The Leaos is a carbon-fiber frame, with significant interior engineering to make up the deletion of the conventional top-tube and seat-stay

The Leaos electric bike

The Miele Evox (shown below) is from Canada. It doesn’t “scream” style, but they did put some effort into giving it’s shape a certain graceful “flow” that I find to be very engaging. It is only a mild-assist street-legal power system, but I felt is was one of the more attractive ebikes at the 2015 Interbike convention.

The Elby (shown below) also isn’t a “screaming radical” when it comes to design, but if you want to stay fairly mainstream, there isn’t a whole lot that you can change on a bicycle. I felt it did a reasonable job of adding some elegant curved shapes to the basic ebike “step-trough” frame.

The 2016 Elby. I have ridden the BionX “D-series” rear hub, and it is as silent as they claim.

The Coast Cycles Quinn (below) isn’t even an ebike, but its unusual frame is advertised to be able to hold a large briefcase for some city office-worker. Of course I immediately realized how it could hold a large and common rectangular battery pack without any modifications. That being said, it had a certain “Swedish” flavor of style to it that I found to be subtle and very appealing.

The 2016 Coast Cycles Quinn

When Peugeot decided to make a hybrid car, they also decided that they would make an electric bike as a very affordable way to help promote the new hybrid, since Peugeot has a long history of producing high-end bicycles. The pic below is the Peugeot eDL-132. It has a carbon-fiber frame that houses the slim battery, a belt drive (instead of a chain), and a mid drive motor. The French have sometimes cared more about style over performance, but…this is one ebike that has both.

The Peugeot eDL-132

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Whats next in ebike style?

There’s no way to tell. Style varies from one place to the other, and from one year to the next.

Chopper styled ebikes have been popular in Germany and Russia the last few years. Vintage styled ebikes have popped up in the UK and Italy. I also noticed that bobber motorcycles have been gaining popularity in recent custom motorcycle shows, so I think that there “might be” some bobber ebikes seen around here soon (it all depends on what custom builders put together!). Styling influences can come from any direction, and from completely unexpected sources.

One thing is for certain, the more that ebike builders see about special projects that have a great style, the more creativity we will see when they decide to build one for themselves…

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, July 2016

I know this is going to sound like an ad, but this really is actual news, and it’s very good news for street ebike commuters.

Ebike builders who want to add a kit to their bicycle really seem the love the hardcases. The first example of this is how many customers opted to get the now-famous “dolphin” hard case, instead of a soft-sided battery pack in a battery bag. These last few years, any major North American retailer of ebike battery packs had 18650-cell battery packs that were covered in a heavy shrink-wrap, and most customers put these in a heavy-cloth bag that attaches into the central frame triangle of their bike.

The popular “Dolphin” hard case, filled with 18650-format cells

However, a growing number of experienced ebikers discovered that…if they charged their battery pack every night, then they didn’t really need to have as large of a pack. So…when the old one wore out, a large portion of the “second wave” ebikers bought the hard cased “dolphin” pack. This last year, cells with a higher energy density have become readily available, and that fact has breathed new life into hard-case dolphin pack sales, making them a viable option to a much wider customer base. Without changing the size of the dolphin pack, it could now be had with longer range  cells inside.

This is a dolphin pack in a common “diamond” frame bicycle. Some frames have enough room in them to add another row of cells to the pack (for the absolute maximum capacity, you can see here why I like the triangle-shaped packs so much)

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Off-Road or Street?

The trend for off-road bicycles is to have a smaller frame triangle on the hardtails, and most of the full-suspension designs put the rear shock absorber right in the middle of what little space was there. This means you will rarely see a hard-case dolphin pack on an off-roader, however…for the street, hard cases have proven to be VERY popular.

One of the most popular street commuter frames is the Electra Townie. The standout features that enthusiasts like are that its frame is very strong while still being made from light aluminum, it has a comfortable upright “feet forward” posture, it will accept “plush ride” 2.5-inch wide tires, and it has very large frame triangle (for centrally mounting a battery).

Here is an Electra Townie “Go!” ebike using a slim “Shark” pack. you can see here that a much larger hard case will easily fit.

My personal street commuter is an Electra Lux fat cruiser. The Townie can be found for roughly $400 at most retailers, and the “Lux” stretch cruiser that I have is more expensive. Both are great candidates for a street commuter whether you want a rear hubmotor, or any one of the popular mid drives.

Take a quick look at the “chopper” section of our “Bicycle Style” article, and you can see that there are many street frames that will easily allow a much larger hard case to be fitted.

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Enter the “Killer Whale”…

The dolphin hard cases, and the “similar but slimmer” shark hard-cases have been around for quite a while, and many retailers carry them. However, many builders would like a hard case that is “plug and play” like the dolphin case, but maybe larger?…This really is a new thing, and it’s something that I expect to become very popular for those builders who have a bicycle frame with a large enough central triangle space on their bike.

So…how much bigger is it?

Why is he smiling? he wants you to come in the tank for a swim! This looks like a killer whale, but it’s actually a very rare vegetarian “snuggle” whale…

The quantity of cells inside is dependant on several factors. If the pack configuration was using five cells per paralleled group (5P), then…to go from 13S to 14S (48V to 52V), the manufacturer would have to cram-in five more cells. Also, the amount of current a pack can put out affects which BMS (Battery Management System) appropriate. A 5P pack of Panasonic GA cells can put out 50A peaks (5 cells per “P” group, 10A per cell).  So…in order to take full advantage of the performance of these cells, the BMS is rated for 30A continuous, and 50A temporary peaks. A BMS like that is larger than the common BMS’s found in “average current” packs, which might only see occasional peaks of 30A. Remember, volts and amps both add power, but…amps also add heat. More amp-heat means a larger BMS.

All the dimensions are almost identical to the now-common dolphin pack (the width is identical), except it is bigger enough to add 13 more cells inside. It is 5-inches tall (128mm). It easily fits in an Electra Townie frame, but if you have anything other bike than one of those, draw out a template with the dimensions shown below to make sure it will fit, before ordering one of these.

MAKE SURE TO ADD ONE INCH TO THE HEIGHT TO COMPENSATE FOR THE SLIDE-IN CRADLE!

The Killer Whale hard case

For these reasons (among others), Luna has decided that their first order of Killer Whale packs that they are stocking will be 13S / 48V, and they will use the Panasonic GA cell (10A peaks per cell, 3500-mAh per cell). In an average sized pack, this cell would be considered an “average current” pack, with “maximum range” capacity. However, in a pack this physically large, with a 5P configuration (compared to the average 4P or 3P pack), it actually also has pretty fantastic current capability.

The Killer Whale has 13S X 5P = 65 cells inside. Luna’s popular 48V Dolphin pack has 52 cells (13S X 4P = 52)

The common Dolphin case.

The dolphin pack is listed as having a height of 5-inches at its tallest point (the same as the Killer Whale), but…the dolphin is sloped down on its top (towards the nose), and it’s also sloped on the front and the rear of the case. These sloped portions help it fit into more frames that have the common triangle-shape in the center of the frame. The Killer Whale is more “rectangular” shaped, so…those extra 13 cells that got crammed inside? they might not fit in as many bicycle frames as the dolphin.

But, what if it would fit yours?…

Someone started calling these a “dolphin” case when they first came out, and the name stuck. Is the dorsal fin on the right from a dolphin or a shark? Look at the face when it pops out of the water. If it makes you smile and want to jump in the water for a swim, it’s a happy dolphin. If the face has cold, dead eyes…and you can tell it wants to consume what little life you have left, it’s either a shark, or…my ex-wife.

If you have a direct-drive hub (DD), and you live where there are long and steep hills, you can get this battery and the motor hot from constant high-amp draws. However…if you live where your commute is relatively flat, you will only experience high-amp loads for a few seconds during acceleration, and then you will enter a “cruise phase” where the motor, controller, and battery have a chance to cool off.

If you have a mid drive, they typically provide very good hill-climbing performance, while staying relatively cool, and also providing decent range-per-Watt Hour (WH) of battery capacity (as long as you shift your bike into the proper gear), so…the Killer Whale (if it will fit your bike) will provide longer range between charges. However, the shark or dolphin may still be a viable choice for a system that only draws 25A or 30A max (like the BBS02 or BBSHD).

One of the key features of this pack [using this cell, and in this configuration]… is that you can now get a 17.5-Ah’s (Amp hours) worth of range in a hard case, plus…you can use this on a hot rod  direct drive rear hub that draws 50A peaks. If raw performance  is all you want, then you should research packs that use the Samsung 25R cell, or the 30Q cell, but…if all you need is occasional 50A peaks, then this hard case pack will provide that, along with more range than the 25R and 30Q “performance” cells I mentioned.

More range for mid drives, or…now there’s a hard case that can be used on a 50A DD hub that still need 17.5-Ah’s of range.

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Here’s the feature list from Luna’s website

• USB Charge port for your phone etc. built into pack (can also be used to power lights)
• Can be used as the best phone bank charger ever
• On-off switch
• 4-LED battery meter built into pack
• Spring quick-release rack with anti-theft key lock
• Hard plastic case to protect your pack
• 850 watt hours means incredible range in small package
• 13S / 5p = 65 Genuine name-brand grade-A Panasonic GA 18650 cells
• 30A continuous / 50A maximum BMS
• 9 pounds = incredible energy density
• Life Span: 400-1000 charges
• See images for dimensional drawing

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, August 2016

This is a direct drive (DD) hubmotor that I have been waiting for someone to produce the last two years, and now, someone finally has. This article will explain what’s good about it, and why I like it. We are recommending that it works well at 52V X 50A = 2600W.

If you want to sell electric bike kits in the US, and you want a specific set of features that are not currently available in an existing Chinese factory wholesale catalog, you may have to order a Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) to get them to produce it. It can be any number from ten to a thousand. The first US-based retailer to have these hubmotors is Electric Race Technologies in Southern California, and they ordered 100 units (if customers buy them, they will order more).

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The Crystalyte H35, setting the standard

Let me start by explaining the DD hubmotors that were used a few years ago, and how we got to the DD hubmotors we have today (<- click there). When I started reading about ebikes (back in 2009), there were very few choices available for the builders who wanted “just a little extra” power.

Geared hubmotors are the most common ebike motor, and for good reason. They are light for the amount of wheel torque they provide, and systems that operate well at around 48V X 25A = 1200W remain a very popular combination for street commuters. However, at somewhere around 2000W, the largest available geared hubmotors sometimes experience heat distress, due to a limited heat-shedding path. Therefore, hot rodders embraced the larger direct-drive hubmotors from the beginning.

The king at the time was the Crystalyte H35 (the name refers to a magnet “Height” of 35mm, when the motor is laying on it’s side). The “kV” of a motor refers to how many RPM’s a motor will turn for each volt that is supplied. More volts equals more RPM’s. A popular retailer imported two kV models at the time, which they erroneously named HT and HS for Torque  and Speed. The “S” was a faster kV, and the “T” was a slower kV (with the slower motor being suitable for higher volts, to arrive at the same RPM’s as the fast kV model, when it’s at a lower voltage).

Adding more amps creates a lot more heat  than raising the volts, so…since the actual power limit of a motor is often simply how much heat  they can survive, early hot rodders immediately used the maximum amps that the motor would survive, and then began raising the volts (as many volts as they could afford, or…as many as they could fit into the frame). One good example of this is the ventilated motor on Nick’s eTownie from 2014.

“…Lyen’s 12-FET controller is now set at 60A battery current, and 135A phase, for driving the Crystalyte HT3525…The temp gauge in the motor never shows more than 80C [of heat] and that is with bursts of 5500W…Now, I’m hitting 42-MPH [67 km/h] on 24S (24 X 4.10V per cell = 98.4V), and…nothing is getting too hot…”

The nominal power of this system is [3.6V X 24S =] 86V X 60A = 5160 Watts (If you like 5000W, you should really use an 18-FET controller to avoid the controller getting too hot).

One of the reasons a motor with a 35mm wide stator was popular with hot rodders was that…it was the widest that a stator could be, while still leaving enough room for a common 7-speed freewheel, and also allowing the motor to fit into the common bicycle frame drop-outs with a 135mm width (of course, with two torque-arms located on the outsides of the frame drop-outs).

The popular MXUS 3000W hubmotor has a 45mm wide stator (which allows even more power), but…it is commonly used with only a single-speed freewheel.

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Leafbike 1500W, and thin laminations

The Crystalyte H35 has worked great  at its rated power (48V X 30A = 1500W), but…those who used a lot more power than that (up to 5000W) would be risking heat damage, or even mechanical damage…such as broken axles from using higher watts coupled with high regen-braking.

Nick ventilated the side-plates of his H35 to let the frequent excess heat out. However…what if he could have higher power with less of the produced-heat in the first place?  One of the sources of the high heat in his hot-rodded motor was the eddy-currents in the steel laminations of the stator (which make up the cores of the motors’ electromagnets). Thinner laminations would result in less eddy current waste-heat, and the Crystalyte has the common 0.50mm thick lams. Also!…thinner lams cost less than ten US dollars per motor.

99 laminations in a 35mm width equals a very thin 0.35mm per lam. “If you got big problems I feel bad for you, son. I got 99 problems but…thick laminations ain’t one”

Last year, a company called Leafbike began selling a hubmotor with the common 205mm diameter laminations (8-inches in diameter), and with a popular 35mm wide lamination stack (commonly called a 205/H35 by manufacturers). Also…the Leafbike hubbie had thicker motor phase wires from the factory (a common garage-upgrade for hot rodders), a stronger axle, and most of all…the thinner 0.35mm laminations.

A guy named David (ES member “Neptronix”) bought one and began testing it. The results were better than expected. He chose a faster kV so he could have a top speed near 40-MPH without needing extra-high volts, but…that choice usually meant that the motor would run a little hot. The thinner laminations helped enough that the results were impressive. If you tried hard enough, you could certainly still get this motor too hot, but…it could take more power and still survive.

Electricbike.com recommends that the stator of a hubmotor should stay below 200F / 93C, for reliable operation and acceptable longevity. Your actual resulting top-speed will be the result of motor kV, system voltage, tire diameter, rider weight, and wind resistance.

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The Cro, MXUS, and…aluminum stator supports

A few years ago, the biggest hot rod hubmotor was the venerable Cromotor (with a 50mm wide stator). It’s pretty much an electric motorcycle hubmotor that had its axles machined to fit a bicycle frame, and the spoke holes were drilled small enough to fit 12-ga moped spokes (thinner 14-ga are common on bicycles), as opposed to thick 80-MPH 10-ga motorcycle spokes.

The Cromotor had the desirable high-efficiency thin 0.35mm laminations (more of the input watts went to making power, instead of making waste-heat), AND…it also  had one other awesome feature. Instead of a thin stamped-steel stator support  to connect the central axle to the stator electromagnets at the rim…it had a thick cast aluminum stator support.

Why would they add this extra weight? The answer is…HEAT.

On flat land, you might hit the accelerator hard for a few seconds, which would draw the maximum [heat-producing] amps, in order to accelerate. Then, you move into a “cruise phase” where the amps slide down to a level where the ebike (or E-motorcycle) is simply maintaining speed. This cruise phase allows the battery/motor/controller to cool down a bit…at least until you stop, and then you have to jump at the green light again.

By swapping-in a thick aluminum stator support, any “temporary” heat spikes from using max-amps can be absorbed quickly, and then shed over time.

Someday I will make a clock out of one of these…the key feature in this pic is the thick cast “six spoke” aluminum stator support, which can absorb and shed heat spikes.

It’s important to understand this because…swapping-in an aluminum stator-support does not improve the motors’ continuous  heat survivability. By that I mean that, if you are driving up a long and steep uphill at a constant max amps? an aluminum stator support will eventually  still get too hot (however…it can delay the onset of “heat-soaking”).

Where this feature really shines is in a user-profile that runs on fairly flat land (and maybe a few mild hills). You can dramatically increase the temporary “peak” amps that you can shove down a DD hubmotors throat, if you have this aluminum stator-support feature. How much? The real number is actually…how hot is it getting? We believe 200F / 93C is a practical limit, and if you want to use more than 52V X 50A = 2600W…we also recommend you install a temp sensor with a digital read-out.

Nick used over 5000W in a Crystalyte 205/H35 motor, but…he also ventilated the sideplates, and…he had a temp-sensor so that he could “back-off a little” when he had abused the motor a little too much…(of course, he also didn’t have thin laminations and an aluminum stator support at the time….*wink).

The big story two years ago in DD hubmotors was the sudden popularity of the MXUS 3000W DD hubmotor. It had thin lams, and an aluminum stator-support. It was more powerful than the Leafbike 205/H35, and it cost less than the Monster Cromotor 205/H50 (The MXUS has a 45mm wide stator).

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Who makes the Edge?

The Leafbike company was asked several times if they would produce an aluminum-stator support version of their thin-lamination 205/H35 motor, and…the MXUS and QS companies were both asked to make a 35mm wide stator version of their “thin lamination with an aluminum stator-support 205mm OD stator” motor, but…so far nobody has agreed to make these, until now.

A certain distributor might have a product made by two different factories, in case there is a problem with production. That way, you always have at least one source running, and also…if one of them starts making a bad product, you can tell from customer warranty claims which factory was making the crap. I’ve had this motor apart, and I don’t see any distinguishing marks, so the source is probably only one Chinese factory, and it is LA eBike’s secret…so far.

The electricbike.com test mule (GT Chucker DH frame), located in our secret Kansas division test lab. Seen here with a 26 X 2.0 front tire, 19-inch moped rim on the back using 12-ga spokes with a 2.2 inch DOT tire (soon to be replaced with a 3.0 tire after a few burn-outs). Brakes are a dangerous “scrap bin” 160mm front cable disc, and testing is done on long “abandoned airstrip” straights where there is no traffic. Battery is a 70A Luna pack using 30Q cells. The battery case is an organic fiber material made from renewable resources, with the materials “re-purposed” from local bins on trash “pick up” day…because we care about the environment. Handlebars are salvaged from a trash-day BMX.

Here is a pic showing one of electricbike.com test-mules. Also, here’s an interesting story about why engineering test-vehicles are called “mules”. A mule  is a cross between a female horse, and a male donkey (assuming it’s a donkey who owns a step-ladder). The animal that results has some of the benefits of both, but is not intended for production. The joke is that…two mules can’t reproduce (the inter-species mutation doesn’t have the proper equipment). In order to get a mule, you must always use a horse and donkey for parents.

The mid-power Leafbike/Edge, the awesome MXUS 3000W, Monster Cromotor, and “beast-mode” QS 205 all look the same from the side. The width of the stator makes all the power difference. The aluminum torque-plates shown here don’t have their end-clamps on (at least, in this picture), and these plates have been hacked to fit onto three different frames so far. Be professional for goodness sakes, don’t do this…water-jet some steel torque plates.

The Edge 1500W on the right side

The pic above shows one of the reasons someone might want to get this motor. “In theory”, this motor (along with the Leafbike 1500W and the Crystalyte H35) has enough room on the right side to use a 7-speed freewheel and derailleur. I recommend a 6-speed Shimano “megarange”, because…let’s be honest…at these power levels you only need 2-speeds…second gear is “I want to pedal along with the motor at top speed so the cops think I’m a bicycle”…and also, first gear is “something on my system isn’t working, and I need to pedal home on this heavy-ass ebike”.

I am only using a 14T single speed in the pic above because…it’s what I had laying around.

The Edge 1500W on the left side. This is where you would adapt a disc brake onto it…if you were smart. You can see here that IF I had mounted the axle shoulders in the stock 135mm frame frame drop-outs, it would have fit.

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Lets crack this beotch open, what’s inside?

Some of our new readers are new to bicycles, and even more are completely new to ebikes. If a certain user-profile leads you to buying a hub-motor, it’s only a matter of time before you want to crack it open, and poke around in its guts. Plus, if you use more watts than we recommend, and then you fry a Hall sensor? you will need to “don the gloves” and perform some surgery.

Make alignment dimples. Just a tiny mark, don’t go deep. You can even just scratch the two pieces with a sharp knife, or paint a stripe with red nail polish from the dollar-store…

The hole locations for the bolts that attach the side-plates to the central part of the motor are typically symmetrical. However…take my advice, before you dis-assemble ANYTHING…mark how it was oriented before you pull it apart (don’t ask how I learned that). “A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from someone elses…”

The left side of the Edge 1500W axle. The coiled metal spring-looking thing is an “anti-kinking” support for the cable. If you use horizontal drop-outs, the cable would exit straight down as a “drip loop”

One of the top five differences between a cheap ebay kit and the hot rod motors we recommend is that…the power wires from the internal motor exit the motor case from INSIDE the drop-outs (seen in the pic above). Low powered hubs often locate these wires inside a hollow axle. Doing that makes the axle weak, and it also limits how fat the wires to the motor can be. Thin wires are bad, and should be beaten with a stick until they cry for mercy.

In the pic above, I have sliced an axle-nut lengthwise to make a standoff inside the frame drop-out. If you look closely, you can see the axle-shoulder that would normally be pushed up against a bicycle frame drop-out, with a common width of 135mm. I cut the axle-nut with a hacksaw, and smoothed the cut with an angle-grinder (yes, I have scars on my hands).

If I had used a 26-inch wheel, I would have also located the axle in the normal frame location, with the two torque-plates just on the outside. However, my decision to lace the hub to a 19-inch moto rim with a 2.2-inch tire (equaling a 24-inch outer diameter) meant that I needed to locate the axle at least an inch lower than the frame was designed for.

This bike originally came with a 9-speed derailleur, and since I already knew I was going to use a single-speed, I also took this opportunity to locate the axle about two inches farther back, so I didn’t need to break the chain and re-attach it at a different length.

The Edge 1500W axle. I had to touch-up one side of the axle-flats with a file to get it into my 10mm wide drop-outs. The flats are 10mm, the threaded portion is 14mm, and the center of the axle is 16.4mm in diameter. Thicker would be better, but…this isn’t bad.

Removing the side-plate retaining bolts with a 4mm allen hex wrench, on the cable side. If you do this, buy some 4mm stainless steel washers to put under the bolt-heads for when you re-assemble..

Set it on the ground, and push down on two opposing sides of the rim. The center should pop out fairly easy. If you put a finger in-between a steel stator and 46 strong neodymium rim-magnets, they will occasionally slam together and cut your finger-tips off. Lift the center section by the axle. This is no joke…I still have all ten of my finger-tips, so follow my example. Try it with a hot dog, and see if it’s funny when it gets cut in half.

The metal part of the lamination stack of the stator is what makes up the electro-magnets that are turned on and off rapidly. If you like using 2600W, 35mm is a good width. These measuring calipers are plastic, so they don’t conduct electricity around a 1000-WH high-current battery.

It was marked 4/6 inside, and I’m guessing that it means its a 4-turn model, using 6 strands per turn = 24 strands around each stator tooth. Notice there are slots to add a second set of hall sensors on the opposite side, if desired…Three motor phases equals three Hall sensors. Of course, you could also use a sensorless controller if you want, or…because you fried your last hubmotor’s Hall sensors with too much heat (*sips some whiskey and cries myself to sleep in shame)

The Edge 1500W cable connector. The three fatter motor phase wire connectors are obvious. If you look closely you can see the small 5V contacts around the perimeter, there are six of those.

This motor came with a cable that had a proprietary connector that was located about one foot away from the motor. I have read statements from builders where they like being able to break the electrical cable near the wheel, to make removing the wheel (to fix a flat tire?) a little easier. This connector accomplishes that, but…my personal preference is to run long and continuously-unbroken wires up into the battery box, for water-proofing, in order to prevent shorts in case I get caught in an unexpected sprinkle of rain.

The wires between the battery and controller should always be short and fat, but…the three phase wires from the controller to the motor can be as long as you like, with no adverse effects resulting from the added length. I cut this connector set off, and soldered 12-ga wire from the motor up into the battery case, using 3:1 water-proof marine-grade heat-shrink insulation. The stock phase wires are 13-ga. The Hall sensor extension wires I added were 24-ga. Since Hall wires only carry a 5V signal, they can be very thin, perhaps even down to 36-ga? However, I have found that 24-ga is easier to manipulate for soldering.

Inside the battery bag I will eventually use, the phase connectors will be 5.5mm bullets that I acquired by slicing open some of my XT90 connectors with a dremel using a thin abrasive disc (I have a pile of male/female XT90’s), which are rated at 90A (much more amps than I would use for this motor).

The stock motor has common ring-connectors for the three fat motor phase wires. I cut them off and swapped-in 5.5mm male bullets that I had cut out of XT90 connectors. The heat-shrink on the 5.5mm bullets shown here is 6mm from Hobby-King. I did  not change the stock 6-pin hall sensor Molex connector.

The copper in the stock motor phase wires are 13-ga. My wire extensions from the motor to controller are made from the slightly thicker 12-ga. For Hall wires, I used 24-ga.

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Here’s what you get

Someday soon, many retailers will sell these (or something similar) already affordably laced to a rim, but…this is what I received this month, since I was in a hurry.

The Edge 1500W hubmotor arrives. The electricbike.com “banana for scale” is calibrated in four inches and also 10 centimeters.

The first step is lacing the hub onto a rim.

The first step is to choose a rim, calculate what spoke will work, and lace that rim up. One bead of the tire (in the pic above) is mounted on the rim, the opposite side has the bead off of the rim so I can reach inside (you don’t actually need the tire to lace the rim onto the hub).

The pencil shown is inserted into the air-fill stem hole, and the first four 12-ga butted spokes are shown in a one-cross pattern. Start like this so the air-fill stem will be “boxed”, and easier to reach when you are done. Repeat the pattern clockwise, then “tension and true” them properly, or…have a bike shop do that. This rim is a Holmes MMP 1.6-inch wide aluminum single-wall moped rim, capable of properly seating a 2.2-inch up to a 3.0-inch wide tire…

By the time you read this, LA eBike will have lacing available for this hub, so email them for a quote. I suspect the majority of riders will spec either a 24-inch bicycle rim, or a 19-inch moto rim (both very similar in size), and capable of mounting 2.2-3.0 inch tires. Off-roaders have been moving towards mid-drives, and also the largest possible hubmotors (MXUS, Cromotor, and QS), but I expect this motor to do quite well with street ebikes.

How much do I like it? I usually sell the parts I test once an article is done, but….I’m keeping this one.

A customised 3000W electric Nirve Switchblade from Lee in Vancouver Canada. This type of street ebike is the perfect candidate for this new hubmotor.

16.8 lbs, or…7.6 kg. Toes included for size comparison (The motor isn’t huge, I am just a small hairy deformed mutant). This scale is calibrated for measuring the weight of my dumps after I’ve eaten a huge bowl of high-fiber chili with beans, so this weight is accurate.

Enough! I appreciate the response, but…this hub looks just like any other hubmotor…”from the outside”. I tried to make it as interesting as possible, but…I’m only human.

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What Controller?

If you are happy with 52V X 45A = 2300W, then you could get-by with a 12-FET controller if it is using the cool-running and efficient 3077 FETs inside.

I don’t know of anyone who is making a 15-FET controller, or an 18-FET with 3077’s, so…the next bump up is a common 18-FET controller using 4110 FETs, capable of any voltage up to 96V. The bad news is that…such a controller is more expensive, and also physically larger. The good news is that a controller like this won’t get hot at anything “up to” 72V X 65A = 4600W, so you will have a lot of room to play with it.

I recently bought an 18-FET controller from two separate vendors, and I haven’t been able to get either one of them to run…tests on this motor were performed with a 12-FET at 45A. I am looking forward to 40% more wheel torque once I can access 65A…

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Conclusion

The discussion over whether to get a hubmotor over a mid drive will continue as long as I can foresee. The answer between those two will simply depend on what your preferences are, and what you are going to do with the kit. Some builders are already using this hub at over 5000W. I will be writing soon about Ferro Fluid and motor-shell fins, so…any mods that improve heat-shedding will broaden the range of applications for motors that are a little lighter, like this one.

There is nothing wrong with running this motor at 60V or even 72V, but I think the majority of builders that choose this motor will likely run it at 44V, 48V, and 52V (12S, 13S, and 14S, respectively), with the main benefit being that a s lower-voltage battery pack might be more affordable, and maybe slightly more “fit-able”?

From ES member Trailblazer: “…I’m on a 26″ x 2.5 (Hookworms). And with the 25R triangle battery I got from Luna, I’m going 36-mph at 4.2KW. This thing is a beast…”

If you use this hubmotor, and it is getting hot under your particular loads, you might want to move up to the slightly heavier MXUS 3000W, which can be found at Kinaye Motorsports. I have had good luck with them. It has a 45mm wide stator, compared to the Edge’s 35mm, so it can produce about 30% more power with less heat.

If you like DD hubs, but your Edge 1500W is never even getting warm, you could likely get by with a lighter  DD hub, like the TDCM from ebikes.ca

However, I am often asked about which kit would “make me happy”, and…for most of the type of people I ride with (with street ebikes), this is it. I’d spec a steel frame (perhaps a Felt Bixby?), because using an aluminum frame isn’t going to change the fact that this is a heavy motor. And having a 6-speed megarange freewheel on this may make it look like it’s a bicycle (more than a single-speed) but that is a stealthy smoke-screen. So…this makes the Edge 1500W a “sleeper”…

…a wolf in sheeps’ clothing.

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, September 2016

We have all heard the misnomer “speed kills”…but that does not necessarily apply on an ebike. Sometimes, the extra speed an ebike provides can keep you moving closer to the speed of traffic, and sometimes…the extra power can get you out of harms way.

Most importantly the powered ebike can get you outside onto a bicycle  which can also be good for your health as well as for our environment.

Here is a recent story that was posted to our forums, along with pictures. For those that have not found the electricbike.com forum, please join us there is a good community forming there.

This is the first real-life account I have of an ebike powered by a BBSHD kit, actually saving a life told in a forum members own words:

Barb on her home-built DIY townie that saved her life

“…Well, here is a good story to tell the grand kids! My wife, Barb, who has recently returned to cycling after a 30 year hiatus, had gone down the street about a quarter mile to the neighbors. She was on her way back and suddenly from behind she heard a loud truck engine revving, sirens and gun shots! She turned around to see all of this barreling down on her at a high rate of speed. And here she is on a section of road with a sheer drop on one side and a wall on the other, no where to go. She said I thought I was dead! I hit the throttle and barely made it to the first turn off, and got off the road before I was hit!…”

This is the road she was on, with nowhere to get away.

Here is what the drop off looks like, that she would have to jump off if she was not on high powered electric bike

They got the guy. No injuries to people, just property. Apparently, the truck was left running at a gas station, (stupid), and this guy grabbed it! DON’T LEAVE YOUR CAR OR TRUCK RUNNING!

I’m posting this from my cell because power and cable are down. The chase took out a power pole.

Here is what the cop car looked like that got shot up at the beginning of the chase.

Reflecting on yesterdays events, I realized that BBSHD saved Barbs life before. She got back into cycling (after 30 years) to do something that I enjoy and am passionate about. But she just did not have the muscle or the endurance necessary to tackle the hills in our area, some at 22% grade. But the BBSHD changed all that! Now she goes flying up hills that can stop all but the hardiest of cyclists, with a smile on her face and laughing all the way! To see the joy, the exuberance, the youth of an 8 year old, in this old girl, well, it’s enough to bring a tear to my eye!

So Thanks, really, Thanks a lot!

–Rix Ryds

Canyon Lake, Texas

Normally, we are skeptical of kickstarters, and we usually hold off on judgement until they are over. This is so we can see if the owner actually comes through with the product that they promised, and also see if the quality and performance of the products are just as good as they claimed it would be.

However, this time?…we know this guy, and he is the real deal. Not only that, he is the first to provide a product that is sorely needed in the ebike world, and this effort is well-designed. And…Micah Toll has been doing this for quite a while, so this is not his first rodeo.

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So, who is this guy?

Micah Toll was an engineering student at Pitt University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In July of 2013, he had a successful Kickstarter to get a book off the ground, which spells out how to select components to add an electric bike kit to a  bicycle. This book continues to be a useful reference for anyone who is new to ebikes, and wants to have all of the information you need to get started, all in one place.

The book that made Micah a rising star in the ebike world.

Next, Micah put together a website that he called ebikeschool.com, and he posted a lot of useful articles, which can be found here. In particular, here is his article on assembling a battery pack for an ebike. Then, in May of 2016, he put together a youtube video to show how to build up a battery pack for an electric bike, showing the entire step-by-step process.

I’m only listing his background so you will understand that Micah is not new to ebikes or their battery packs. Also, he has already paid his dues by providing a lot of free resources on the internet, to supply information to anyone who might need it. He is a true enthusiast who has been building and riding electric bikes for many years.

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Back to the modular pack-building kit

You may be wondering why he chose a modular battery pack building kit as his next effort.

About three years ago, high-performance 18650 cells that could put out a lot of current became available in the form of professionally-built battery packs for ebikes. Before that, the only way to get authentic (non-counterfeit) high-current name-brand cells, was to buy a lot of cordless tool battery packs and cut the cells out. Here is a discussion thread from 2011 to show what I mean.

Next, adventurous pack-builders had to decide how to configure the pack, and then to connect all the cells. If you want to be able to plug in the pack to a BMS, or to a balancing RC charger, you needed to build up groups of paralleled cells first, and once you had those parallel modules made, you could connect them in series to achieve the desired voltage. The key point to remember for later on in this article is that you first have to make up the paralleled sub-groups.

Here’s an example of one of the kit options, and what the result would be when the pack is done.

When you are connecting a lot of cells in parallel, and also then in series, many builders used thick pieces of copper wire, and soldered them onto the cell-ends. This is how we discovered that…in spite of our best efforts, occasionally one of the cells would become damaged from the heat of the soldering iron.

Soldering braided copper wire directly onto the cell-ends to form the the 6P parallel groups, for a 10S pack (36V).

As you can imagine, it is a huge headache to find the one bad cell in the middle of a pack, and then swap-out a new cell in its place. In order to avoid damaging any cells with a certain amount of confidence, some pack builders began buying spot-welders, which is the method that professional factories use. These spot-welders have come down in price, but they are still a major purchase, especially if you only need one battery pack. (plus most of them use 220V)

There have been several youtubes and articles showing how to spot-weld a pack together, and this has blossomed a renaissance of garage pack-building. This is important for two reasons. First, it remains very difficult to ship lithium 18650 cell battery packs into certain countries, even though it is fairly easy to ship in loose individual cells, and also the spot-welders.

[Here is an article with an embedded video showing the entire process of spot-welding the entire pack, to see what that entails]

A Home-Built Ebike Battery Pack from 18650 Cells

Secondly, Even in countries where professionally-built battery packs can be shipped to ebike customers, it is becoming increasingly difficult to do that, and also more expensive each year.

That being said, the magic number to remember right now is that battery packs that are 100 Watt Hours (WH) or less are considered reasonably safe (this allows passengers to carry a laptop or smart phone with a lithium battery inside it, while still limiting very large packs). To determine the WH, you multiply the nominal volts times the Amp-hours. The Panasonic GA cell has recently become popular, and its nominal voltage (which also happens to be the voltage they are shipped at) is 3.6V per cell. Each GA cell has been factory-rated at 3.5-Ah. So each GA cell is (3.6 X 3.5 =) 12.6-WH.

That means you could parallel seven cells to end up with a sub-pack that is only 88.2 WH (less than 100-WH). It is only after the paralleled groups are attached to each other that the pack becomes considered dangerous by shippers, for transportation reasons. A pack made from 7P paralleled sub-packs, and using the 3.5-Ah GA cell, would have a total capacity around 24.5 Amp-Hours (Ah), which is a really huge amount of range. Most builders only want or need around 14-Ah, which can be accomplished by a relatively small 4P pack, if using the high-capacity GA cell.

Soldering the series connection on one of Micah’s battery pack kits.

In the pic above, there are three straight strings of six cells in parallel. The back row has the positive cathodes facing up, and the middle row has the negative anodes facing up. The long nickel strips have been spot-welded to connect the six-cell groups, but the connection between one six cell string and the next one can easily and safely be made with a soldering iron.

If no other sub-packs are added to the three strings “in series” shown, this would be a 3S / 6P pack. If you added more paralleled groups you can raise the voltage to your desired goal. 10S is generally regarded as 36V, and 13S is the industry standard for what is commonly called a 48V pack.

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The BMS

The Battery Management System (BMS) is an important component of any battery pack build. The one in the pic below is not from Micah’s kit, I just added this pic to show what a common BMS looks like.

A typical BMS

If you only bulk-charge a pack and it has no BMS, half of the cells will end up slightly lower than ideal, and half will likely end up with a slightly higher voltage…due to minor variances in the cells’ internal resistances. If some of the cells are overcharged, it can damage them, so a quality BMS is vital to a packs health and long life.

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What kind of soldering iron?

Doing this kit right requires a serious soldering iron. If you want to build up one of Micahs packs, I recommend a 100W soldering iron with a fat tip. A thin tip cools down too fast as soon as it touches a fat wire that is at room temperature.

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Why not just solder all of the cell ends?

So…getting back to soldering and spot-welding. It dawned on Micah that the paralleled sub-packs could be spot-welded by him. In that way, not only can they still be easily shipped to customers anywhere in the world, the end customer would only need to solder the paralleling bus-strips to each other (to form the series connections), instead of soldering onto the cell ends. If you are only connecting the paralleling bus strips to each other, and you are using a large high-wattage soldering iron, the connection will be made fast enough that the actual cell-tips will not get hot, so there is no risk of cell damage.

Micah spot-welds all the parallel connections onto the actual cell-tips, and the customer solders the series connections between the paralleled sub-packs. It’s a brilliant idea, but a new battery pack builder would also have to buy a handful of other small items from a variety of sources, and wait for each to arrive. The BMS of course, and also the wire and connectors, plus some insulating shrink wrap large enough to cover the whole pack. When buying Micah’s pack-building kit, the customer only needs to buy a cheap and high-powered soldering iron, which is something that every ebiker should own for minor repairs. We also recommend buying a digital multi-meter (DMM) for minor repairs and trouble-shooting.

Of course the easiest form of pack to build is a rectangle. But this kit allows pack-builders to also make a pack with an unusual shape,  which is extremely valuable to full-suspension ebikes, because the rear shock is often located in the frame triangle, right in the middle of the best possible place to mount the weight of a battery. Hard-cases are very popular right now, such as the famous “dolphin” case. However, when squeezing a rectangle into an odd-shaped-frame, you’ll end up with a lot of wasted space. A custom pack-building kit has many more options when it comes to the shape of the pack, instead of just accepting what’s available from existing pre-built packs, out of a catalog.

If you are not familiar with Kickstarters, supporters can pre-buy a kit at a reduced price. Since the pre-buy price is significantly lower than what the retail price will be, you might be wondering what the benefit is to Micah, then. He is already making and selling these kits locally in small batches. However, when he reaches his Kickstarter goal, he will be able to purchase raw cells at a much better wholesale price.

Here is a pic of a custom-built battery pack, for a full-suspension ebike. There are many reasons someone might want to build a custom battery pack, but this reason is the one that is the most interesting to me. If you limit yourself to a slim shark pack, you would not have as much range as this custom unit.

It will also jump-start his pack-kit business, so he will have enough volume to begin adding more options when it comes to the paralleled sub-packs. He currently has a triangle-shaped 3P module, a straight 3P module (if combined they can form a triangle-shaped 6P module) and also a straight 6P module. These three current module-shapes provide a wide variety of options, and after he gets some customer feed-back, he will be able to decide which future shapes would be the most popular to add to the options list.

I’m sure this kit is not for everyone. But I also guarantee that this is a really great option for certain ebikers who would enjoy doing half of the assembly of their pack, and also want to have some control over the final shape of their pack. With this kit, Micah has done the research, and the also hardest part of the pack-build…which is assembling all the parts into one place, and spot-welding the paralleled sub-packs.

I would wish Micah luck, but…his previous enterprises have been successful, and I know that he will not need any luck for this one to be successful too.

For more details, Micah’s kickstarter can be found here.

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, October 2016

I recently stopped to think about how many devices I now have that run off of rechargeable lithium batteries, and how well they work. Of course I have an electric bike, but..more and more devices can actually work safely and quite well on rechargeable lithium battery power.

[The ebike shown above is my Electra Lux Fat, with a BBSHD and a large 52V GA-cell triangle-shaped Lithium battery pack. The seat-tube had to be notched to fit the motor inside the frame triangle]

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Cordless Hand Tools

After reading and researching 18650 cells a few years ago, I found out that the high-amp and high-capacity cells that ebikers pay a premium for have been developed and improved for the global cordless tool market. Many people  know that most laptop computers also use the now-common 18650 format cells (cylindrical, 18mm in diameter, 65mm long), but laptop cells only need to provide low current, so they compete on lowest price. Laptop 18650’s do not provide the high amps that we need on ebikes.

A cordless high-torque driver and drill set, both using high quality name-brand Sony VTC 18650 cells in a compact and light 5S / 1P configuration.

I’ve had several cordless drills in the past, but the first one that was truly satisfying at what it does is my 18V Makita cordless drill and driver set. If you are a handyman around your house, you already know how useful it is to have a cordless drill, and also how disappointing they can be if they are weak (my previous 12V drill was “adequate”, but not great).

There are stronger drills than the Makita 18V (like the 28V and 36V units), but it is my new standard for the minimum power I would recommend in a homeowner hobbyist drill.

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Yardworking Equipment

There is nothing more iconic in the middle class as having a yard full of grass that needs to be edged and mowed. I am not wealthy enough to pay for that to be done by a service, and so I am forced to edge, mow, and spray for weeds (if I want my wife to stay happy). The problem has been that…in the summer, it gets pretty hot fairly early in the morning, However…if I mow early in the morning (when it is still cool), it can disturb my neighbors…and Saturday morning might be the only time that they can grab a little extra sleep.

I have tried electric “string trimmers” (weed wackers?) that had a cord. They are very affordable and work well enough, which allows me to trim the edges of the lawn very quietly in the early morning before it gets hot. However…the damn 50-foot long cord is so annoying!

I have been watching the improvement of cordless trimmers over the years. I was so disappointed in the early 18V units, that I didn’t try any more until this year, when a friend recommended his 56V trimmer from EGO. Over the years, I have seen cordless power systems that used 24V, 28V, 36V, and even more. I own a 56V trimmer now, and after using it this past year, I can’t imagine getting anything less powerful…for two reasons.

The “EGO” brand 56V cordless trimmer

First, you need more amps and volts to get enough watts (horsepower) to have a tool that actually works well. Most yard tool systems have a battery that can swap between several other tools. For instance, the 56V battery pack on my trimmer also can power a leaf blower, plus a small chainsaw for trimming branches, and also…a mower.

Next summer, I plan to retire my 5 year old gasoline mower, and buy an electric mower. So, which one has enough power? I truly don’t know yet, but the EGO 56V has gotten a good review from people I trust, so I was thinking I’d try that one, when the time came. And that decision leads me to what I did at the beginning of this past summer. My gasoline edger finally wore out, so I thought I’d get the cordless 56V trimmer now, so their batteries would match when I get the mower next summer. I honestly thought that 56V would be way more power than I needed for edging, but…like many things in life, now that I have used it? I don’t want any trimmer that is weaker than this.

That’s the first reason, now for the second. There are cordless tool systems that have battery voltages up to 80V now. I already knew these companies “round off” the voltage numbers. Lithium 18650 cells are 3.6V each during the fat middle of their discharge curve, and they are 4.2V each when fully charged. That means when you have 14 cells in series, the system voltage will be roughly 51V in the middle, and 58V when fully charged.

There are several electric bicycle battery pack suppliers that retail 14S battery packs. One calls them a 50V pack, and the largest retailer in North America (Luna Cycle) calls them a 52V pack. The EGO lawn tool systems use a 14S configuration (14 cells in series), and for whatever reason, they call it their 56V. The Echo brand calls their 14S batteries a 58V system, so they “round up” as far as their marketing allows them to get away with.

This means that whatever the voltage on the label might be, one 14S lithium-Ion battery will work on any other 14S lithium-Ion tool. Of course…each manufacturer has their own proprietary interface, so the actual packs won’t plug into someone else’s tool, but…if you have a soldering iron, I’m sure you can make an adapter. And that means that…

When my 14S / 52V ebike battery pack gets a couple years old and will only provide 80% of its rated capacity…I will buy a new one for the ebike, and I can now use the old one to edge and mow my grass! 52V X 15-Ah = a whopping 780 watt-hours of lawn mowing run time! (maybe 600-WH when worn?). If you only ride your ebike once a week, it will likely last many more years than my packs.

Be aware that the Echo 58V tools are also 14S (just like the EGO 56V), but…the Snapper 60V and DeWalt 60V battery packs are both 15S

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Sangean portable radio

I have to include this, but it doesn’t actually use lithium batteries. It has a dual-chemistry switch in the battery compartment (you can use 1.5V disposables, like Duracell and Energizer, or…flip the switch and use rechargable 1.3V NiMH’s).

The outstanding feature of this radio is that it has an on-board charger, so when ever you plug it into the wall, the battery pack is automatically topped off (plus the cord is built-in, so you can’t misplace it). Some devices with a rechargeable battery are designed where you have to remove the cells to recharge them in a separate device, and I always felt that doing that was annoying.

My Sangean “Toughbox” portable radio. It’s not waterproof, but it is “rain resistant” for outdoor use. The red nail polish I added is by the volume knob. It has five AM presets, and five FM presets, with a digital tuner. The external frame provides significant drop protection.

This particular radio uses four NiMH cells in the “C” format. Those are not easy to find in stores, but C-NiMH’s are easy to find online, and I recommend the Sony Eneloop brand. It is so nice to have a rugged radio I can just grab and go (on battery power) when I am working in the yard or my shop. Then, when I plug it into the wall, it automatically begins charging the on-board pack. I like that the cord is connected, because separate “wall wart” power supplies are so annoying to keep track of.

A rechargeable battery-powered radio is a vital component for my home. When I lived in California, we were at risk for a power outage due to an earthquake, and when I lived in Utah we experienced a power outage due to a brush-fire that was started by lightning. Now?…we live in a tornado zone in Kansas.

If Sangean is reading this, here are some suggestions. Switch to using two 18650 lithium cells (or four?). Make the tuner a rocker switch (pressing only up or down) mounted on the face of the radio, and the remaining single knob on top should be a combination on/off switch and volume. If you have an on-board charger, you don’t need to use AA, C or D batteries as an option. 18650’s are easy to find online now.

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USB-charged LED Flashlight

I sometimes have to take my turn working a night shift for a couple of months, so you can imagine that a flashlight is a vital accessory. My employer provides junk flashlights for free, and sometimes saving money on a product doesn’t save you anything if they don’t work when you need them most.

As you can imagine, I have gone through many flashlight models. I found several models that used a single AA battery, and the small size and adequate run-time were useful. I even found a model that has a dual-voltage capability, using an on-board voltage regulator. This is when I found out you can order a rechargeable lithium cell in the AA size, and it is called a 14500 (14mm diameter, 50mm long).

That is one of my “go to” flashlights, because of its handy size. However, it is annoying to me to have to remove the 14500 cell to recharge it, and its small size means it has to be recharged often. Plus, I haven’t been able to find a 14500 cell from Samsung, LG, or Panasonic…which are the only brands I trust now. (The Sony Eneloop brand makes a NiMH rechargeable AA cell, and that is what I ended up using the most in the tiny flashlights, but I still had to remove them from the flashlight to charge them.)

My single-cell 18650 flashlight, that charges and can discharge through a USB-to-MicroUSB cord. The “power bank” with two 18650 cells is on the left. I have literally never used it over the last two years I had it.

I found several models of flashlight that used a single 18650 cell.  The smallest ones don’t have an on-board charger, but the run-time on an 18650 was so good, It became my new standard for a workhorse flashlight.

A short while ago, I stumbled across a model that had a very bright LED emitter, and also had an on-board charging jack. I knew they existed, but I didn’t like needing to keep track of a wall-wart with a proprietary jack and uncommon voltage. I almost bought one that was charged by 12V, because I have to drive a car to work and back, and that would be the ideal time to charge my work flashlight. Doing that is a viable plan, but…

I never go anywhere without my Samsung smart-phone, and these days, almost all brands of smart-phone use a Micro-USB port for battery charging. I have one at work, and one in each car. Even our work-trucks have a Micro-USB charger in them for everyone to use. I found a bright LED flashlight that uses a Micro-USB port on its side to charge the single 18650 cell. It continues to be my favorite, in spite of its slightly larger size. The model is SingFire SF-349

Cords that connect a USB port to a Micro-USB jack are very common, now that all smart-phones are required to have this format to charge their batteries.

A couple years ago, I bought a “battery bank” that uses two 18650 cells. Its a great idea, so when your cell phone has a low battery, you just pull it out of your pocket and plug it into the battery bank to charge up. Sounds good, but in practice I have never used it. It is charged through a Micro-USB port, and then output power is sent through a standard sized USB port.

Once I found this flashlight, I gave up on carrying a portable “power bank”.

This is the configuration on the flashlight I bought, so now I only have one of these flashlights in my car and at work, and the battery banks have been retired. The input/output cords for these are literally everywhere, since the “USB to Micro-USB” cords are now the world standard for phones.

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My Laptop 

As a writer, of course I have a laptop computer, which allows me to write where-ever I go. I have a Toshiba and a Dell, and once I wore out the stock battery pack, I upgraded to a “double thick” replacement pack, so my cordless run-time is awesome now. Since my laptops all have USB ports (which output 5V) I can use my laptop to charge my smart-phone and flashlight in an emergency.

My Toshiba 14-inch laptop, flipped over to show the “double thick” battery pack I added. I glued aluminum finned “heat sinks” to both sides of the power supply, and since then, I have not had any more problems with it getting too hot, which is what killed the first one.

Speaking of emergencies, as I stated before, I live in “tornado country”. I don’t fear being hit by one directly (the odds are actually quite rare), but I do anticipate a significant power outage will happen several times in my life here. My back-up for this is the 12V interface found on cars. It is easy to find solar PV panels that output 14V (which is the input voltage needed to charge a 12V battery), so I bought a panel that is fairly large, but small enough to fit through my front door (so I can store it inside at night).

My car has a 12V to 5V USB adapter, and my portable solar panel can charge a deep-cycle 12V battery during the day. Between these two, I can keep my smart-phone, my laptop, and my flashlights charged in an power-outage emergency.

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Digital Camera

If your digital camera has a form-fitted lithium cell, it can be more compact than if it uses the common cylindrical cells, whether they are rechargeable or disposable. However, because my wife and I have visited remote places, we used an older camera that was powered by two AA cells, which can be purchased at any tourist site in the world (with spares easily carried in her purse as a back-up).

My Fuji XP camera is water-resistant to bathtub and kitchen-sink depths. The Micro-USB charging port is behind a rubber-sealed panel, along with the 32-gig SD memory card. It doesn’t use 18650 cells, but the battery is definitely lithium.

I recently saw a water-resistant digital camera that had video capability, and also used a form-fitted lithium cell. I became interested when I saw that the on-board lithium cell was charged by a Micro-USB port. I can charge it from my cars “12V to mini-USB” that we use for our phones when traveling. Plus, when we are afraid we might use up the battery when we are away from our car, we can carry the cars flashlight…which doubles as a battery bank!

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Ebike batteries to 120V AC inverters

I don’t have one of these inverters to take a pic of, but here is a very good reason to have an electric bike if you live where you fear a power outage.

First of all, it’s not entirely crazy to think there may be a shortage of gasoline delivered to local gas stations for a week or so. Also, if you live within 10 miles of your work, an ebike is a very viable back-up system to ensure you can get to work, whether there is any gas available, or even if your car simply needs some minor repair.

Here I am on a Saturday morning ride with my favorite passenger (I am the “cool” grandpa). One of the reasons I chose a cruiser frame was that I knew the large frame triangle would allow me to fit a very large battery pack in it.

Secondly, you can easily find an inverter that will convert you ebike battery packs DC voltage into 120V AC, so you can run household appliances. Of course you wouldn’t try to run a large air conditioner, but if you are a diabetec who is dependent on insulin, your medicine must remain refrigerated, even in a power outage emergency (as just one example).

A while back, I investigated off-grid power systems that used solar panels and wind-generators to charge a large battery pack. The most common battery-to-AC inverters used an input voltage of 12V (for boats, RV’s, and remote cabins)….OR…a nominal 48V.

[The pic above is my “junkyard dog” test mule, shown here with a large 30Q battery pack. At 52V and 17-Ah, it has a whopping 884 Watt-Hours (WH), and can be used as a back-up for a variety of 120V AC components, if you buy a common inverter]

This means that mass-produced and reliable inverters are available that can take your ebike battery pack and use it to provide 120V AC. I checked up on the specs, and the vast majority have a variable voltage input that is a “nominal” 48V, but…the input can safely go as high as 60V (check individual component specs before purchasing). A 14S / 52V ebike battery pack is usually charged to a max of 58.8V!

This means that if you have a 13S / 48V pack, or a 14S / 52V pack…your ebike battery can power a 120V AC inverter in an emergency.

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Lithium batteries, are they dangerous?

If you only take away one thing from this article, please remember this…only purchase rechargeable lithium batteries from a trusted vendor, using authentic NON-counterfeit cells. Do you ever worry about the battery in your cordless drill, your smart-phone, or your laptop computer? If your favorite device uses high-quality authentic cells with a reliable BMS, and a brand-name charger…you can sleep easy at night without fear of any issues.

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, November 2016

The Evel company is based in Kyiv, Ukraine, in the eastern part of the EU. I recently saw a pic of their new fatbike, and I thought it looked better than a lot of the new fatbikes I had recently been seeing. But, whether you like this style or not, this shows that the Evel company is growing enough that they are investing in new designs, instead of just slapping their label on an existing generic China-bike.

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The Electric Enduro Bike / EEB

A couple of years ago it seemed there were quite a few companies making an off-road frame that had a boxy center section to hold a large battery pack. Evel was one of these, and the reports I have read indicate that their version is as good as any of the others.

This frame uses a simple single-pivot rear suspension. That may not be as sophisticated as a multi-link, but doing this does keep the price more affordable.

The EEB / Electric Enduro Bike

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The Evel Fatbike

This particular fatbike style is very new, so I don’t know of anyone who has ridden one yet. However, performance-wise, it should be very predictably the same as other fatbikes that have a similar power system and rider posture.

The Evel fatbike with a Bafang BBS02 mid drive

Having a light-colored frame with a dark downtube battery visually hides the battery pack very well from casual observers. This color-scheme of battery and frame, along with the small mid drive…it is almost invisible.

The Evel fatbike from the left side.

The battery and mid-drive motor are more visible from the left side. The shape and proportions of this frame are actually very elegant, and I don’t use that word to describe ebikes very often.

Using chrome rims combined with the blue tube-liners is a stylish touch that looks good and didn’t cost much. It’s a subtle styling choice, but I think it really adds to the bikes presentation. Don’t discount adding a little style to any bicycle, customers like it.

The triple top-bar, and the battery cradle.

This style of downtube battery is becoming more common. That may actually a be a good thing, because…if several companies begin using the same exact format and interface, then batteries from one supplier will “plug in” to the cradle from another brand of ebike. Companies don’t typically like to do that, but it would be very good for the customers to have options.

For instance, the possibility exists that this interface is the same as the batteries from the Smart Motion  ebikes. If that’s true, then the new 17.5-Ah pack from Smart Motion will plug into this Evel downtube cradle. Their stock size is a 48V / 14.5-Ah pack (which is adequate). However, the larger 17.5-Ah pack would be an exceptional upgrade.

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The Evel Hubmotor Fatbike

The rear hubmotor in the pics below looks like it uses the common 205mm diameter laminations to form the motors’ stator. It remains to be seen how wide  the stator is, which would determine the motors’ copper mass. Knowing that will give us a good idea of the maximum amps that this motor can take.

The Evel fatbike with a rear direct-drive hubmotor

With any kind of luck, this motor uses the Edge 1500W with thin laminations, and a 35mm wide stator. The pics look like it is only using a 6-speed freewheel on an axle with 170mm shoulders, so…this just might be a motor with some hot-rodding potential. If the stator was wider than 35mm, then this version would likely be using a single-speed freewheel, but…if it was the lower-powered 28mm wide stator, then…it would likely have a 7-speed freewheel.

The forks shown here look like they are one of the more affordable versions available. I don’t know if they would be up to adding much more stress than what they are currently under, but…if you want to turn this into a snow monster, you could add a geared hubmotor to the front to make it a 2WD [be aware, doing that would also require a second controller, plus upgrading to a high-amp battery pack, and using a 2WD throttle].

One of the things that drew me to this frame is the shape, but…I also liked the extra space between the seat-tube and the front of the rear tire. This indicates that this frame has a little “stretch” to it. A shorter frame might be a little more nimble on an off-road trail, but a slightly longer frame is more stable at higher speeds. I have a fatbike with a similar wheelbase that is stretched about the same amount, and I regularly ride the streets at 30-MPH.

The Evel fatbike with a rear direct-drive hubmotor.

Just behind the seat-tube is where they located the controller, and they also did a very good job of hiding the wiring clutter. That may not seem like it is hugely important, but that is one of the details that customers seem to respond well to.

I do have one complaint (and bear in mind, I confess that I have never even touched one, much less taken a test ride). If you look at the pictures again?…I think the front brake disc is too small. I would guess it is about 160mm diameter. That might be adequate for the rear brake, especially because the hubmotor version will likely have regen-braking (using the motor as a magnetic brake when you are not applying any power).

On my personal fatbike, both the brake rotors are 180mm diameter, and I am about to upgrade the front brake rotor to 200mm, in order to give it just a little more stopping power. The original 180mm rotor on my front wheel is adequate for a pedal-only bike on flat land, but…I want more braking for a powered ebike that can do 30-MPH (48 km/h)…and also for going downhill.

Since its a hardtail, I’d also add a suspension seatpost…at least, as an option (I have one, do it…seriously). They might sit up slightly higher than a normal seat-post due to the springing mechanism, so you may have to trim the top of this seat-tube down a couple inches to be able to adjust the height properly, and low enough to be comfortable.

If you have ridden a fatbike and liked it, the new Evel fatbike should be familiar territory. If you rode a fatbike and hated it, I doubt there is anything new enough here to change your mind. However, if you like fatbikes, and you want something that looks better than the common diamond frame…this just might fit the bill.

No word on price or availability yet, but…

Here is their facebook page (in English)

And if you speak Ukrainian, here is their home page

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, December 2016

(This story was posted this morning on electric-bikeblog.com …read the entire story  here)

A little over a year ago I sent my first email to Eric of Lunacycle.com right after he first started his ebike ebusiness. 2 months ago I packed up the minivan and headed out on a 6000-mile journey to meet him and see the whole Lunacycle operation. The idea was that I would actually work for him for a month and get paid (wow a real job)

Read the rest of the story here

There is a new player in the very large European mid drive ebike market. Polini is designed and made in Italy, and the only mystery is why this hasn’t happened sooner. Northern Italy is connected to the Alps, so Italians in the north are very fond of off-road riding.

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Who is Polini?

To be honest, I didn’t know who Polini was until just now (December of 2016). In simplified terms, they are a company from Italy that makes hot rod parts for scooters. It was started just after WWII by Battista Polini, and is now run by his three sons, Carlo, Franco, and Piero.

A well-known classic Vespa Scooter, using Polini upgraded performance parts. It may “look” stock to the Polizia, but…it’s not!

The pic above shows two things that are very popular with young Italian men…a scooter, and Polini hot rod parts. North American 2-wheeled riders may scoff at scooters, but the price of gasoline in Italy is artificially high due to government contraints. It has been this way for decades, so several generations have grown up with the venerable scooter being a viable option for young adults.

The two features that are characteristic for this style of transportation is the lack of a top-bar (which European governments have identified as a safety feature, when a scooter is struck on the side by a car). Adding a top-bar would make the resulting injuries more severe.

The second feature is that…scooters do not use a common clutch (with a manually shifting transmission), and instead they use a type of automatic transmission called a variator. Once a government defines what a legal class of vehicle entails, they also identify those areas where a “legal” scooter can maybe…bend the rules?

The licensing, insurance, and registration for scooters is easier to get and costs less, depending on the size of the engine (compared to a true motorcycle). This makes it easier for a young adult to acquire affordable transportation, but of course…as soon as a young man gets a scooter, they often want to find some way to get a couple more horsepower…without needing to pay the extra cost for the licensing and registration of a larger engine.

A Yamaha T-Max 530cc 2-cylinder scooter using Polini hot rod parts. After this rider won the race, he couldn’t help show-boating a little for the fans…

In 2014, Polini partnered with Yamaha for their maxi-scooter racing series. Many famous racers (and some “rising stars”) won prizes for racing Polini hot-rodded Yamaha scooters against each other. A few decades ago, I doubt many observers could have predicted that young adults in the EU would pay significant prices for an upscale and more powerful scooter, but…the “maxi scooter” market is now very large and growing.

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Polini, and the Yamaha connection

Yamaha is a global company, but…in the EU they are primarily regarded as a Japanese company. Their scooter partnership has proven to be very mutually beneficial, and I am pleased to see that Polini has now decided to enter the competitive ebike mid-drive arena. Yamaha had already been retailing a well-regarded factory mid drive under their own banner, but I think this partnership will expand business for both of them.

The headquarters for Ferrari is in Modena, Ducati motorcycles is in Bologna, in fact…the entire northern Italian region is a fertile ground for performance-minded enthusiasts of all types. In March of 2016, we wrote about the Mekkanobike, a fat-tire off-roader from northern Italy. Polini is in Bergamo, a few kilometers east of Milan (in Northern Italy), and they have developed an expertise for designing and marketing products in the EU.

In April of 2014, we wrote about the Yamaha YPJ-01 mid drive that had been seen at a PR showing. That was about the same time that Yamaha had partnered with Polini in their scooter racing series, and also when Yamaha introduced several models of electric scooter.

I don’t think the new Polini drive is simply a re-branded Yamaha, but…I am sure that this new drive does share some DNA. Lets just say that the it is very likely that the Polini design engineers and the Yamaha engineers probably know each other?

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So, whats new here?

Two things jumped out at me as soon as I saw the youtube PR video. First, it uses the ISIS-interface for the crank-arms. The more common square-taper interface is likely strong enough, but…many off-road customers prefer the stronger ISIS splines.

ISIS-splines are obviously on the left, and the common square taper spindle is on the right. Pic courtesy of bikeman.com

Second, it has two chainrings right from the factory. The video shows a 34T chainring, and that particular chainring shown is as small in diameter as will fit. The spider has 5 arms, and those facts add up to the interface using a 110-BCD pattern (Bolt Center Diameter). The larger chainring in their PR video has 46T.

I have long contended that the more power you have available, the fewer gears you need. In spite of that, many customers still want a lot of gears to choose from. Cassette freehubs on the rear wheel have been made with anywhere from 8-sprockets, up to 11. The Polini drive then has a theoretical option of having 22-gears to choose from. (although, due to the limits of how far a chain can deflect to the side, two of the possible gears might not be useable)

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An integrated downtube battery

In keeping with modern trends, the Polini system locates their battery in the downtube. I noticed that the plug interface was located at the top, and I like that. Although it may seem to be more awkward than the battery packs that plug-in at the bottom, doing this makes it easier to swap-in a larger battery pack that has a triangular shape (which obviously would be fatter at the rear).

The Polini downtube battery pack. The logo reads “Polini Motori”

Whether such a triangle pack is ever produced by Polini (or a third party), I think it is a useful option, as opposed to carrying a second battery when you want to go on a longer ride. The stock unit is listed as 500-WH. Since it is a 36V pack, this suggests that the size of the battery is approximately 13.8-Ah.

The 136mm Q-factor of the Polini drive

The distance between your knees when you are pedaling is called the Q-factor. The “Q” comes from quadriceps (the front thigh muscle), but it is an important factor for long-range cycling. If your body posture is off a little, it can actually lead to chronic pain and inflammation. You can add “bent” crank-arms to widen the bikes’ Q-factor, but you can only make them so narrow. The Polini drive uses a narrow 136mm Q-factor, so it can fit the widest variety of body types. Although female riders typically have wider hips than men, this is a useful feature for any rider, in order to obtain the best possible fit.

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Specs

This motor is rated to provide a respectable 70-Nm of torque. And although it has a continuous rating of only 250W, it is capable of drawing a max of 500W peaks, which is the power limit in the nearby mountainous Austria and Switzerland.

This may seem to be a little mild for a company that prides itself in making hot-rod parts, but Polini is also known for something else in the EU ebike world. They make the most popular hot rod module that converts the popular Bosch and Panasonic mod-drives to having a 50-km/h (31-MPH) top speed. “Ben fatto, i miei amici!”

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, December 2016

You can’t talk about Juiced Bikes without talking about Tora Harris, it’s founder. He burst onto the North American ebike scene with the ODK-II, one of the best E-cargobikes on the market. After the cargobike, he introduced the Cross-Current…a city hybrid ebike, which works well as a street commuter, or for mild off-roading. Now he is introducing an affordable cruiser model called the Ocean Current, and that is news.

Tora Harris, founder and CEO of the Juiced Bikes company.

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ODK-II

This was the first product of Juiced Bikes that grabbed our attention (Originally named “Juiced Riders”). The ODK-II is a longtail cargobike that has a style that you might easily find in other countries, due to its practicality. The standout feature is the smaller wheels, and it is taking some time for ebike customers in North America to warm up to their benefits. These smaller-diameter wheels not only make the bike lighter and shorter, the sturdy double-wall 20-inch wheels are actually stronger than common 26-inch wheels, and here they use beefy 12-ga spokes (the common bicycle spoke is a thinner 14-ga).

Here is a pic of Tora (from Interbike 2014) holding up tubing sections to show the difference between a common frame on the right, to the downtube of the ODK-II on the left.

The steep head-tube angle gives it a short turning radius, which is a major benefit when trying to turn around in a tight spot, which is one of the headaches with conventionally-sized longtail cargobikes. However, the steering angle and small-diameter wheel do make the steering “twitchy” above 30-MPH. The electric system will only provide power up to slightly above the US national speed limit of 20-MPH, so high speeds would only be attained on a steep downhill. Fortunately, the ODK-II has a hydraulic brake option, and uses 180mm disks to hold that in check.

The Juiced Riders ODK-II cargobike in “Green Gloss”

Tora specified that it would only have a 48V system available, which I feel a wise choice. Many customers who buy a lower-powered system from a different brand often are unhappy with their new ebike, and if given the chance…they would gladly pay a little more for a 48V system (after a test ride…which is what they should have done in the first place!).

The exceptional thing about the ODK-II is that you have the option to upgrade the battery to an extra-range size. Many companies don’t even give customers that option. They often have one battery size, and your choices are to take it or leave it. The stock battery pack on the ODK-II is a respectable 15-Ah, the next size up is an impressive 23-Ah, but…the max battery on the 48V ODK-II is 32-Ah (not a mis-print).

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Cross Current

In 2015, Tora began retailing a model he named the Cross Current. This provided him with hands-on experience with this new “downtube battery” interface and a specific geared hubmotor. Both have proven to be reliable. This Bafang motor model has a torque-sensor inside, so the rider has the option of powered-riding without needing to pay any attention to a hand-throttle. You simply set the assist level, and pedal away.

The Juiced Bikes Cross Current

Juiced will soon be retailing a premium lighter version, called the Cross Current “Air”.

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Ocean Current

Here’s a short video of the new Ocean Current prototype being test-ridden at the 2016 Interbike convention. I’m adding this so you can see the relaxed posture of an average rider on a frame like this.

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Specs

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The Battery

One of the ways in which Juiced Bikes really made their products stand out from the very beginning is…not only their decision to make their flagship ODK-II cargobike operate on 48V (instead of the less expensive 36V), but also…to provide battery options that have exceptional range.

Doing that was a gamble for a fledgeling business, because customers can be notoriously price-sensitive. This leads many new businesses to make their first ebike product under-powered and with short range, simply to keep the base-model purchase price down. When customers are not enthusiastic about a new ebike like that, retailers often think that the public “simply isn’t ready for ebikes yet”. Then, the next business to come along reads that poor evaluation, and decides to spec another weak ebike with short range.

Customers will always apply pressure to lower prices, but…the companies that have done well during this past year have provided quality products with very good performance. Juiced Riders is one of those companies.

Here is Tora at the  Sept 2014 Interbike, showing me how the new Cross Current battery swings out to the left to remove.

As I stated, their lineup has quite a few ebikes that only have a 48V system, with no option for a less-expensive 36V battery pack. If you are willing to pay the price to get a Juiced Riders product, Tora wants you to actually be happy with the amount of power and range it has.

The base-model battery pack for the Ocean Current is 48V, and…it is also a slim 7.8-Ah. I understand that some customers will choose the 7.8-Ah pack, but…I highly recommend that you try to fit the $299 upgrade into your budget, and get the larger 10.4-Ah.

It is my understanding that Tora has adopted a specific interface in the downtube of the frames he is designing. This particular interface allows him to gradually add other battery pack sizes that are larger and protrude up into the frame triangle space. He is developing a 17.4-Ah pack, and also an incredible 21.0-Ah pack, which may be available by the end of February 2017.

Here is a short video of Tora visiting his battery pack suppliers.

The 13S / 6P battery pack that Juiced is developing.

Here is a pic I made from a screen-capture from one of his youtube videos. The grid is 13 X 6, and we know its a 48V pack, which is 13 cells in series (13S). That means the new larger packs are 6P. If his maximum range pack is 21-Ah, then it must be using 3500-mAh cells. There are two I know of, the Panasonic-Sanyo GA cell, and the MJ1 from LG-Chem.

Juiced Bikes models are not high-powered, so using these cells means he only wants to access their increased range. This means these 10A factory-rated cells will only be working at a fraction of the 6P X 10A = 60A peak capability from this pack, so they will run very cool. This is good, because a cooler battery pack will usually last many more cycles, and more months/years down the road.

The 17.4-Ah version would be using a 2900-mAh rated cell, and the two most likely suspects are the Samsung 29E, or the PF cell from Panasonic. Samsung and LG are both highly respected 18650 cell suppliers, but…If I was a gambling man, I would bet a dollar that Tora is using GA and PF cells, both from Panasonic, so he can get a better bulk purchase contract.

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Frame Styles and Colors

Here is a video of Tora checking-in at the factory that manufactures the Juiced Bikes models. Tora speaks fluent Chinese, and has a close relationship with his well-researched partners.

This is the “step-through” version of the Ocean Current, with a color that Juiced is calling “Greenery”

All of the Juiced Bikes’ models can be purchased with a choice of colors. This is “Sea Foam”

I personally have more than one ebike, and…the one I actually ride the most is a cruiser with a little bit of stretch to it, very similar to the Ocean Current. I added a suspension seat-post and I like the comfortable riding posture. I think Tora will find that the Ocean Current may turn out to be his most popular model in 2017. If I owned a multi-brand electric-bike shop (called an Independent Bike Distributor/IBD), I would stock Ocean Currents, and I would be pushing test rides for everyone who came in the door…

Here’s my personal stretch beach cruiser, and my favorite passenger’s smile is all you need to see…to understand how these ride…

If you want to check out Juiced Bikes website, just click on the link here.

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, January 2017

If you have not seen this video you should drop everything and watch it. It is the most astonishing ebike news I have ever seen in main stream press, and it has huge ramifications. It turns out we are in the same gang all along. Geeky out-of-shape ebike riders and ultra cool pro athlete top-shelf riders on their aerodynamic “king of cool” carbon fiber machines…we were all in the same peloton….holding hands, exchanging glances, just like that movie “Breaking Away” But this time no bicycle pump in the wheel. Now we can all ride together and coexist together. Say no drugs, and say yes to motors!

Among professional cyclists, E-bike and Electric Bike riders are the scorn of the bike paths. We get called cheaters and hollered at by Lycra-wearing dynamos on their high-tech carbon bikes that look kind of like cool electric bikes to us. I mean, to be honest…they look pretty cool and we usually look pretty geeky on our ebikes which usually don’t look that sexy and lean.

Ironically, it is top-shelf professional cyclists that are being called cheaters now on Sunday evening late night TV. Haaa! And those high tech carbon bikes they have been riding, that look like high tech machines? they might be more mechanized than we ever thought. Along with their electronic shift systems and crazy electric computers attached via bluetooth to their phones, they have a hidden motor vibrating just under the seat post.

Yup, those cool looking Lycra bikes we see in races…many of them may have been E-bikes the entire time. And…not as powerful as our ebikes. They have been cheating…and cheating on lamely powered ebikes. Not only that, but the biggest name in all of cycling, Lance Armstrong, has been accused of being one of us…an E-biker.

Lance is always welcome in our group of fast E-bike riders, riding clean looking machines. This is one form of cheating we at electricbike.com we do not mind. If indeed Lance did have an E-bike and won 7 Tour de France’s…Well, damn that is too cool…way cooler than refrigerating blood platelets and doing blood transfusions in between race rounds with your cycle buddies.   It turns out the cool way to cheat is to stay clean….and just put a little mini R/C motor in your seat tube.

Professional Bicycle racing is a competitive sport where athletes taking dope to gain an advantage has become common place. We are sick of hearing about the drug taking cyclists. We get it, All kind of drugs are needed to compete at the highest levels at such an excruciating sport as cycling. If you don’t cheat, it’s doubtful you will win at the highest levels its starting to become clear.

We are starting to get it. Professional road bike racing has become more about how clever you cheat. Cyclists on Lithium power? Now that’s clever. Some E-bike builder getting paid 2 million dollars to build a couple E-bikes for one of the top cyclists?  Providing entire teams of E-bikes for $25K a pop. Building a 1998 Trek Ebike for 60 minutes and charging CBS $12,000 for parts and labor for basically a Vivax Assist.  

Hey now….We got secret boutique E-bike builders making millions of dollars building bikes out of his garage.  Who would have ever thought? E-bike millionaires, that’s who. But who knows how many though? E-bike riding Rockstar cyclists winning some of cycling’s top races.   

Now in 2016 it is finally out, that it has been happening for the last 20 years and just now in the last year…the judges are starting to test for motors in the bike using FLIR cameras and magnetic sensors. Wowsers. Holy E-bikes.

Without definitive FLIR testing they would have never known…Amazing right? E-Bikes have gotten that good. You can fit a tiny battery and a tiny motor into a little bicycle frame and nobody can tell even with millions watching on TV with judges and spectators all around.

Imagine that. Super stealthy and fast! That means you can ride an E-bike just about anywhere and appear like a regular cyclist regardless of what your local laws say about a motorized bike. That is a secret many of us E-bike builders have had for a long time. The cat is out of the bag. (check out this ebike builders discreet mountain bikes)  

Damn 60 minutes…AND…cops are a long ways away from carrying watt meters or FLIR cameras in their belts. One of the only way this kind of cheating was even suspected was last year a racer was hit with a FLIR camera posing as a video camera during a race in Italy. After this it was like opening the floodgates…and at almost every race, judges showed up with heat sensing cameras, and then?…little vibrating easter eggs hidden in the seat tubes were found. Here is a link to a video from France showing moving images of race bicycle heat images.

One of the golden stories of cycling was American Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace. Lance Armstrong was one of the most successful cyclists in the sports history winning an amazing 7 consecutive Tour de France’s (basically the world championship of road bike racing).  To this day, Lance is the largest name in professional cycling. He is the person that made professional bicycle racing main-stream in the USA. What makes Lance Armstrong’s story even more spectacular is he is a cancer survivor (and he dated Sheryl Crow).  

Later he would have those 7 Tour de France titles stripped after blood tests revealed doping, years after the fact. Amazingly, Armstrong confessed and conceded his championships. But what doesn’t make sense is winning even two Tour de France’s in a row is amazing…winning 7 however, is like impossible. It is known that many of the top cyclists are doping…to win 7 Tour de France’s in a company of fellow dopers still sounds ridiculously impossible.

But with electric motors and secret batteries, it becomes easy. I believe that Lance became one of us….and suddenly got consumed with the great joy it feels to “clown pedal” past Lycra-wearing super jocks, as if they are orange cones standing still. I can imagine him now weaving in and out of the Peloton giggling feverishly. So long, suckers!

So could it be? Is it really true that one of the biggest names in cycling and the biggest names in cheaters is also an E-bike rider?  Please tell us it’s true! 

This 60 Minutes video did almost everything but directly accuse Armstrong of blasting through the Tour de France with an E-bike. They show bank account statements of this Czech E-bike builder receiving 2 million dollars from an unnamed E-bike racer in 1998, and in 1999 is when Armstrong won his first Tour de France. They also paid this glorified ebike builder $12,000 to recreate a 1999 Trek E-bike like Lance Armstrong would have rode if he rode an E-bike, so they could test it on-camera.

Lance Armstrong is still my hero…And I personally believe he should be given his 7 Tour de France victories back. If you can build an E-bike back in 1998 so good as to fool the entire world on national TV, and crush the souls of chemical doping Lycra riders….We at Electricbike.com salute you. Here is the latest Lance Edition Trek…would pretty freaking fantastic if you can just make it electric, and in honesty you can…for a heavy price. 

To see how you too can juice your bike so that you can ride with all your friends, and then flat out embarrass them. It is an easy recipe. A Vivax kit which you can check out here, has a battery pack small enough to fit in a small bag behind your seat. For fooling your buddies. This is enough.

You can hold a 7-Ah / 52V battery (350 watt hour) of 18650 cells in a little seat bag. Of course a seat bag is not going to hold up at a cycle race…we suspect they are hiding their lithium packs in their seat tubes or even in their lycra trousers. Is that a battery in your pants, or are you just glad to see us?

To turn on the throttle, you hide this little red button somewhere but use some paint to disguise the color. The motor slides down your seat tube and powers your bottom bracket quietly, and unnoticed from its hidden location.

The Vivax drive system is reasonably affordable (under $2K) so no need to spend the $2 million that one professional cyclist did. Some cyclists were able to score a built professional bike for as low as $20,000 a bike. Imagine you can build a carbon fiber E-bike monster that you can whoop all your cycling buddies on for less than $10,000. Pretty amazing and a big reason why you should subcribe to this blog. (we understand the $2-million was not for the motors or the installation, it was so he’d keep his mouth shut for ten years)

Join our community, Fast Electric Bike on Facebook or our forum on ElectricBike.com to get more info on how to do it. So you don’t have to pay some E-bike building millionaire big bucks to build for you. Affordable doped carbon fiber road bike for the masses!  Yes yes yes!!!  E-bikes = way better alternative to drugs. And let’s face it…most of us need a boost to get up that hill, and still keep that smile on our face.

I wrote this article after a 90-minute long phone conversation with Karl from www.electricbike-blog.com where we both got so excited about doping that we decided to have a competition to see who could write and article about it faster. Karl  published his a few hours earlier, but I believe he was double-dosing expresso shots!…but I still think that his is the better article. Go and read his and decide for yourself. Competition is good when it brings out the best in people. I think competition is bad when you’re stabbing the people you’re competing against in the back with an ebike. Go Lance.

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Written by Eric, January 2017

Editor note this story was written by respected ebike community member George Sears.

Storm Sondors is going to make a $10,000 electric car. So he says, and he’s raised a million dollars. It will have a range of 50 miles, if you buy the least expensive one. In many ways, that sounds exciting. A little commuter car, something you might be able to drive in bad weather, carry stuff, etc. There is a Sondors ‘magic’, so it might sell. Of course, if you want a $10k electric car, you can get a used Nissan Leaf for about that, and some of them are quite new. The Leaf says a lot about the value of electric cars to people in the US.

The Chinese have a government that shapes economic policy, far more than in most countries. They have a ‘plan’ to get 4 million electric cars on the road by 2020. (This article says 5 million). GM is talking about tiny numbers for their 200-mile range Bolt. The bottom line, Americans are completely out of the loop on electric vehicles. GM will sell you a very nice Duramax Diesel heavy duty truck, a Denali with every gadget they can think of, and it may cost $70k and up. That’s where the American market is. That is where the profits are. Are we at risk of losing the edge as electric overtakes fossil fuels? That’s a political question, and it’s hard to project out into the future and say what the final outcomes will be. There are too many variables, starting with the price of gasoline.

To say the electric bikes are not understood by Americans is an understatement. You start out with a high level of indifference and hostility to bikes, and then add the complexity of what the motor actually does. On top of this, the battery tech has only emerged in the past few years. The bikes are unbelievably refined, even in a basic configuration, and an ebike is at the outer limit of efficiency, at low speeds.

It may be better to view this as a big picture problem. People don’t understand ebikes, but they don’t understand electric vehicles. This really comes down to not understanding batteries. The motor tech to build a decent electric vehicle has been around for a hundred years. While electric motors are more refined today, gasoline engines are incredibly more refined that the gas engines of the 1900’s. Electric only wins because of the energy costs, and the cost of batteries to store electricity.

It’s sort of curious, what is going on in batteries. Late last year, people started noticing how much battery capacity China was building, and building to go online in a couple of years. That amount dwarfs the Reno Gigafactory. But now Elon Musk is talking about a couple more Gigafactories, so the battery output numbers are going exponential. The short answer to ‘why?’ is that planned 4 or 5 million electric car number in China. If the Chinese do that, they will be the electric car economy, and they will be the ones learning all the hard lessons and all the tiny details of making great electric cars. It’s tough to believe that GM will be in any kind of position to ramp up the Bolt. You also have heavy truck and bus platforms that leverage electric technology far better than autos. A garbage truck or bus runs all day, so the savings are magnified, even if the initial costs are high.

When you look at things with this broad perspective, the one conclusion you have to reach is that energy storage is absolutely and positively right on the brink of overtaking fossil fuel energy in actual use. It’s a total cost picture, and for electric, that is storage plus generation costs. Storage tends to drive solar, because solar needs storage, so everything feeds on everything else. Solar is clearly dropping in price. They built a solar farm a half mile from my house, but the manager told me they can’t build any more, because they can’t distribute the power.

It’s time to bring this discussion back to e bikes, and to ask practical questions about why e bikes don’t sell in the US. The stated goal of the Chinese, as they build all these battery manufacturing facilities, is to cut the cost of storage by 50%. Again, that is in the 2020 time frame. Not all electric auto batteries would work in an ebike. The 18650 was something Tesla sponsored, but Tesla has gone to a bigger cell. LG Chem and GM are using a pouch cell that might adapt to heftier e bikes. BYD makes a cell that uses LiFePO4 and Magnesium, which isn’t terribly energy dense, but maybe it works well in heavy trucks and buses. But are ebikes, and ebike batteries, too expensive? How quickly have the economics changed?

The ebike is really the lowest animal in the vehicle battery food chain. It was the first to work, as cell prices dropped, but it is the first to reach a kind of price saturation. Assuming a 3500-mAh cell is good, no matter what comes along, you need 52 cells to put together a battery that works for most ebike designs, even the most aggressive.  It has a lot of discharge capacity and a lot of storage capacity. So if the cells are $4 each, the pack price (just the cells) is $200. At $1 a cell, the pack price is $50. You can’t get meaningful price cuts if you are in this capacity range. Another $50 cheaper? Not enough. If you put 6,000 in a car, yeah, it matters a lot. But not in a bike.

It may not do much good to try to adapt car batteries to ebikes. It seems like the 18650 cell goes in a lot of devices, so there are a lot of reasons to produce those cells. How much the lower cost of car type cells brings down 18650 cells is hard to say. There are always anomalies in markets. The 18650 might be a glutted market if car makers go to the new Tesla cell and pouch cells.

There is sort of a Walmart Effect for most goods. A new product starts out at higher end retailers, but prices drop. Walmart can only sell in a certain range of price points. Their bikes, for example, tend to be under $300. So at Walmart that is a premium bike. Can you try  to build the most minimal ebike on the premise this can lead to a huge ramp at the big box store level? It’s pretty clear from watching the online offerings that $700 is not that price. If you want to build a $400 ebike, even a decent one (the Sondors offerings) it can be done as battery prices drop. In a cheap bike, the cost of the battery is the most meaningful. A $4000 bike drops to $3900 if the cell prices drop by two dollars a cell. But a $500 ebike drops by 20%, to $400. These are very rough numbers, and the cheap bike will have fewer cells.

Anyone who watched the Sondors Fat campaign should have learned a lot about e bikes. There is a ‘cost of parts’ analysis. There is a frame, the tires, the rims, the handlebars, all the little parts. And a lot of these parts are cheap in China. Sondors changed things, because it made people aware of parts and prices. This was especially true of motors and lithium cells. What did he pay for his motor? What did he pay for his cells? You can make educated guesses. Sondors put all the pieces together to make a mass market ebike, a million unit type ebike. But there were too many problems.

In fact, there was an interesting discussion back when the Sondors came out,  as the Indiegogo campaign was ending. The Sondors campaign was unbelievably controversial. Some people said, over and over, everything about it was a fraud, that Sondors was not building any bikes, just leading people on. But in that heated atmosphere, with the campaign members tearing each other apart, how many would he have sold with a more subdued environment?

The dynamics of any crowdfund campaign are pretty far out of the mainstream. By pushing the promotion into social media, Sondors, or really the ad agency, Agency 2.0, got more visibility than any other ebike ever got. Ask yourself, does anyone know what a Haibike is, what a mid-drive is? But much of the publicity turned bad, so with Sondors it was a two edged sword. The Ad agency was, as all the partners hammered away at each other,  telling people what a horrible guy Sondors was. This was right in the middle of the campaign. Agency 2.0 went to court to get a lot of money, enough to shut Sondors down.

In the end, the Sondors fat bike was a $700 bike, just because of the 40% shipping charge. That was a good price, especially for a fat bike. But that shipping charge is something Walmart can control. They have their own trucks and distribution centers. You could make a nice bike today for less than the total cost of the Sondors Fat, with some high volume and a good battery design that measured up to safety standards. With a more efficient bike, mostly slimmer tires, you can get better performance from fewer cells in the battery pack.

Sondor has the “Thin”, but there he had a very basic bike, a basic ebike, and no one knows what an ebike is. He didn’t have a campaign, and there was nothing to bring new people into the market. So, he sold a lot of bikes, relatively speaking, but it wasn’t the breakthrough.

People buy stuff from big box stores. They don’t check out CF campaigns where the bike will show up 9 months later and they won’t refund your money, no matter what. You have to believe ‘enough’ in e bikes to accept that basic versions, basic e bikes,  do most of what an ebike can do. It’s a bike. If you want to go 15 miles an hour, not worry about most hills, and not worry about most headwinds, the basic motor and the basic battery gets you there.

At some point, somebody should try to make a bike with a $100 battery pack and a 350 watt motor. The idea would be to take a decent $200 bike and electrify it to the point where it made riding pretty much ‘no sweat’, even if it was designed to go (only) 15 mph. A $100 battery pack is a moving target. No one lists cell prices in a way you can say what 20,000 NCRB cells would cost.  But assuming I could get those cells for $2, and I made a pack with 20 cells, I could put something together for way under $100.
You might say, as an ebike sophisticate, that is nowhere near enough range, not enough cells. That’s not the point. The point is to get people to ride 5 miles, or 10 miles, just to get familiar with the tech. The real point is that some cells can be run down and still maintain an output rating, and 350 watts is not much with two rows at 36volts. If you make this bike, you probably need to sell it at a big box store. And they need to promote it, demo it.

I’ve made a bike that is close enough to what I describe to think it is possible. I have a Bikes Direct bike that shows the basics of building an ebike. The bike, a Mango Cruiser, was $270 with the shipping. Without the shipping, the fenders, and the gears, it’s a $200 bike. It’s not much fun to ride up any hill. ANY hill. I put a premium motor on the bike, a Golden Smart Pie. I have run several batteries with the bike, but the most basic is a pack constructed of 24 Sanyo GA cells from Titan Flight RC packs. Basically the 22 volt packs are put in series, making 44 volts, and then two sets of the 44 volt packs are paralleled.

That is 24 cells. Dropping to 20 cells would be a 36v nominal pack. The GA cells, two rows, can deliver 20 amps, which is around 900 watts, in my configuration. With a motor limited to 350 watts, the pack should deliver 10 amps, 5 amps per row, for most of the capacity. So I get an easy 10 miles out of the pack using somewhere around 200 watts, on average.

My experience says that 24 cells works with a motor that delivers 750 watts and a bit higher. At the end of the charge, when the SOC is low, the pack still works quite well, even though the voltage is low. My guess is that  a 20 cell pack would work for people where all you wanted was to encourage them to ride. A pack for a 350 watt bike and a 12 mile range.

The idea would be to make a 36V and 7 amp-hour pack, or less if 3000-mAh were a good deal.  This is not a severe limitation. If the pack cost $89, people can have a couple of packs. Production is automated.

(How safe can you make a set of 20 cells? It is tough to ship battery packs, but it is easier to ship smaller ones. Is there enough history to point to ‘all’ the failures and say what went wrong? It might be possible to wrap the pack in something relatively fireproof. If I am making packs from RC suppliers, how do they get away with it? I wouldn’t say my pack is safe, but it’s like the lithium cells in power tools or loose cells on Ebay. I don’t know when everyone has to follow more stringent regulations.  )

If you take a $200 bike, like the Mango, and add a hub motor that costs maybe $45 wholesale, what would you have? The motor would not be powerful, but it would double or triple the power the unfit rider provides. That’s a central idea. You build a bike that makes basic riding very easy, with modest pedaling by the rider.

So I see a Mango type bike with a motor and controller coming in around $350. But with super volume prices, quite a bit lower. The battery cells might run $50, so the question is how much the case costs, and how simple you could make it, how to make it ‘safe’. A solid metal case? Chargers are not expensive if you buy 10,000.

Getting back to the basic premise of this article, the demographics. People have ignored the low end, or maybe it hasn’t worked out very well. People don’t know electric bikes. You can’t expect a lot of interest in something people don’t even know about. I see the transformation as being something very fundamental. Once people have access to electric bikes for maybe $150 more than a cheap Walmart bike, that’s it. That’s the end of the low end bike. No one will want one, OK? I’m basing all this on one critical idea: The thing has to work.

Why will it work? Basically because you can get decent cells now, cells that will stand up for a year even with some punishment. People charge stuff, that is no big deal. Make a small battery pack and people will bring it inside. People won’t ride that far. Most of the bikes people buy at Walmart never get ridden. Talk about a win-win. Bikes that get ridden 5 miles!

This is what battery prices should drive. They should drive the almost total electrification of even the absolute most basic bike (for adults, at least). Not to suggest good road bikes or mountain bikes are obsolete, but it depends on the rider, that demographic.  It’s always a question of how well these basic bikes can work. But it’s going to be a basic hub motor. If you use decent cells, you get a decent performance level, assuming the pack is assembled well enough.  It might be smart to move to solid rubber tires, just from a maintenance standpoint. Basic suspension forks can smooth the ride. Make a bike that works.

People hate the low end, people hate the poor, so no one develops this stuff. The bike has to be designed for low maintenance. It just has to work as an ebike and not try to do much else. If you can meet this goal, you drive  the ebike into the economic mainstream, you can talk about what bikes can do for transportation. Let’s face it. Most people are not fit enough to ride a bike. It will never happen, no matter how many bike paths you build. But if you build cheap e bikes, and they really work, you change the transportation dynamic as well.

My advice? Go low. Make all bikes ebikes.  This is a $200 bike made into an ebike. It’s better to use an ebike frame, something with mounts for the motor.

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Reference — Speed and Watts
This references the chart, below.

At low speeds an ebike uses very low watts and watt hours per mile. At 14 miles per hour a bike needs 150 watts (ideal circumstances). If the motor does all the work, it means about 11 watt hours per mile. In the earlier discussion, the 20 cell battery has about 200 watt hours, which means a range of 18 miles with no pedal effort. With moderate pedaling, the rider can do a lot of the work and extend this range. Make no mistake, this is 14 mph. This is where a $400 ebike makes the most sense.

The chart below assumes a somewhat fit rider who contributes 100 watts. An out of shape rider may only contribute 50 or 75 watts. These are the riders who give up when they hit a hill. The idea is to give them another 200 watts to get up hills, not make a fast bike.

The chart is based on ‘best guesses’ and every bike is different. The obvious point is that the way to buy range is to design a bike for low speeds. Ideally, people go out for exercise and let the motor help. The chart shows that at 14 mph, the bike uses 11 watt hours per mile, and at 28 mph, it uses 25 w/h. This is without pedaling, which is up to the strength of the rider. At 14 mph, even with a tiny battery, it is possible to ride for more than an hour.

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Written by George Sears, March 2017 

We have written in the past about tips that will help your expensive lithium battery pack last as long as possible. This article will cover some additional information about what happens inside the chemistry of lithium-based batteries, like…why they die when they do, and how to avoid doing the wrong things as much as possible.

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Jeff Dahn, and why you should know who he is

In our previous articles, we laid out some handy tips, like…keep the battery cool by charging at a lower rate, and also don’t charge to 100% all the time. However, we didn’t go into much of the details as to why. Up until now, most of it was because we read postings from people we respect, and heard about the “real world” experiences from riders who log a lot of miles on the their packs. Now? we found some info as to why the major players in the industry do the things listed below.

Professor Jeff Dahn, in front of the precision testing equipment that helped unlock some of the details and reasons why lithium batteries eventually die.

I stumbled across a video lecture by professor Jeff Dahn from the Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. You may not have heard of him yet, but you probably heard about the electric car company Tesla.  The Tesla car company has enjoyed a rate of success over the last few years that defies logic. Rather than introduce a light economy EV car, they first brought out a wildly successful sports car with an 8-year battery warranty. Then they produced a four-seater (also with high performance), and soon…they will be selling their least expensive model, which already has a back-log of orders.

Their battery has high-performance AND an 8-year warranty, so…how’d they do that? and…whats the connection between Professor Dahn and Tesla?

Dalhousie is the only research University in the world that has a contractual research relationship with Tesla’s battery department, and…Tesla could have partnered with any University they wanted. Professor Dahn can’t really talk about the secret sauce he’s working on right now, but…we can examine the video lecture he gave in 2013, which is about “How do Li-Ion batteries die, and how to improve the situation”…which might help us understand why his top student (Aaron Smith) is now the head of Tesla’s battery longevity program.

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The video lecture

This lecture is an hour and 13 minutes, and I was so impressed by it, I transcribed the entire thing into text, just to make it easier to write this article. Of course the text doesn’t show the charts that were projected on the screen for the audience, so I also added the paragraph location times, so readers can go right to any part of the lecture that they might be curious about.

If you want to actually watch the entire hour and 13 minute lecture, click on the center of the pic just below.

If you want to skip the techno-babble, scroll down to the last few paragraphs of this article, and I will post the simple “plain English” tips there.

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Negative electrode (anode) plating

Prof. Dahn starts out by mentioning that research has shown that the chemical reactions in the cells during charge and discharge result in a build-up of byproducts on the negative electrode (sometimes called “Anode”). One surprise was that…after a brutal cycling regime to purposefully make lithium cells go bad in the common ways that they die, the positive electrode (sometimes called the “Cathode”) appeared to be as fresh as a new cells’ cathode (when using the common additives, see below). This provided a more specific target to research…the “plating” on the anode. Why does it happen? and possible methods to reduce it as much as is possible.

[9:13] So first thing we gotta do is understand how a lithium-ion battery works. OK, so here’s a picture, showing the positive electrode of a lithium-transition metal-oxide on an aluminum current collector. And the graphite negative electrode on a copper current collector. These two electrodes are separated by an electrolyte, that contains dissolved lithium ions. And each of these electrode materials is layered, and they’re each intercalation compounds, and that means lithium atoms can reside between the layers, and they can be de-intercalated  and intercalated when the batteries charge and discharge. And what’s really important to recognize is the intercalation and de-intercalation process is incredibly benign, it causes a structural change of about 3% volume change in the positive, and about 10% in the negative. And, there’s no structural degradation that takes place in these materials, at all. The failure of the lithium-ion battery, really has very little to do with structural degradation of the electrode materials, during the charge / discharge cycling.

 

[10:34] When the lithium-ion battery is assembled, the negative electrode is graphite, the kind that would be in your pencil. And the positive electrode is a lithium transition metal oxide that’s synthesized in the air at high temperature, it’s stable in air. So both electrode materials are stable in air, you can build a battery in the open air. As soon as you put it together and start to charge the battery, you force electrons in this sense to the right [of the graphic], and the corresponding lithium ion hops out into the electrolyte, and moves to the graphite where it gets intercalated, that charges the lithium-ion cell.

 

[11:17] And once the lithium-ion cell is charged, NOW…the lithiated graphite, graphite with lithium inside? is very reactive. Will react with like, lithium-metal. And the lithium-transition metal oxide with missing lithium is also very reactive. And what happens is, both of those electrodes actually react with the electrolyte solution, that they’re in contact with. And you would say, well…then, how do you make a battery that has any life-time at all if the electrolyte reacts with the electrodes? But, by luck and by chance, when the reaction occurs, the reaction products turn out to be solid on the negative electrode, and they form a passivated film that slows down and limits for the reaction. And on the positive electrode, a similar thing happens. So by luck, these reactions don’t destroy the battery. In fact they form passivating surfaces that allow the thing to operate for many many many months.

 

[41:53] So how do you design a cell, to make it do this?…Well if the reason that the cells show this dramatic roll over, or catastrophic failure, is because electrolyte oxidation products migrate to the negative where they’re reduced, and eventually shut down the negative electrode. What would happen if you really highly compact the graphite particles in the negative electrode…OK, so here, it’s kind of a cartoon, this is a negative electrode it’s made of graphite particles, it’s been highly compacted so the porosity is pretty small…You’re cycling the cell, you’re getting electrolyte oxidation products that come across, and they get over there, they see a low potential surface at the front, of the electrode, and they get reduced in form, some solidified junk there. And the cell capacity is not going down very much. And you cycle some more…and the layer of junk gets thicker and the pore openings start to get closed off. And you cycle some more, and the pores ultimately become filled. And now it’s very hard for the lithium-ions to penetrate into the back of the electrode because it’s blocked. And then, lithium plating begins on the surface, and the capacity dies.

 

[45:30] And if you look at the positive electrode by SEM, I just picked one of the cells with [the additives] VC, VEC, and FEC, after 420 cycles it failed. Before the cycling, and after the cycling, the positive electrode looks exactly the same…and if you look at the negative electrode before, and after, you can see the build-up of this film of reaction products on the surface of the negative, so this square region has been expanded over here, and you see all this gunk on the surface of the negative, and that’s what’s leading to the, the failure of the cell…

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Temperature…HOT is BAD

The first paragraph below shows that the bad chemical reactions are worse at higher temperatures, and the second paragraph details how a cell implanted in the human body (for a medical device) can last a very long time, which is partially explained by the human flesh around it acting as a heat-sponge to stabilize temps.

This is an Infra-Red (IR) image of heat coming from a lithium cell-group that is being tested for max amp output. 63.5 C is also 146 F. We recommend that 140F is the highest temp a cell should EVER be allowed to reach. And, of course, a lower max temp is better for life-cycle length. Pic courtesy of ES member nuxland, from Estonia.

[20:02] So these reactions between the electrode materials and the electrolyte, they’re bad. OK, It’s bad, and temperature aggravates those reactions…So, just to remind you…these parasitic reactions, that are going on in the cell, they’re bad, and by measuring the coulombic efficiency of the cell, you can quantify the amount of parasitic reactions that are going on in the cell.

 

[34:00] Here’s some data from Medtronic…for cells that are implanted in the human body, to run a pain…a pain relieval system. And, they have cells in the lab, that are eight years of testing accumulated at 37 degrees C [98.6 degrees F]. So, here you can see six to eight cycles a day, twenty thousand cycles, eight years of testing at 37 degrees C [98.6 F]. That’s pretty impressive. Cells like this, with nickel cobalt aluminum [NCA] are in the Tesla Motors vehicle, OK? So Tesla Motors uses technology that’s at least this good.

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Amount of TIME when hot is BAD

[24:24] And if you…instead, plot the coulombic IN-efficiency, just one minus the CE, so just flip the data over, and then take a look carefully, you’ll notice that…the coulombic in-efficiencies scale one to two to four…just like the cycle times do. And if you divide…one minus the coulombic efficiency by the time of a cycle, all the data falls on a universal curve. OK, so it’s telling you that, time of exposure, is really the bad actor here, in the failure of these cells at elevated temperature. And now these measurements can be used to rank all lithium-ion technologies.

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Amount of TIME at HIGHER VOLTS is BAD

[35:51] Now here comes the ultimate challenge for this method. And that is that sometimes…lithium-ion cells show this kind of failure that’s incredibly insidious here. So these are nickel manganese cobalt positive electrodes with graphite negatives. Cells are cycling to an upper cutoff of 4.25 volts, and they look really really good. And if you change the upper cutoff voltage to 4.35 volts, they start out looking really really good. Imagine this was in your car, you’d say oh everythings great, I love it, I love it, then…all of a sudden you can’t even get out of the driveway.

 

[36:35] There is no way for a lithium-ion battery manufacturer to learn about when they get this rapid catastrophic failure, except to cycle it, until they get there. And if this happens after three years or five years…you gotta, ya gotta go there to find it…We believe that this roll over, or catastrophic failure comes about, because of electrolyte oxidation at the positive side. There’s no capacity fade significantly here at all. So lithium is not getting consumed in the SEI at the negative. By contrast what’s happening in it is the electrolytes are getting oxidized. Oxidation products moved to the negative and they coat across the surface of the negative, and eventually they shut the cell down…Now, if you charge to higher and higher voltage, you accelerate electrolyte oxidation, and this catastrophic failure moves to lower and lower cycle numbers.

 

[55:07] And I’ve added a data-set for half-percent VC now as well, OK, so at low voltage 3.9 volts, all the four cells are about the same. Then there’s a big entropy change due to an order / disorder transition in lithium cobalt oxide, but after that, between 4.1 and 4.2 volts, look…here’s no vinylene carbonate, half percent less heat, two and four percent, less heat again, and the difference gets greater with voltage. So the vinylene carbonate is suppressing parasitic heat due to electrolyte oxidation, we saw that early on from our charge slippage measurements, and you can see that at voltages above 4.1 volts or so

 

[1:03:07] Um, lithium titanate is amazing [Well, that’s probably because it’s] I’m just, it’s because the voltage is high, I think I might have, I don’t have a lithium titanate slide here…So, sort of the best coulombic efficiency numbers we get for C over 20 cycling at 40 degrees C for graphite negatives in lithium-ion cells is about 999…2? Lithium titanate in a lithium-ion cell, we would get 99998…Amazing. Lithium cobalt oxide lithium titanate cells with going only to 4.1 volts, amazing. They’re gonna last, you implant them [in a medical device] in Linda they’re gonna last till she’s dead…no doubt

 

[1:07:05] The biggest, the biggest issue is the time spent at highest voltage. The longer you spend at the highest voltage the worse it is…right? Well you could see from the calorimeter experiment, things got worse, if you went up above 4.1 volts. So if you go to 4.2, it’s worse than 4.1, if you go to 4.1, it’s worse than four. So the GM Volt for example, it charges to eighty percent, just 4.03 for that cell, which is decent. Not too much parasitic reactions going on there…OK? But if it charged to 100%?…would be worse, OK?

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“Secret Sauce ” additives

[28:50] Typical lithium-ion cell might have five additives in it, for various purposes…So here, I’ll just show you the impact of vinylene carbonate, so here are lithium cobalt oxide graphite lithium-ion cells. They’re being cycled with the high-precision charging equipment. So as you charge and discharge, you can see the voltage capacity curve, again, shifting to the right. And this is caused by parasitic reactions taking place, causing electrolyte oxidation at the positive electrode, things slipping to the right. So a cell measured at 40 degrees C, but if you add vinylene carbonate to the electrolyte, bang…just stops, OK? So you really impact that parasitic reaction a lot with 2% by weight, of an electrolyte additive. And the same thing happens at 60 degrees C, there’s a huge, huge improvement in the…in the rate of electrolyte oxidation at the positive electrode side.

 

[46:09] OK…so…what about their [other] additives? Where do they fall on the graph? I showed you the additives that we specified, now I’ve changed the scale because, the battery manufacturers are a lot smarter than university professors…and that’s where theirs fall…So, you would take a look at some of these things. Their coulombic efficiencies are similar to these guys, but BANG, the life cycle is way better…This 4UA, and 5UA [anonymous composition labels], differ only by the addition of one additive, which is additive number five. This has 1, 2, 3, 4, this has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Look at that, incredible. How does it work?…From 5UA to the control with no additives, there’s a 20-fold increase in cycle life. Just with a few percent of a few magic ingredients. That’s amazing…How does it work? Why are these points off our line, while our model assumed that any oxidation products go over to the negative, and form solid products that block the surface of the negative. Maybe when these guys go over, they don’t form solid reaction products.

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Long term storage, use low volts at low temps

[1:07:05] The biggest, the biggest issue is the time spent at highest voltage. The longer you spend at the highest voltage the worse it is…right? Well you could see from the calorimeter experiment, things got worse, if you went up above 4.1 volts. So if you go to 4.2, it’s worse than 4.1, if you go to 4.1, it’s worse than four. So the GM Volt for example, it charges to eighty percent, just 4.03 for that cell, which is decent. Not too much parasitic reactions going on there…OK? But if it charged to 100%?…would be worse, OK? So all cycles are not created equal, to answer your question. The more time you spend at higher voltage, the worse. So, you know, I have cells…from 1999, that were stored at about 20% state of charge so maybe 3.5 volts for those cells, put them on in 2013…like new. Because the positive electrode side is not doing anything bad, at low voltage, but, if they had been stored at high voltage, it wouldn’t have been nearly as good.

 

[1:12:03] [Q: How do you extend the life of your battery in your phone or computer] OK [Q: do you charge to 80% and don’t discharge completely, or what do you do?] Keep it as cool as possible at all times, put it in the fridge at night…Then it won’t bother you while you’re sleeping, too…added advantage. No, but I’m serious. If you keep any battery as cold as possible, it will last longer. So any, any lithium-ion cell, keep it in the fridge when you’re not using it, it will last longer. If you, if you don’t charge 100%, that will help, but you know, temperature is a bad actor.

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Conclusion

For long-term storage (over winter?)

Drain your battery pack to 3.5V per cell, and store it in a cool area. Not necessarily a refrigerator (although that would actually be OK), but at the minimum…someplace that is NOT warm. You might not want to put it in a freezer, because it would have very bad voltage sag until the battery warms to room temperature. Also, definitely disconnect it from the controller, and also disconnect it from the charger.

Avoid Heat

Whether charging, or during a ride…avoid as much heat as possible in the battery. If you are drawing max amps often (in order to have max performance from a small and light battery?)…it may “work”, but…you will NOT be getting the maximum possible life-cycle from that pack, due to the resulting heat.

There are two ways I know of that you can reduce heat in a battery pack system design. First, use a larger battery pack than you need. You might only “need” a very short amount of range on your particular commute, but a bigger pack will run cooler, since each cell is less stressed at a lower amp-draw per cell.

The next way…is to specify a cell that has a higher amp-rating than you need. If you have a small battery pack that can provide your max amps needed (and it is also the biggest pack that will fit on your frame), but…it’s getting hot? You can buy a pack of the same physical size, but…with a higher amp-rated cell, and it would run cooler.

The Tesla cars and the Chevy Volt both have an on-board battery pack cooling system to help stabilize pack temps at a reasonable level.

Avoid Heat (Part 2)

There are some days when you want to recharge your battery as fast as possible. For example, the Luna Advanced charger has the ability to charge at 5A, or…also at 3A. If you charge at 5A, the battery will charge faster, but…if you charge at the lower 3A rate, it will take longer, however…the 3A charging rate will also leave the battery pack less warm, and…the cooler the battery is, the better. The Grin Tech Satiator also has the ability to adjust the charging amp-rate.

Don’t charge to 100% (4.20V per cell)

The amount of extra charge you get from charging to 4.2V per cell, instead of 4.1V? it is very small, and has very little effect on your range. You may think that charging to 100% will give you the maximum range possible, but it trades a significant amount of pack life for a very small amount of extra range. The Luna Advanced charger, and also the Grin Tech Satiator both allow users to charge their packs to 80% (4.05V per cell), 90% (4.1V), and also 100% (4.2V).

Here is a standard lithium cell discharge graph. I’m posting this here to show that there is very little range (the vertical lines, moving left to right) compared to the amount of voltage (the horizontal lines, moving from top to bottom) between 4.1V (90%) and 4.2V (100%). In fact, there is virtually ZERO extra range between 4.15V and 4.20V

In the graph above, there are 17 graph squares (of range) between 4.2V and the cutoff at 3.3V. You only have to give up 1/17th of the charge to gain double or triple the battery pack life in months. I have not charged any of my ebike battery packs to 4.2V since I found this out.

Also, If you ride only on the weekends, it would be more ideal to leave your pack half-empty during the week, and only charge it an hour or two before the ride. However, I know this is not practical. If you feel you need to charge the battery pack immediately after a ride, charge it to only 80%, and then let it cool off before you ride, or before you charge it more. Then, just before you want to ride, charge it up to 90% to get a little extra range.

Of course, if your battery pack is large enough? you never NEED to charge it to more than 80%. Plus, if your ebike commute is short and you also have a large battery pack…don’t feel as if you need to charge the pack every day. If you can take several rides throughout the week, but only need to actually charge once a week? This would mean your pack is spending less time at the highest voltage [lead-acid batteries need to be topped off completely, and as often as possible…lithium does not]

For long lithium battery life? big packs rule…and try to keep ’em cool.

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Dis-assembly of a Tesla 18650 Cell from Panasonic

Here’s a one-minute video that I found very interesting.

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, March 2017

Most ebike companies start out selling mass-market street-legal commuters, and then slowly move into off-road ebikes with higher power. Stealth has gone the opposite route by exploding onto the off-road hot rod scene, and they are only just now producing their 750W street-legal P-7

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Stealth ebikes, from Australia

Many of our readers are new to ebikes, so I’d like to recap a little history. Australia is the land of “Mad Max”, with lots of countryside, and a culture that embraces an irreverant sense of humor, coupled with a deep respect for self-sufficiency. Add to that…their government has instituted a baffling power limit of 200W for street-legal ebikes, and you end up with a situation where a lot of smart and capable back-shed builders created off-road hot rods…where there are NO power limits.

A decade ago, the only path to high power was a large rear hubmotor. Even if a customer wanted a mid drive, the large companies making them back then only produced low-powered models for the large EU 250W market.

Stealth Electric Bikes  is based in Melbourne, in South-East Australia. They started out making off-road hot rods that were designed to a high level of quality. That ended up being a wise choice and they have continued to grow, in spite of competition from cheaply made copies from wannabe clone-vendors. Their Bomber and Fighter models (now called the B-52 and F-37) continue to command respect with their power, features, and quality.

In 2015, Stealth got a shot in the arm with Samsung and Panasonic producing much-improved batteries for the global market. So…as of two years ago, you could have the same power and range with a smaller and lighter battery pack, or more power and range with the same size. Once customers could get the performance and range they needed from a smaller battery pack, some of them started wanting a similar frame, but with a smaller and lighter battery box, and that led Stealth to developing the FUTR Beta frame kit…

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The FUTR Beta, and the Stealth P-7

You don’t have to look at the specs for the P-7 very long before you realize that, even though they are producing a new model, they are doing it by leveraging a lot of parts that they already stock. For instance, the brakes are the 203mm large-disc hydraulic caliper models that are also found on the Bomber B-52.

Here you can see the concentric bottom bracket and swingarm-pivot on the FUTR Beta

The P-7 frame is an evolution of their FUTR Beta off-road prototype frame kit, with a non-triangulated beam swingarm, using a concentric bottom-bracket and swingarm pivot, plus a slim and light battery box. The FUTR Beta and P-7 both use a swingarm with 135mm wide drop-outs, so mid-sized hubmotors will drop right in (such as the Leafbike 1500W, and the Edge 1500W).

Our Australian friend Jay put together a short video (below) of how to assemble the FUTR Beta frame kit, which allows customers to add their own motor, battery, controller, and forks…along with dozens of other small bicycle components. this video will give you a better idea about all the components that make up these frames.

The FUTR Beta prototype (FUTR: Fly Under The Radar) was an answer to riders who wanted an off-road frame that is as light and slim as possible, since modern high power-density cells often mean that a certain customer doesn’t need a larger and heavier battery box to hold a smaller pack.

In keeping with the lightness theme, the 750W P-7 North American version (a complete turn-key ebike) only needed a surprisingly small geared hub to meet their performance goals. Even though the FUTR and P-7 are both light and slim, the P-7 still has upgraded features that Stealth customers wanted, and were willing to pay a higher price for.

The P-7 is a very capable off-roader

I know this will sound like I am a Stealth fanboy, but there is a slice of the ebike customer demographic that has grown to expect the quality of Stealth products, and will pay more to get that…if…Stealth makes a model that suits their needs. I mention this because the P-7 price is a big pill to swallow for a 750W ebike, and many US customers only look at the raw performance figures (when riding off-road, this geared hubmotor is rated at 1,000W).

And…as far as running off-road, the P-7 has large 203mm discs front and rear, so you can access significant braking with just a finger or two, and this means you won’t need to upgrade the brakes just to run off-road once in a while (and brakes that are this large are also helpful if you are occasionally riding in traffic at 28-MPH).

The suspension travel has a significant 180mm stroke on the front, and 150mm in the rear, while rolling 27.5-inch tires, and the front wheel is mounted on a robust through-axle. In it’s lightest factory trim, its weight is 64-lb (29 kg). This is a serious off-road ebike that has been de-tuned to be street-legal in the US.

It also means that this is a solid platform for upgrading in the future.

Although this is the mildest hubmotor Stealth has offered so far, the P-7 still has significant suspension components, big brakes,  and a HUGE 52V battery.

For several years now, global ebike companies have tried to market low-powered 250W Euro-spec ebikes in North America, and that has proven to be an uphill battle (the street-legal power limit is 500W in Canada, and 750W in the US). Austria and Switzerland have 500W power limits, and those versions of sophisticated mid drives from Bosch and others (with a few 500W hubmotors) seem to be selling at an acceptable level here. When I say “acceptable” I also mean “not great”.

Those companies seem to be trying to market ebikes to “bicycle people”, by producing models that look like “pedal-only” bicycles from a distance. This is because the bicycle culture here  has proven to be resistant to the idea of an electric-assist bicycle. There are thousands of pedal-only bicycles for every ebike in the US, and serious bicyclists call us “cheaters”. The ads and articles here emphasize that “people won’t even know its an ebike until you tell them!” as if that is very important (what?). So…in view of that, what would a Stealth P-7 customer from North America look like?

The Stealth P-7, in street-legal mode

The P-7 (Pedelec, 7-speed) is designed to meet the new US regulations that allow an “S-Pedelec”  (Speed-Pedal-Electric, instead of a hand-throttle) to legally power up an ebike to 28-MPH (45 km/h). Previously, the limit was 20-MPH (32 km/h), so…

• 1. You are willing to pay a high price for a quality product from an established company.
• 2. You want to commute on city streets on a full suspension frame, to soak up potholes and other road problems.
• 3. 750W is enough power for you to be happy (1,000W when off-road)
• 4. You don’t like shifting a lot, and you don’t have any steep hills so…a geared rear hub is the simple and best-fit alternative to a mid drive.
• 5. You don’t care if other bicyclists can easily see that this is not a “normal” bicycle. You ride an ebike, and you don’t care who knows it…
• 6. You want a street-legal pedelec, but you also like to go off-road on serious trails.
• 7. You want a central battery box that can contain a huge battery for extra long range.

This last feature…the huge battery? It is more important than just being able to ride a longer distance on one charge, or to take a lot of trips before needing to charge. We recently wrote about how to make your expensive lithium battery last as many years as possible. The number one tip is to get the biggest battery you can afford. This way, when you are charging and discharging it, the pack doesn’t get hot. Heat is the enemy.

The second tip is to only charge the pack to 4.1V per cell (90%), or less. This is what the Tesla car company does, and they warranty their lithium packs for eight years. This may seem like you are giving away 10% of your range to double the life of your pack (or more). The real figure is closer to giving up only 1/17th of your range, but…you don’t have to believe me, you can read the article here.

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Kickstarter

Stealth has decided to use the crowd-funding website Kickstarter as a sort of “group buy” for interested first-wave customers. We normally avoid writing about  Indiegogo and Kickstarter ebikes (there have been dozens), but Stealth is a solid company that will absolutely deliver all the P-7’s that are ordered. P-7’s purchased through the Kickstarter will have a discounted price, compared to the full retail price they will have afterwards.

I have to admit that this is unusual for an established company to expand by using Kickstarter, but…doing it this way allows them to get a better feel for evaluating the demand, before they make a long-term commitment to alloting factory space and resources to this new model.

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The Battery

There are two factory pack sizes. One for a lighter total weight, and a larger pack for max riding time. Both are 14S at a nominal 52V (58.8V if fully charged to 100%). They are 950 Watt-Hours (WH) and 1500-WH respectively (18-Ah, and a HUGE 28-Ah).

Since the smallest pack is still more than large enough to supply the 1,000W that Stealth is rating this geared hubmotor at (52V x 20A = 1000W), they are using a cell that is maximized for range instead of high current output, in order to keep the packs as small and as light as possible.

In pedelec mode (where you have to pedal for the controller to apply power to the motor), Stealth rates their two battery packs at a range of 62-miles, and 93-miles respectively (100 km or 150 km). Many Euro-spec ebikes do not have the option of using a hand-throttle, but the P-7 has both. My personal preference is to start out from a stop using the hand-throttle (when riding on streets around traffic), and then convert to Pedal-Assist (PAS) after I get running. But…whichever your preference, the P-7 has both.

A FUTR Beta with 132 cells using the 18650 format, with some room still left over.

Whenever your factory battery pack wears out someday, you might be wondering if the slim P-7 frame will limit your maximum battery size for future upgrades. In the pic above, our friend (Allex in Sweden) is dry-fitting as many cells as he can squeeze into his FUTR Beta (which uses the same frame as the P-7), to decide what size pack he can get away with. There was more room left, but…he decided to go with 132 cells. That number of cells can be configured in several ways, and Allex chose 22S / 6P…(22 cells in Series, and 6 cells in each Parallel  group).

22S X 3.6V nominal = 79V (or, 90V at our recommended 4.1V per cell when fully charged)

The cell he chose is my current favorite, a Lithium-NCA chemistry from Samsung, the 30Q (rated for 15A per cell). 3000-mAh per cell X six cells in each Paralleled-group = 18-Ah of range

6P X 15A = 90A, and if you are taking care to not get the pack hot, you could draw peak amps for a few seconds of roughly 50% higher, or…135A

79V X 90A = 7100W of power

79V x 18-Ah = 1400-WH of total pack energy.

84-lb (38-kg)  for a 10-kW ebike with a 1400-WH battery pack. I only mention this because I want you to know the P-7 has plenty of room for future hot-rodding, and you will not be limited to only 52V…

The 132-cell pack shown (in blue) is 100mm wide, 115mm tall, and 350mm long, and it easily fit. This is the FUTR Beta frame-kit, where you must purchase your own motor, controller, battery, and forks, etc…

Soon I’ll add a comparison paragraph here, but…I can tell you already that no factory ebike of this type has a battery pack option as big as this.

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, March 2016

The TV show Ellen gave away a Haibike. Ellen DeGeneres also encouraged her huge viewer base to consider one too, saying that she personally rides one, and loves it.

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When was it?

On April 10th, 2017 (season 14, episode 132) the Ellen show gave away a Haibike. It’s right at the beginning of the episode, during a game called “What’s in the box?” at roughly the 5:00 mark. Ellen acts like its a contest, but when a studio audience member is selected?…the “contest” gets easier and easier until everyone wins something good.

“I’m going to give you an opportunity, ’cause it’s still sitting there, you have no choice to make, I’m just going to give you whatever is behind that curtain, OK? OK, what is behind that curtain?…It’s electric bike, it’s a Haibike! How ’bout that?

 

But no, it’s not just a bike, Portia and I have these bikes, Haibikes are really cool, you can pedal, and it’s got an electric motor, so…it’s, it’s fantastic. Congratulations!”

 

A screencap from the Ellen show

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Which Haibike?

I thought I would need to use my Google Kung Fu skills to find out which model of Haibike that was promoted on the Ellen show that day, but if you go to the Ellen website, they already posted which one it was, in case any viewers wanted to get the same one.

A screencap from the Ellen website

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Why is this news?

The Ellen show is very popular. The demographic for electricbike.com is mostly male, but even if you don’t watch Ellen, literally millions do. This is relevant because…I still run into people that don’t know that electric bikes even exist, much less which one might better than another.

Without any further suspense, the model featured was the Haibike Sduro Trekking 5.0 “low step”  model.

The Yamaha mid drive, from the Haibike Sduro model

The mid drive motor used in this model is the Yamaha, which allows two chainrings for those buyers who want a wider range of gear selections (as opposed to the common single chainring). It takes the modest input watts and converts them to an impressive 80Nm (Newton meters) or wheel-torque.

I very much approve of the aluminum frame, and the Shimano Deore dual hydraulic disc brakes (180mm disc in front, and 160mm in rear).

Because it does use a front disc brake, I am also pleased to report that it uses a “quick release” front axle, so if you ever need to mount the bike on a car travel rack, the disc brake and QR axle combination means the front wheel is very easy to remove and then eventually re-install…all with no tools needed.

The 36V / 500WH battery is more than adequate as far as it’s performance is concerned, when used in its intended application. The extremely high reduction inside the drive means the high-RPM motor converts the modest 350W input into a surprising amount of wheel-torque. It does this very efficiently, so the small and light battery last for an adequate amount of range.

There is no hand-throttle option, so any power that is added is a result of the rider pedaling, and the torque-sensing crank provides an instant response in a smooth and seamless assist to the rider.

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Celebrity Sightings

Ellen joins the ranks of other celebrities that have been seen on electric bikes, such as Jay Leno, Miley Cyrus, William Shatner, Ed Begley Jr, Darryl Hannah, Leonardo DiCaprio, Prince Charles, Kelsey Grammer, and others…

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Conclusion

I was disappointed that Haibike is not selling a 500W model here, since several large countries allow that (Canada, Austria, Switzerland, etc) so 500W models already exist, and of course it might be too much to ask for a USA-legal 750W model. I understand that sales in the US are much lower than in Europe, so we are still a small market to them (Haibike is based in Germany).

I also noticed that there was no option to upgrade the battery to a larger size. I am not suggesting that the base model discontinue the 500WH size, because it keeps the weight and price as low as possible. However, it would be nice if customers had the option for a larger battery, because…even if it was only a small increase, every little bit helps range and also battery life.

I hope that didn’t sound too negative, because I have ridden the Haibikes Sduro at the Interbike convention, and the performance was so peppy that I would have guessed it had more power than the rated 350W.

This is a wonderful amount of publicity for electric bikes of all types. And if thousands of Ellen fans rush out to buy a Haibike, this single incident will likely provide a milestone in USA customer-awareness of ebikes. I would be sad if this highly visible ebike promotion was for a very weak ebike, but I am certain that the Haibike Sduro will impress a wide range of riders who try it.

It is not a hot rod, but…it is a very well-made product that has a smooth and sophisticated level of performance. It is made to a high level of quality, and should prove to be very reliable. That is good news for all of us.

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, April 2017

Sondors has announced that they are coming put with a new aluminum-frame model, and this one not only has fat tires on a smaller 20-inch rim…it folds.

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A Little History

I would be surprised if an ebiker today said they didn’t know who Sondors is, but…just in case, let me cover the basics first. A couple of years ago in 2015, A company was formed called Sondors, and they started a crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo where they promised to sell a ebike with fat tires for $600. This was a milestone because…even though there had been many other attempts to market an ebike with a low price on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, most of them only raised a bare minimum amount of money needed from risk-taking investors to stay alive. Sondors raised SIX MILLION dollars.

This event totally shook up the ebike industry. There will always be some customers who want to buy an ebike from a brick-and-mortar store where they can get technical support near their home, but…a LOT of customers decided to try this out, and believe me when I say that every major ebike company noticed…

Here is Ivars Sondors, and the fatbike that started it all

These crowd-funding organizations are much like a “group buy” where if you give them the money up front, and they get “enough” money to buy parts in bulk to lower the price? They can sell a lot of them from the factory (in China usually), direct to your home. If it works they way it’s supposed to, the company can sell quite a few at a very small markup, and still end up with enough profit to keep doing it. They would have your money for quite a while before you receive the product, but if the people who are featured in the crowd-funding campaign do not run off to the Caribbean with the money…you will receive “something” eventually.

With any kind of luck, the product you receive will actually be just like it was advertised, but…it is in the nature of these things that getting the lowest possible price for a crowd-funded product also means there will likely be no customer support. Sondors started several very active Facebook pages, so their customers can help each other, and share tips about maintenance and minor repairs. Here is the article we wrote when we tested the Sondors back in February of 2016

Here, Ivars showed up to a Sondors fatbike meet to talk with customers.

A dealer (for any product) would need to make some profit on top of the wholesale cost of those products, so…if you are the type of person who needs customer support from a professional? You will need to pay more to get the product you want from an established dealer. However, if you don’t mind taking a little risk once in a while, a new product on Kickstarter or Indiegogo can save you a lot of money.

Many people expressed concerns that Sondors might go bankrupt and disappear without delivering any ebikes to their “investor” customers, but…it looks like over 99% of their fatbike buyers have received the product they paid for, and more than that…a LOT of people felt that the final product was actually quite good with an unexpected level of quality and features.

The Sondors “Thin” city ebike.

As soon as the fatbikes began to actually be delivered to customers in 2016, Sondors announced they would do a crowd-funding campaign for a similar ebike, but with thin tires. The name was appropriately designated the Sondors “Thin”.

And that brings us to today, and Sondors company announcing that they will be crowd-funding a folding ebike that has fat tires, and to help this ebike be as compact as possible when its folded, it will be using 20-inch wheels, instead of the common 26-inch. Nobody can guarantee what the future holds, but…the Sondors company has delivered on every ebike they ran a crowd-funding campaign for.

Here is a Sondors promotional pic to show how conveniently the “Fold” can be reconfigured when you need to take a train.

This is the pic that I think will have the biggest impact on potential buyers.

This is a screen-capture from their promotional video on youtube, this shows the proportion of the smaller “Fold” model with an average-sized person on it.

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Feature Pics From the Sondors Website

A close-up of the folding hinge and the beefy latch.

The 36V battery pack for the Fold is cleverly located inside the large top bar. Notice how strong the pin is just to the right of the battery pack. That is the part that the latch clamps onto.

The motor appears to be the same well-regarded Bafang geared hubmotor that is found on the previous Sondors ebikes. Since this model has that motor mounted in a 20-inch wheel, it will likely have a slower top-speed, but it will also have a much better amount of wheel-torque for hill-climbing and riding through sand.

This closeup shows it is a single-speed and has disc brakes.

After Sondors came out with their “Thin” model, we could see that they weren’t focused on only one type of ebike. I am not surprised that their third ebike offering is a folding  version, but…why the fat tires? A few years ago, many bicycle companies stated that they would start to carry a fat-tire model, but…the fat tires were a “fad” that will likely simmer down after their initial “buzz” dies down. Well…here we are several years later, and fat tire bicycle sales have continued to grow every year.

The ebike that I ride the most is a fat-tire Electra Lux cruiser with a BBSHD mid drive. Fat tires look heavy, but…I will sound sarcastic when I point out that they are mostly air, but..it’s true. Fat tires are NOT suspension, but they DO have advantages.

A fat tire with a medium PSI of air pressure soaks-up and smooths-out road irregularities. That is not as good as a “real” full-suspension system, but it is also lighter and costs less…MUCH less.

Do NOT take a high-speed turn in a low-psi fat tire (I still have the scars from when I dumped my fat ebike). Low pressure in your tires is for low speeds and odd terrain, like beaches and potholes in streets. That being said, I think the aluminum frame, 20-inch tires, and fat tires were all choices that work well together to make an ebike that is compact and light, yet still has a ride that is as comfortable as possible within a reasonable price range.

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Here is one of the Fold prototypes next to an original Sondors fatbike.

Just like the Sondors fatbike before it, the Fold will come in a variety of colors

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The Video

there isn’t a lot of information about the Fold out there right now, but…everything I could find, I put in this article.

This ebike is not for everyone, but…if it looks like it would fit a job you have for it, I suspect it will be made to the same level of performance and quality that the original Sondors fatbike was, which is actually pretty good.

If I had one, I would immediately add a suspension seat-post, like a Suntour NCX or a Thudbuster. I have owned both, and I recommend them to anyone with a hardtail frame with complete confidence. I wouldn’t hot-rod one of these for higher speed, but…if somebody gave me one? I would add an identical motor to the front wheel and make it a 2WD for sand operations (which would also require a second controller and throttle)…

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Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, May 2017