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I liked the Tern when I tried it out but decided to opt for more power at the crank with the high speed motor they slapped into the R&M Charger 3, which is here in Austin at the bike shop...but it got damage on the front suspension so they have to do a warranty replacement already on it before I even get to ride it! I haven't heard anything about interacting with Radpower directly but that is a bummer with regards to their customer service.
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Oct 27, 2020 19:25
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kimbo305 posted:If you can swing the difference, you absolutely should. E: and a few proprietary bits for good measure.
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Oct 27, 2020 19:26
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aldantefax posted:R&M Charger 3, which is here in Austin at the bike shop...but it got damage on the front suspension so they have to do a warranty replacement already on it before I even get to ride it! For higher up trims, e-bikes should really do better than Suntour. Too bad you can’t spec a rigid fork.
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Oct 27, 2020 23:26
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I want to both defend suntour forks for not being that bad, while also being criticizing any company who chooses suspension for a cargo bike when 2.5" tires are better for most non mountain biking needs. I think I have an XCR on my mountain bike. It's about as good as I can imagine a single chamber air spring being.
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Oct 27, 2020 23:51
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marmot25 posted:Radpower seems to be incompetent or tone deaf with their customer service so I might cancel my wagon order in favor of something like a tern gsd?
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Oct 28, 2020 15:36
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Rad has expanded their lineup a ton in the last 2 years. And you get covid this year.
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Oct 28, 2020 17:45
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Yeah I went ahead and canceled the preorder for the wagon. It was surprisingly easy and, oddly, the nice salesperson didn’t even ask why I was cancelling. I suppose they would rather talk to people who want to buy bikes they can deliver. I’ll look into GSDs instead. I see they have a new series coming
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Oct 31, 2020 00:31
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Harley-Davidson threw their hat into the ebike world this week with the surprise announcement of the Serial 1. It's not got an advertized price tag or specs yet, but looks like they're targeting a higher price point. https://twitter.com/verge/status/1321160359483445251
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Oct 31, 2020 01:36
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I got ankle surgery yesterday. The ebike batteries are stored inside and they're both 40-60% charged. Let's see how they do sitting until January/February! marmot25 posted:Yeah I went ahead and canceled the preorder for the wagon. It was surprisingly easy and, oddly, the nice salesperson didn’t even ask why I was cancelling. I suppose they would rather talk to people who want to buy bikes they can deliver. I’ll look into GSDs instead. I see they have a new series coming I think if I was buying another ebike today, it'd be a Tern. Good decision.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:54
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Blix Packa
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Oct 31, 2020 03:15
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I thought I'd post more about the misadventures finding a particular kind of electric bike frame for my mom. Apparently her inseam is somewhere between 24"-26.5". She says she has a pair of comfortable pants that are 26.5" and that goes to her ankle. When she was cycling, she had to ride small frames, although I wonder if she really meant an extra small. I haven't found a mid-drive bike that I think would work for her yeah. There's some rear hub stuff (like even a RadCity), but I figured she'd benefit from a mid-drive for how I expect she'd ride--as well as have it consistent with mine if it had a Bafang motor. I really wanted the Stunner X to work but even that looks too tall. They show the 26" wheel configuration, which is definitely too tall. The 24" configuration looks like it's still too tall. https://www.biktrix.com/pages/stunner-x-details#co Even their Stunner LT with 20" (note it's not a mid-drive) is looking a little too tall: https://www.biktrix.com/pages/stunner-lt-details Edit: kimbo305, I did run across one small-rear end frame that apparently takes 26" tires! So much for hyperbole! https://www.raleighusa.com/electric/pavement-2/sprite-ie-2-0-4619 Rocko Bonaparte fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Nov 1, 2020 |
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Nov 1, 2020 06:30
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Apparently her inseam is somewhere between 24"-26.5". She says she has a pair of comfortable pants that are 26.5" and that goes to her ankle. If the physical measure on her pant is actually 26.5, then her cycling inseam would be longer, since the seam isn't butting up as hard under the pubic bone, and since there's unmeasured distance from ankle to the floor. quote:When we were messing around with seat height for her on our trike, she came in around 28". kimbo305 fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Nov 1, 2020 |
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Nov 1, 2020 07:02
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28" was the top of the seat to the ground. At this point, I've dragged my sister into the shenanigans since she's just a little bit taller but has a similar body proportion. She has an older, foldable e-bike that fits her okay. We couldn't find any actual specifications on it, so we were going to just take some numbers with her and see what that gives us. Current wind is blowing towards "gently caress it, mom gets a RadCity."
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Nov 1, 2020 07:08
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Looking at the frame geometries here: I'm positive the limiting factor for small riders on the 26" and 24" frames is the reach to the bars, not the ability to adjust the seat down, nor obviously standover. The reach on the 26" is only 444mm. For comparison, my 5'2" friend was able to ride a 48cm reach bike, with drop bars, so much further forward than those cruiser bars. And -- the 20" frame reach is 4 mm shorter, which is hilariously bad planning on their part. That's right, the small frame has more reach than the medium frame. But it's sounding like your mom isn't merely pretty short, but very short?
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Nov 1, 2020 07:13
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She's short but the bigger problem is she has little stubby legs and no flexibility. Where this is a problem is straddling the bike at a stop since apparently both feet have to be on the ground around here. We didn't really think about that with the trike when we sat her on it and played around on the driveway and road in front of our house. Since it's a trike, she could just sit there at a dead stop.
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Nov 1, 2020 07:34
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:She's short but the bigger problem is she has little stubby legs and no flexibility. Where this is a problem is straddling the bike at a stop since apparently both feet have to be on the ground around here. In normal bikes, you're not supposed to be be able to sit on the saddle and plant your feet flat on the ground. Sure, the Trek cruisers have that geometry, but only with extremely slack effective seat tube angles. You're supposed to scooch off the saddle. Iirc, your mom has cycling experience? Coming to a stop should go like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNevNqA8sIs&t=9s When you slow and lean the bike to your planting foot side before/as you come off the saddle.
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Nov 1, 2020 07:39
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Apparently the city here has an ordnance that you have to have both feet flat on the ground at a stop. Also, I can't find where this is spelled out. Maybe it's crap. Nobody does it. You'd think then that most step-through bikes should just be fine by default, but apparently they're not (?). I guess the angle of the frame could be so steep that the front of your crotch would still wind up riding on it. I looked at my wife's bike again and took that 28" seat height my mom apparently used. It looks like the seat-post-to-crankshaft length typically used for a bike frame's size would be about sixteen inches. My mom was apparently comfortable there. That's also consistent with a small mountain bike frame. It implies to me that the Stunner X with 24" tires will work for her. I'm still terrified to pull the trigger on it and I hope some emails with the company will help me straighten things out. That's been a mixed bag in the past.
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Nov 2, 2020 04:13
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:You'd think then that most step-through bikes should just be fine by default, but apparently they're not (?). I guess the angle of the frame could be so steep that the front of your crotch would still wind up riding on it. Depends on how thick a person is, but a step through frame is usually lowest ahead of the saddle, which is where you’d generally move off the seat into. I suppose a very large step through frame still might have too much standover for a very short person.
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Nov 2, 2020 05:22
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BikTrix came back with a measurement they recommended that put my mom's "inseam" at 27". That gives her a lot more choices and the Stunner X with 24" tires is now a safe choice.
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Nov 3, 2020 08:40
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marmot25 posted:I might cancel my wagon order in favor of something like a tern gsd? The enviolo IGH *really* doesn’t like shifting under power, but unlike shimano hubs it just won’t let you shift, instead of taking the shift and grinding the gears to gently caress if you’re pedaling with any power at all. I don’t know how the rohloff shifts behind a mid-motor. I’d buy the S10, if i were buying one today.
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Nov 3, 2020 12:17
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I'm glad y'all know more about hubs than me. Does anyone feel like making an effortpost about the various types of hubs and the consequences of different motor/hub combinations that I can add to the OP?
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Nov 4, 2020 16:33
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Hub cheat sheet: Direct drive hub vs geared hub Geared hub: get off the line faster, higher torque, most are made by Bafang. Direct drive: bigger, simpler design, supposedly more more reliable, has less low end torque, has benefit of regenerative braking (only regenerated amount to 1-2% of the battery according to people who actually measured it, so the only real benefit is it saves your brake pad) Directly drive is used by the half of the Rad models, the rest model that need low end torque like folding bike, cargo bike use geared hub motor. The rest of the 95% sub 2k ebikes use pretty much the same lineup of 36v and 48v Bafang geared hub motors. If the the spec sheet doesn't tell you, it's a geared hub motor. There is another motor design I can't remember the name of but it's only used by boutique shops like Luna in selected models. Hub motors are tested designs, they are maintenance free and generally will last longer than other components of your ebikes.
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Nov 4, 2020 16:53
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More things to note: Geared motors tend to be much lighter than direct drive for equivilent torque. The gearing does cause the motors to make a little more noise. Geared motors are less good at shedding heat than direct drive, so people hot rodding their bikes will have their nylon gears fail. Clutched gear motors don't contribute to any drag on the bike when unpowered. I know of one gear motor (GMAC) that does not have a clutch. I would seriously consider one of those for a cargo bike. Once again it is worth emphasizing that direct drive motors are heavy. They tend to perform better at speed than low end torque. Every motor will have some trade offs. Unlike a mid drive where you can just shift gears, hub motors have to be built for speed or torque or somewhere in between. Direct drive motors tend to be specced with an rpm/volt rating or by number of turns of wire on the stators. Lower number of turns generally means higher top speed, but less efficient low end torque but you can really only do a side by side comparison of motors that are otherwise physically the same. Geared motors generally hint at their torque and top speed by gear reduction ratio. More gear reduction means slower, but more torque. There is a gear motor that has high and low speed gearing that is selected by running the motor forwards or backwards. Sorry that my post isn't one you can just copy and paste into the OP without more context.
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Nov 4, 2020 17:47
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What requirements are there if any for torque arms? How do hub motors run their wiring?
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Nov 5, 2020 07:14
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kimbo305 posted:What requirements are there if any for torque arms? How do hub motors run their wiring? You may need a torque arm when you install a front wheel drive kit yourself on a normal bike. FWD is really easy to DIY in an afternoon compare to RWD or middrive kit. The hub drive wire is basically an extra power cable goes into the middle of the hub. So if you need to change the tire on a hub motor wheel, you unplug that cable first, and the rest is just like a normal front or rear wheel removal.
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Nov 5, 2020 10:31
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stephenthinkpad posted:You may need a torque arm when you install a front wheel drive kit yourself on a normal bike. FWD is really easy to DIY in an afternoon compare to RWD or middrive kit. quote:The hub drive wire is basically an extra power cable goes into the middle of the hub. So if you need to change the tire on a hub motor wheel, you unplug that cable first, and the rest is just like a normal front or rear wheel removal.
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Nov 5, 2020 10:38
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kimbo305 posted:Does the hub come with a hollow axle? What path do the wires take such that they're not twisting with the motion of the hub? "it depends" My old bionx had a D-shaped axle and retainer with a dog that'd fit in your dropout instead of a torque arm, and the wiring ran on the inside of the dropouts, on the fixed part of the hub.
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Nov 5, 2020 14:08
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Safety Dance posted:I got ankle surgery yesterday. The ebike batteries are stored inside and they're both 40-60% charged. Let's see how they do sitting until January/February!
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Nov 5, 2020 19:53
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I don't know. They're Bosch.
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Nov 5, 2020 19:55
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Just push the button every once in a while and keep them around 3-4 bars and they’ll be just fine.
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Nov 5, 2020 20:04
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That's not a bad idea. I'll do that. Thanks!
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Nov 5, 2020 21:01
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Just charge it every 3-6 months back to 80% and you are fine.
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Nov 6, 2020 00:15
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stephenthinkpad posted:Just charge it every 3-6 months back to 80% and you are fine.
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Nov 6, 2020 12:19
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Awhile back I was dealing with chainline issues on my DIY set up, as one might expect with a BBSHD on a fat bike. Heading home from surfing one day the chain jumped the chainring when I went over a bump as it had several times before. But this time I didn't cut power soon enough, the chain got caught in between the ring and the crank, and snapped. I finally got around to picking up a better chainring with more offset (and a fresh chain), and it is so much better now. Took it out for awhile today, hopped off some curbs at various speeds, and I couldn't get the chain to jump.    This is about as much offset as I could possibly run on this bike, you can see the clearance to the tire is very close. Also dropped down from 46 to 42 teeth on this, the top speed was around 30 mph before so I really don't need the top end. bawfuls fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Nov 22, 2020 |
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Nov 22, 2020 07:39
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Was the original ring narrow-wide? Given the vibrations, you might want to sleeve/cover the wiring from the zipties a bit. As insurance, you could use a taller bolt head or something in that vein on the bolt behind the crank arm, to act as a chain-drop pin.
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Nov 22, 2020 08:26
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Not sure if the original was narrow-wide (probably not, it was the default that came with the motor) but the chainline was clearly lovely even just glancing at it.
bawfuls fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Nov 22, 2020 |
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Nov 22, 2020 08:30
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You could stick a chain guide on it too if you're worried it might happen again. I left the old front deraileur on my mountain bike to do the same job and it's never lost a chain. not even when the chainring bolts sheared off and the chainring fell half off.
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Nov 22, 2020 11:34
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Heh this reminds me I need to order a chain cover because my right leg gets loaded up on grease every time I use my bike.
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Nov 22, 2020 17:09
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https://lectricebikes.com/collectio...zhoCCFkQAvD_BwE anyone want to break down lectric bike's offering for me?
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Nov 23, 2020 18:27
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Hdip posted:https://lectricebikes.com/collectio...zhoCCFkQAvD_BwE Break it down how? It's wicked heavy for a folding bike (like, 3lbs heavier than my full-sized electric dutch bike), so it's gonna be a pain to drag anywhere. No word on who makes the cassette or brakes, so probably a no-name company. At that price they're probably shaving every last penny. My guess is it's probably fine, but if it gives you problems it will give you a lot of problems.
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Nov 23, 2020 19:10
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