Mountain Biking Tips?

Anyone got any good mountain biking tips for an EMB(electric mountain bike)? Type of terrain in my area is mostly single track with lots of switch backs and roots and fairly steep climbs 15% gradient or more.

These are the ones I've heard of: I'm using a geared rear hub driveline.

1) Don't jump and land with throttle on (strip gears)
2) Don't use throttle from dead stop.
3) Put battery in middle of the bike or on front handle bars. As you don't want all the weight on the back of the bike.
4) make sure wiring is not hanging off the side where it can get caught up on something.

What else am I missing?

Do whatever you can to avoid a flat tyre on a hub motor - slime, thorn resistant tubes, correct inflation,liners.

Sell the hub and buy a BBS02

geosped said:

1) Don't jump and land with throttle on (strip gears)
2)----------------------
3) Put battery in middle of the bike or on front handle bars. As you don't want all the weight on the back of the bike.
4) make sure wiring is not hanging off the side where it can get caught up on something.

What else am I missing?

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It would help us to know what motor you're using. what bike it's on, and what part of the world you're in. But in general, 3 of your 4 points are right. number 2 only matters if you are trying to ride ultra conservatively or you have a motor that has no business on a trail in the first place. Otherwise, leave a roostertail of dirt and leaves when you start.

Use two torque arms, solidly attached.
Mount everything so securely you feel confident kicking it without dislodging it.
If you have lose batteries in a bag or box, make sure to pack them in foam so they can't wiggle and bounce around.
Try to make your tires as flat proof as you can. I prefer DH tires + DH tube + Slime.

Gregory said:

Do whatever you can to avoid a flat tyre on a hub motor

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I suspect that your hub motor mount is PITA

On my bikes, or any bike that is built with maintenance in mind, it doesn't take much longer to fix a RR flat than a front.

My tip to the OP: Stay focused, and train to pass various obstacles where it doesn't have too much consequences. Once in the trail at high speed learning is painful, for trees and rocks are not very forgiving.

Two torque arms can slow you down by a few min, but nothing unbearable. Yes, slower than a QR, but not a deal breaker.

15% no problem for a larger geared motor. 1000w on a Mac 10 t or similar wind works great on 15% with pedaling. Too much rocks and roots though, and it gets hard to hang onto the bike at 10-15 mph. Slowing down on 15% will smoke the motor.

But I can't wait to go to interbike, and demo the new mid drives. Those really are the future of trail e bikes. For those with $3-5000 to spend. Haibike, yum.

The main thing is find the trails that do ride nicer, and turn around in time if you are on one so rocky it rides for shit. Find the road up, trail down route.

Lastly, the best full suspension bike with the best front shock you can possibly afford. I just upgraded, finally putting a motor on my specialized. AHHH better! Very hard on the shoulders riding in the rocky mountains with a poor front shock.

I'm using a BMC with planetary gear drive not sure if it's V1 or V2 with the composite gears. I haven't taken the cassette off so I can remove the cover to see what color the gears are (White v1 Nylon = strip easier) (v2 Green composite =better durability)

Right now It's on a medium size steel frame hard tail with a cheapie front suspension fork and mechanical disc brakes. 26" wheel.
I originally wanted to mount this my trek fuel 9 full suspension tubeless wheel set, XT build, but it's got a carbon fiber rear triangle and I don't think it would be wise to mount this type of kit on that rear triangle.

Location is mostly the mountains of North Georgia although but we have plenty of good local mountain biking trails http://www.singletracks.com/bike-trails/big-creek-roswell.html This is the one where I mostly do my riding.

I've got one torque arm on right now. I guess I'll have to get another one for the other side. Also I'm running on 10S 10ah pack LiPo Pack. When I use a 12S the Lyen controller I'm using is way to jerky on the throttle so I'm afraid of damaging the clutch or gears hence why I'm toning it down to a 10S

Drunkskunk said:

geosped said:

1) Don't jump and land with throttle on (strip gears)
2)----------------------
3) Put battery in middle of the bike or on front handle bars. As you don't want all the weight on the back of the bike.
4) make sure wiring is not hanging off the side where it can get caught up on something.

What else am I missing?

Click to expand...

It would help us to know what motor you're using. what bike it's on, and what part of the world you're in. But in general, 3 of your 4 points are right. number 2 only matters if you are trying to ride ultra conservatively or you have a motor that has no business on a trail in the first place. Otherwise, leave a roostertail of dirt and leaves when you start.

Use two torque arms, solidly attached.
Mount everything so securely you feel confident kicking it without dislodging it.
If you have lose batteries in a bag or box, make sure to pack them in foam so they can't wiggle and bounce around.
Try to make your tires as flat proof as you can. I prefer DH tires + DH tube + Slime.

Click to expand...

So question on going SLOW under 6mph uphill? Why would I smoke the motor going slow up hill? This is a major issue then as the terrain is pretty rocky lots of roots and pretty steep. I just cant fly up it. I'm no Evel Knievel. What happens to the motor? is there to many AMPS and the wires fry? How would I correct this with out going faster? Would I increase the cell count or Volts in my pack to decrease the load on the motor? Or what's the workaround based on what I have. I really don't want to go out and keep on spending. I'm already approaching the point where I throw in the towel.

If the motor can't run at the speed you want it to run (by turning the throttle) it can't turn the power into movement but it will convert it into heat - the power/current has to go somewhere.
That's why middrives rule at slower speed steep hills. You can shift down to the right gear and keep the motor turning.

When the resistance of the load, like a very steep hill, is so much the hubmotor slows to less than 10 mph for geared motors, then the motor still pulls the wattage, but the stalled motor will turn much of that power into heat.

If the conditions are fully loaded, that is wide open throttle up a steep hill....

At 25 mph, the motor is running at about it's max efficiency, so say it's pulling 900w, only about 100w is turning into heat.

At 15 mph, the motor is still running pretty efficient, but perhaps as much as 200w is turning into heat.

But below 10 mph, that motor could easily be turning 500w into heat. Ever turn on a 500w halogen work light? Then try to touch it about 5 min later? Cooked your hand right? A 500w heater inside your motor will cook it very quickly. It just can't shed that heat fast enough.

However, if the path or road is less steep, and you can ride slow with 1/3 throttle, that's ok. Even if turning half the watts into heat, now it's only 200w, and the motor can radiate that much heat away. It's when turning half of 1000w into heat that the motor can't cool itself fast enough to keep up with it.

But as a general rule, if the hill is very steep at all, you really need to keep moving faster. Find trails where that is possible, or do those trails only going down. Find the easier way up, or don't ride up them more than about 10- 15 min without stopping to let the motor cool for a long time. 45 min of steep hill will cook off a motor, if you can't keep it turning 10-15 mph.

It's a definite problem, trails here out west were built for mule packing, and nothing wrecks a trail like horse traffic. None of the forest service hiking trails I know of in New Mexico are rideable, even if it's allowed. You have to seek out more recent trails built for bikes, or roads built for 18 wheeler log trucks. Mine roads, skid roads for logging, and 99% of trails will suck for both e bike or motorcycle.

But the mid drives that are coming, they can handle some pretty amazing trails. If you can stay on the bike riding that stuff. If you have the strength and balance for it. The vids I've seen, they don't show old hippies with a pot belly riding that rough trail. They show guys who spend the winter extreme skiing the alps, and the summer extreme mountain biking the alps. Like I was, about 30 years ago.

Yep. Riding slow in the mountain trails you are better with a mid drive. When you usually ride fast and need only occasionnal slow technical riding, you can get away with a DD hub but you need a big one that is heavy enough to shed the heat.

What is doing best overall performance is a big DD hub and very high power, built on a good DH frame. No gear shifting, high top speed, very reliable... Hard to beat with a mid drive, unless it is built with a big motor and motorcycle drive train.

The mid drive will beat the super powerful dd on the handling side. Always. The heavy rear wheel i unsprung weight. Building it strong with mc components makes that even worse and those bikes are inho more like mc anyway than bike like.
But super cool to rush up hills and stuff for sure

Great info what DD hub would you recommend at what power levels ? I've got a Geared Hub Motor and I'm thinking of changing out the gears replacing the phase and hall sensor wires but that's not going to help with heat. Not sure if it's worth all the trouble.

MadRhino said:

Yep. Riding slow in the mountain trails you are better with a mid drive. When you usually ride fast and need only occasionnal slow technical riding, you can get away with a DD hub but you need a big one that is heavy enough to shed the heat.

What is doing best overall performance is a big DD hub and very high power, built on a good DH frame. No gear shifting, high top speed, very reliable... Hard to beat with a mid drive, unless it is built with a big motor and motorcycle drive train.

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cromotor or mxus3000

Perhaps more in the spirit of the original question, here are some general dirt bike do's and don'ts;
1)Ride with a buddy.
2)Don't go DOWN a trail to you didn't come up.(Mostly applies to spring/forest riding when dead-fall can block the trail.).
3)On logging roads, make an imaginary center divider line and do not cross over on bind corners.
4)Horses always get the Right of Way, pull off on down-side of trail.
5)Be aware of hunting season and dress accordingly.

izeman said:

The mid drive will beat the super powerful dd on the handling side. Always.

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Nope. It should be lighter, it should jump better, but handling is a matter of geometry.
When built properly, tuned and balanced, a 70 Lbs hub built bike can ride just as fine as a 50 Lbs mid drive and sure better than one that is not tuned for its rider or terrain. On any of my bikes, you can coast with hands in your pockets at 30 Mph, ride up and down the stairs seated, drift or lift at will. Most bikes are not built or tuned to do that, hub or mid drives.

geosped said:

Great info what DD hub would you recommend at what power levels ?

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I am using 2 very different motors on my bikes right now: Cromotor and X 5404
Always building with Infineon 18 X 4110 mod to 150 A batt current, 24s RC lipo

Sure bad geometry won't make a bike run well. But that goes for mid drive and DD. And you can't deny the heavy rear wheel. It makes handling on steep single trails worse. I ride both and i the difference is obvious. I didn't say that you can't ride single trails (and that is what mountain biking is for me) with a big heavy DD but a mid drive is more like biking, a powerful DD is more like a motor cycle.

izeman said:

The mid drive will beat the super powerful dd on the handling side.

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That's probably technically true, depending on how you define handling. But better handling doesn't equal better performance. Sure. central weight makes a bike handle like a surgeon's scalpel, while high rear weight makes a bike handle more like an axe being wielded by a drunk in a bar fight. But if your objective is to cut a few new trails through the woods, both are going to get the job done. The mid motored bike rider will emerge on the other side with a smug grin of satisfaction knowing that only the best trackers will be able to follow his carefully laid trail, while the super powered rear motored hoodlum will arrive at the other side with a dead squirrel in his teeth, covered in dirt and leaves, and grinning like an insane lumberjack.

If you put the two bikes on a track, the better handling mid motor bike will take the corners better, being able to use superior feedback to allow the rider to brake later in the corners, hold a tighter line on the edge of control, and accelerate earlier on the exit. And then watch as the Super powered hub motor flies past and gets to the next corner while the mid motor is still trying to accelerate away from the last.

I'm not talking about racing. I'm talking about the most bike like experience. All you say is true for what you want.

People go on and on about the unsprung weight of the big hubbie.

And on a shit bike, they are right, it does suck balls. But on a real FS ride, you hardly notice the difference between a 9 pound geared motor wheel, and a 25 pound 5304 wheel. Well you do notice one difference, damn hard to melt down the big motor. And you have to get used to riding the trails faster than is safe.

The big motor is really more like a motorcycle ride, while a Mac is more like a bike for sure. Sometimes you have to pedal, or you can comfortably pedal the whole time.

I haven't ridden the nice mid drives. So I can't comment on them. Hopefully I'll get to ride them all this fall, if I can make it to Interbike this year.

High weight, like a big battery on a rack, that you notice big time! But you can even get used to that, if you must. All my decent bikes are old, so they are Y frames. I end up with 8 pounds of battery on the rack, 8 more on the bag on the bars. All of it too high on the bike for the best handling, but at least it's balanced high weight.

Adding batteries together with the weight of the fork, you can tune the battery mount and steer angle to place the Center Of Gravity close to the middle of the frame. Then, you tune geometry to match the center of the virtual cockpit. Thus giving the rider the longest range of positional weight shifting.

That is how to fine tune a hub build to optimal handling. Rear suspension CAN be tuned perfect, although most hub builds aren't because of the cost, trouble, or lack of know-how. Perfect is when the tail bounces no more than twice on ANY hit yet using the most of the range of suspension travel, not so easy to achieve with any bike, motorized or not.

After that, performance is a matter of weight vs HP ratio... and how the rider takes advantage of it.

My best MTB tip would be "tuck and roll" Seriously, when you mess up and it spits you off, separate yourself from the bike. In a wooded area grab the nearest tree if you find yourself flung towards one - it's better than flying down a steep bank and hitting another one.

Crashing well, definitely part of the dirt ride tool kit. But getting rid of a piece of shit bike that makes you crash is also in the tool kit.

I crashed soooo much more often on those walmart bikes. Rear suspension should suck up a bump, not amplify it like a pogo stick. If you want to ride difficult trails, you really need to get out the wallet, and buy a bike with suspension that works.

One of Mad Rhinos front forks cost more than my entire bikes. But even without going to that level, I saw a huge improvement when I got on a better bike for the dirt riding. No more pogo stick, no more frame whip. I think the frame flex was worse than the poor shock.

I just upgraded my dirt ride again, finally putting a motor on a bike I had stashed as "too good to ruin with a motor" Mostly, it was just hard to fit a torque arm to that bikes frame, and I finally made a good one to fit that bike. Now I can ride my specialized on the trails, with a nice motor. First ride I noticed how much less my arms had to work, with the better front fork on that bike.