Electric Bike Thread

[pano-dude]

I’d stay away from the cheap Chinese fatties with a hub motors. You want a mid drive from one of the majors with at least 10 gears. Good brakes are also very important.

I agree but the Bafang bbshd mid drive I put on my Big foot has over 2000kms now and hasn't had an issue. It's a good option if you have a decent bike already.


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[Beaver]

I'd stay away from all hub motors if you know how to ride a bike. They don't like to go slow so mt biking on them is just looking for trouble.

In town or short commutes hubs are great. My daughters have bafang hubs on thier town bikes, they've been trouble free for 3 years of school and work commuting. The bike equivalent of an automatic car.

My commuters are a little spicier. I jave a couple mid drives, a BBS02 (tuned to 1440W) and a Bafang Ultra.

[gravitylover]

We're making progress https://www.nemba.org/emtb?fbclid=Iw...ZxtGLR05RYUQ2U

[Vt-Freeheel]

[grinch]

8" leather heels and spd's is a deadly combo \M/

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[Vt-Freeheel]

Dude, come on, you know he's on flats.

[grinch]

Damn! I stand corrected

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[gravitylover]

More progress. https://bikerumor.com/2021/02/10/new...tric-bicycles/

[grinch]

Hear Peaty at the 9 minute mark(re: bosch motor)





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[grinch]

Too da loo

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[Bunion 2020]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-da...=home?ref=home

But I’ve had to learn some hard lessons about e-bikes, too. I blame the trouble I’ve gotten into entirely on my own recklessness. But a huge part of my own recklessness was to place too much faith in a machine I couldn't repair in the wild.

After a few months of riding a Specialized Turbo Levo, a beast of a mountain bike that powers even the most atrophied of quadriceps up punishing ascents, I took the bike on a road trip this winter to Palm Springs from my native Portland. Along the way I scouted the best singletrack trails I could find, usually by asking for "beta" (as I've learned outdoor nerds call intel these days) from local bike shops, navigating to a trailhead and pushing off into the unknown without a careful analysis of maps, or even dropping a pin.

Stupid, I know.

But I wrongly assumed if I got into a jam I could always retrace my steps. If I got tired my e-bike would pedal-assist me wherever I wanted to go. Day after day, this gambit worked just fine. I stuck to out-and-backs and had no trouble figuring out how to get back to the trailhead.

Then, after a few days' drive to Palm Springs, I set out into the desert. And that's where hubris, and an over-reliance on the prowess of the Turbo Levo left me helplessly scouring for a signal to call 911.

The trail system snakes through the Santa Rose-San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. It lies just a few miles from downtown Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley desert, which can get brutally hot, year-round. On this day in January, the high was about 85 degrees, which is serious but nowhere near the searing temps that come in summer months. I started up Dunn Road, a tough ascent the Levo easily devoured, scouting for a series of singletrack trail offshoots that would carry me out into the desert.

I chose the highest point (and the furthest away from the car) trail I could reach, the Hahn Trail, and pushed off into an arid landscape of cacti and wildflowers, with about a liter of water in my Camelbak, no food, and no way to fix a flat tire. The trail was fun but technical, climbing to a sweeping view of the valley below before dropping back down into the heart of the desert. I faintly remembered being warned to stay out of the sandy “wash,” a truck-sized arroyo that ran parallel to Dunn Road, but somehow that’s exactly where I wound up. Too impatient to stop and consult a map, I steered the bike down the wash, sure I’d find another hard-packed trail that would get me back on singletrack again. Instead, that wash carried me further and further into a slippery sandscape. I saw the tracks of other mountain bikes the whole way, though, and figured (stupidly, I know!) that they had to lead somewhere useful.

They led to a 20-foot cliff, with inescapable canyon walls on all sides.

Assuming there was be nowhere to go but down, I hefted the 44-pound bike on my shoulders and scrambled down the first 10-foot drop of the cliff, to a platform about halfway down. If I did the next drop, there’d be no turning back, no way to hoist the bike back up to the wash. I had no cellphone signal and I’d foolishly failed to download an offline map. So I finally gave up, pushed the bike back up into the arroyo and resigned myself to backtracking.

That’s when I discovered one of the tires had gone flat.

It was easily 80 degrees by then, mid-morning, and walking all the way back to the trail I’d taken felt impossible. So as I pushed the bike uphill I looked for any escape from the wash. I found what looked like a trail after about 150 yards, and took it, with only an instinct that it was back in the direction of the car. I hadn’t admitted it yet, but I was completely lost.

My main objective was to get to higher ground. I was only a few miles from civilization, so if I could at least see what direction city streets were in, I could push that way and hope to catch a cell signal. I climbed up one narrow crevasse to the next, huffing and puffing and constantly sweating out hydration, until I got high enough to survey the landscape and see that I was in a bowl of desert, no civilization and no cell service in sight. I had no choice, I finally realized, but to ditch this $9,000 bicycle and keep moving. I dropped a pin in Google Maps, but either because I didn’t have service or because I did something wrong in my growing panic, it never saved. I took photos of the scene, hoping I could later use them to triangulate and find the bike again, and kept hiking up.

Finally, I heard the sound of an incoming text message, meaning I had service. I pecked out a missive to my partner, telling her to call 911 and that I was mountain biking close to Dunn Road. I tried calling authorities myself, but the signal was too weak to communicate where I was and what was happening. I kept moving.

After only another 15 or 20 minutes I saw hope: a mountain bike trail, and two riders, dressed in blaring neon spandex, winding their way towards me. I shouted and waved my arms for what felt like an hour until one of them stopped, looked in my direction and came to my rescue. They shared a little water, stared at me in disbelief when I said I’d dropped my bike, but assured me I was close to Dunn Road and only a half-hour’s walk back to a clear route to my car. I texted my partner and told her I was safe and OK, and that she could call off the search and rescue helicopter that was now circling directly above me.

When I got back to the car, exhausted and embarrassed, a friendly reserve officer from the Palm Springs Mounted Police Search and Rescue was waiting for me. I told him I was fine and assumed that’d be the end of it. “Where’s your bike?” he asked, and I admitted I’d abandoned it in the desert and planned to hike back in the next day to try to find it (with plenty of water and food, a pump, and a spare inner tube.) He insisted on sending a couple of volunteers out on dirt bikes to try to find it themselves. I shared the closest pin I could get to save, some photos, and his people spent the next two hours trying in vain to locate the bike. I was stunned at their kindness and generosity.

As I sat on the sidewalk, an older guy rode up on his bicycle, and we started talking about e-bikes. “My friends keep trying to get me to buy one of those,” he said. “But I’m afraid they’ll take me where I don’t belong.”

Two days later, I hiked back in and after hours of scouring the landscape, found my rig. The moral of this particular fiasco isn’t anti e-bike, in any way. All of the stuff that happened to me in the desert was my own fault and could have happened on a hike, or an analog bicycle. A few months after my Palm Springs fiasco, two mountain bikers had to be airlifted out of the same trail network after they got lost. But I had come to rely on the bike’s battery to rescue me. That was a mistake.

[gravitylover]

So the "older guy" understands the limits and to protect himself is not comfortable with having the tool that may lead to his demise but the young guy trusts the technology to the point of hubris and it nearly did lead to his demise. It's not the tool, it's the user. Again.

[Bunion 2020]

It's not the tool, it's the Tool. Again.

FIFY

[Beaver]

I sell ebikes and after having one die on the trail I've decided my mt bike doesn't need a motor. I've got 3 electric commuters though and they are tits.

[grinch]

Was that the bunion or the onion
Who would trust a brose motor?

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[eldereldo]

Ebikes, like 4 wheel drive, just let you get further into trouble before you are stuck.

[grinch]

I bring chains

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[grinch]

The stats are in. As i suspected, regular mtbers are just soft. They need an eeb and also harden tf up



#bunioncouldnthang

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[Beaver]

Was that the bunion or the onion
Who would trust a brose motor?

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It's funny you should ask that, it was a Brose equipped Bulls that left me high and dry. It wasn't the motor though, the battery fucked up. It was an easy fix, plug in the charger and it reset. Unfortunately I could locate a 120 outlet along the trail.

I do really like the feel and ride of the Brose, it's my favorite to pedal. Looking at the Brose from an E bike mechanic POV, no thanks. They're shitty to program and shitty to wrench on.

[grinch]

It's funny you should ask that, it was a Brose equipped Bulls that left me high and dry. It wasn't the motor though, the battery fucked up. It was an easy fix, plug in the charger and it reset. Unfortunately I could locate a 120 outlet along the trail.

I do really like the feel and ride of the Brose, it's my favorite to pedal. Looking at the Brose from an E bike mechanic POV, no thanks. They're shitty to program and shitty to wrench on.

That sux.Their problems are well documented. Looks like specialized is really focused on durability now , with the brose. First they fixed the belt then the clutch and finally the software so there is no power spike dynamiting thr clutch or belt. They seem confident they have the problems solved and given the 2019/20's 4 year warrantees. I'd wait a year to see if they have it. Most people really like them when theyre working and rheir app is well done.
I still want a bosch gen4

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[pano-dude]

Got my 2021 Rail 7 last week and have a couple rides on it.
Switched out the stock bars for my r/f carbon bar and saved a half pound. Deleted the knock block too.
Stock tires were set up tubeless from factory. Bonus!
Pretty stoked for the season, have 4 riding buddies who will be on ebikes this year.
I think Trek should come out with a blank cover for where the battery fits so a person can ride it without the battery. It pedals pretty good without assist.




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[grinch]

Got my 2021 Rail 7 last week and have a couple rides on it.
Switched out the stock bars for my r/f carbon bar and saved a half pound. Deleted the knock block too.
Stock tires were set up tubeless from factory. Bonus!
Pretty stoked for the season, have 4 riding buddies who will be on ebikes this year.
I think Trek should come out with a blank cover for where the battery fits so a person can ride it without the battery. It pedals pretty good without assist.




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Nice bikes. They look great. I see a lot of nice builds on those. Bosch gen 4 ftw

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[jm2e]

I googled and found a couple articles about a specialized extending the motor warranty. But I can’t find anything on the Specialized website. Anyone have a link? I usually need to push pretty hard to get the LBS to make any warranty effort for me.


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[grinch]

I googled and found a couple articles about a specialized extending the motor warranty. But I can’t find anything on the Specialized website. Anyone have a link? I usually need to push pretty hard to get the LBS to make any warranty effort for me.


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https://www.emtbforums.com/community...-motors.14500/

I think 2018/2019 motors as well. Maybe thats touched on later in the thread
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[shirk]

Aggg tempted to do a garage build full suspension bike. Some little Italian start-up is making a retrofit unit that functions that same as the Rocky Mountain bike with a small cog driving the chain.

Stuff a small battery up inside the downtube giving just enough power for the quick hit lunch hour power hour ride.