BiGH's Ride!

[BiGH]

so i had kind of a bad day yesterday - my engineer said he wouldn't be able to engineer a post 1997 electric conversion due to ADR crash regulations, and a pair of cells in my headway pack are on their last legs. Riding into work i got 8.6ah out of the pack. coming home 5.8. So a pair of cells are dying fast. this effectively takes my bike off the road.

Tip to all ebike riders - MAKE SURE YOU CAN EASILY REPLACE CELLS IN YOUR BATTERY PACK.

I think i'll also invest in a cell log for the ebike

[BiGH]

it's been a really really long time since I've posted here, clearing the backlog of projects out. The next one on the list is to fix the bike battery, and get the bike back on the road / path.

There are two aspects to this that I want to do. First is to make a new battery box, and the second is to wire up two new cells to my existing pack to replace the dead ones. I choose screw terminal cells to replace the existing two dead ones, as they're just easier to attach, and I'm fairly sure I've nuked the previous two cells due to overheating when I was soldering them in. So I'm going to cheat at doing it, by using the screw terminal cells

I may turn this into a duct tape pack, while I build the proper box - just so I can start e-biking again (I miss the tracks quite a lot!)

edit: I bought the two cell logs however never attached them.

[adrian_sm]

I have a bunch of loose tabbed headway cells recovered from abused packs if you need any. Testing so far suggests most are in good nick. Actually better than the cells I have in my main headway pack.

Mark_A_W has also built a tab welder that you may find useful.

[BiGH]

I have a bunch of loose tabbed headway cells recovered from abused packs if you need any. Testing so far suggests most are in good nick. Actually better than the cells I have in my main headway pack.

Mark_A_W has also built a tab welder that you may find useful.

ahh lol Thanks for the offer anyways. I should have posted previously then. No dramas. I've already got the 2 x screw term cells from e-MTB. And I want to move to a screw terminal pack eventually.
I'm just hoping I didn't blow up my BMS (I had a spark when attempting the repair the first time round). I'm very tempted to just scrap this pack and go straight to screw-terms (or use it as a backup pack). (I give $10 a day to Metro every time I don't ride to work)

I'll have a think about it though, I may still take you up on your offer. What area of Melbourne are you from?

[Mark_A_W]

We all work near Monash. I can weld a couple of cells in whenever you need.

[BiGH]

We all work near Monash. I can weld a couple of cells in whenever you need.

Awesome. Thanks. That's right I met you once a long time back mark.

I think I need to get a new conductor between the cells too though. Do you know where I can buy one?

[Mark_A_W]

I have nickel shim as well.

[BiGH]

I have nickel shim as well.

oh now ur just turning me on lol.

that would be absolutely magical,

What beer do you guys like btw?

[BiGH]

ok so I've been really flat out and haven't had a chance to work on the bike. I'm starting to look at ways to mount a screw terminal headway pack into the triangle. I really want to start riding the trails to work again, and have been riding the road bike 20k each way. I'm looking at buying a 3rd peddle bike to ride the trails and getting this back on the road asap but I may just use this bike

Having it offline is really disappointing me....

[Mark_A_W]

Come around to my place sometime and we'll fit a cell.

Or drop the pack off at my work one day (Mt Waverley) and pick it up again when it's done.

I have lots of cells, and some shim.

[Samd]

hey Gents,
not sure if you are on here these days - but I have put an event up for an Ebike ride in melb on December 10th. You may want to come along? Cheers..
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=33806

[BiGH]

hey Gents,
not sure if you are on here these days - but I have put an event up for an Ebike ride in melb on December 10th. You may want to come along? Cheers..
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=33806

Hey my bike is currently offline, I still haven't fixed the battery pack (been focused on other things). I'm actually thinking of selling the beast (fixing it first) as I'm now riding 136k+ per week on my road bike (being fit is wonderful!)

[BiGH]

Thought I'd jump back on here and say hi to everyone and let you all know what happened.

Well it was a long time coming, but I ended up selling all my e-gear.

After having the bike sit idle for too long, riding the Avanti Giro everywhere (I had added a few other nice bits including a Wahoo Ant+ iphone case (can't recommend these enough) and Shimano WH-RS80-C50 wheels).

I got to the point over summer that I was doing 100-200k a week comfortably and looking at longer rides... then


Under full power travelling at around 40kph standing I skipped a gear, my knee hit the handlebar with enough force to lift the whole bike sideways and land me on Yarra Blvd at speed. (certainly freaked out the guy next to me). Nothing broken on me or the bike, but was caused by worn out running gear. It was clearly time to either repair the bike or sell it (it was then 6 years old). The decision was to sell it, and the ebike parts to fund a new bike. Ebayed next to everything (except my seat and wheels) and put that to a new bike.

Upgraded to a Giant TCR Advanced 2. Threw on the RS80s and Wahoo ANT+ sensor (which interfaced to the giant ridesense sensor) and had a dream of a bike.

For the moment I'm quite happy pushing my limits of fitness, and have no desire to return to the electric side of things (however I am still interested in them). If my circumstances change I'll definitely return to ebiking.
I'd definitely build an ebike again, however I would definitely use screw terminal batteries. The more user serviceable parts the better.

[adrian_sm]

Nice ride BigH ! Looks like it should be a nice efficient bike.

I stupidly signed up for road the bay this year, so the limitted time I get to ride these days is on my road bike too. Trying to coax my body back into some sort of shape.

Are the fancy wheels worth the cash. I only have cheap wheels on mine, and never ridden anything worth much.

Also like the ANT+ kit. I have been using a cheap heart rate monitor to make sure I train properly, and found it really useful. I also threw a cheap bike computer on the cranks to check my cadence. But would be great to have everything in one unit. What sort of data can the app collect? Can it log elevation, heart rate, etc. as well?

- Adrian

[BiGH]

Nice ride BigH ! Looks like it should be a nice efficient bike.

I stupidly signed up for road the bay this year, so the limitted time I get to ride these days is on my road bike too. Trying to coax my body back into some sort of shape.

Are the fancy wheels worth the cash. I only have cheap wheels on mine, and never ridden anything worth much.

Also like the ANT+ kit. I have been using a cheap heart rate monitor to make sure I train properly, and found it really useful. I also threw a cheap bike computer on the cranks to check my cadence. But would be great to have everything in one unit. What sort of data can the app collect? Can it log elevation, heart rate, etc. as well?

- Adrian

Thanks - yeah the wheels were quite good. they're more an aero wheel, so being as heavy as the previous wheels I had spin up the same rate, but tend to make it easier to hold the higher speeds. Honestly though... not sure I'd go the fancy wheels again. They're nice, but require a lot more adjustment than the old trusty ones. Seriously consider test riding a new bike to compare it to what you have, when I did that, I realised that it wasn't worth fixing my old one. better to get new everything vs new groupset

The Wahoo kit I can't highly recommend enough. I got the heart rate too so was logging HR, speed, dist,cadence, fairly sure it does climb values for post training (depending on the software) but I never really used it for that. Definitely love having it. I use MapMyFitness, which is ok.... none of the apps are perfect though. There are quite a lot of options for apps for the phone. Also wanted to say the case is excellent, has protected my iphone in heavy rain, from impacts, and I got the extended battery too - makes going for a ride a breeze as u can charge on the bike it is DEFINITELY worth the money. I'm happier with this than I was with my old polar 725x (I never used all the features).

Also I'm a bit naughty and like to listen to music while training. It's good that I if I get a phone call, the music fades out and u can take the calll easily. and having a gps based map / phone at your fingertips is AWESOME

[adrian_sm]

Thanks for the tips. I'll kep that in mind fr down the track, but I don't think I will test ride anything just yet. I am happy being blissfully unaware of how crappy my bike is.

Funny you should mention headphones. I just got some new ones to use on the bike. They are Sennheiser PMX 680i for about $100. Really good so far. They have a neck band and hold the buds in the ear, but not jammed down your ear canal so you can hear ambient stuff better. Got the mandatory iphone controls/mic, sounds quality is pretty good, sweat proof, don't fall out.

Here is a random photo of how they sit.


What do you find you look at on the flash bike computer the most when riding? I have been trying to train to a heart rate at the moment. So pretty much ignore speed, and just try to keep my heart at ~140bpm to build aerobic fitness. And now that I know what 80rpm and 90 rpm cadence feels like, I hardly ever look at that. Then I just check average speed at the end to see how I faired.

[BiGH]

sorry just saw this now, I mainly look at HR too... as it's an indication of how hard I'm pushing, but do tend to look at speed and distance too. Cadence not really, but to be honest I'm getting really sick of MapMyFitness' app. It keeps malfunctioning, and in almost every release they break something new. (often fix an old issue though).

Thanks for the tips. I'll kep that in mind fr down the track, but I don't think I will test ride anything just yet. I am happy being blissfully unaware of how crappy my bike is.

Funny you should mention headphones. I just got some new ones to use on the bike. They are Sennheiser PMX 680i for about $100. Really good so far. They have a neck band and hold the buds in the ear, but not jammed down your ear canal so you can hear ambient stuff better. Got the mandatory iphone controls/mic, sounds quality is pretty good, sweat proof, don't fall out.

Here is a random photo of how they sit.


What do you find you look at on the flash bike computer the most when riding? I have been trying to train to a heart rate at the moment. So pretty much ignore speed, and just try to keep my heart at ~140bpm to build aerobic fitness. And now that I know what 80rpm and 90 rpm cadence feels like, I hardly ever look at that. Then I just check average speed at the end to see how I faired.