StokeMonkey/Xtracycle

[hillbilly]

pdf: I look forward to comparing hillclimbing tests with you -- my Big Dummy with Stoke Monkey is finally on the road, though with less than 15 miles so far I'm not ready to risk any conclusions. Yesterday, however, I rode up a nasty 10% logging road that seriously challenges my Toyota Tacoma pickup. Loose rock and gravel and a sharp turn at the steepest point. The bike went right up, moderate pedaling, in a very low gear. I don't have a temperature probe on the controller but at the top it was actually cold to the touch. Compared to my Trek with BMC V-1 this thing feels like a mountain goat!

[pdf]

Here are the results of the hill-climbing tests with the Stokemonkey/Xtracycle on March 7, 2010, Knoxville, TN. All data is motor-only. Ambient temperature 55 deg. F. No significant wind. No instrumentation for motor/controller temp, but feeling by hand on controller, motor case, motor shaft, all cool to touch during testing. Battery voltage 39V at start of tests, 37.5V at end. 15 amp-hr LiFePO4 battery. Probably a 3C rating.

Notes on testing: Gears were selected to be slighter “steeper” than I would use pedaling without motor. Therefore, current draws can be very low when motor speed is maxed out on low grade. Cycle Analyst set to 15 amps current max. I think the Stokemonkey uses a Clyte 400 series or similar. Max. continuous rating is around 500W. At 36 volts and 15 amps, this is 540 watts, so I set the current limit near the max. continuous rating of the motor. This is very conservative, I know, but I want the battery and motor to last a long time. As a result, the motor and controller stay relatively cool. Throttle always held wide open in these tests, so currents less than max indicate motor speed is at the highest it will reach. If not hill climbing, this indicates it would be a good time to shift.

Bike details: 2007 Jamis 700c Citizen 1 Hybrid converted to Xtracycle longtail, Stock front ring 28/38/48, Stock rear freewheel 13-15-17-19-21-24-34. Bike weight around 50 lbs. Rider weight around 165 lbs.

Hill characteristics: Four hills were mapped with mapmyride.com, as either 0.5 mi or 0.2 mi. total distance. Grades below show the averages from mapmyride, which divides the total distance into 10 equal segments, so a 0.5 mile ride would be divided into 0.05 mile segments and the grade reported for each segment would be the average over the 0.05 mile segment. Reported below are the grades for the relevant segments, with the length of a segment given. Hills are named with the actual name of the roads. Following that are the gears selected, the range of speeds experienced on the ride, and the current range as reported by the Cycle Analyst. Two of the hills were ridden twice in two different gear ranges. The Stokemonkey reaches its equilibrium speed quickly due to gearing so the speed and current variation is due primarily to the changing slopes.

Lonas Road
--------------
segment length= 0.05 miles, segment grades in %: 4,8,16,2,2,7,4,0
Ride 1 data
Gearing: 1 front, 2 back; Speed range: 7.1-8.0 mph; Current range: 4.5-8.5 amps
Ride 2 data
Gearing: 2 front, 2 back; Speed range: 8.4-10.0 mph, current range: 7.6-15 amps

Papermill Road, east bound
-------------------------------------
Segment length=0.05, segment grades in %: 5, 3, 2, 8, 3, 7, 3, 2, 2)
Ride 1 data
Gearing: 2 front, 3 rear; speed range: 9.5-10.1 mph; current range: 5-8 amps
Ride 2 data
Gearing: 2 front, 6 rear; speed range: 13.1-14.5 mph; current range 10-15 amps

Papermill Road, west bound
-------------------------------------
Segment length=0.02 miles, segment grades in %: 8,6,2,0,3,2,0,4,4,4)
Ride data (single ride)
Gearing: 2 front, 4 rear; speed range: 9-10 mph; current range: 5-9.5 amps

Timberpass
---------------
Segment length= 0.02 miles, segment grades in %: 1,2,4,20,4,3,3)
Ride data (single ride)
Gearing: 1 front, 1 rear; speed range: 4.1-5.2 mph; current range: 6.2-14.5 amps

The final test was a max. speed test. I was having trouble finding a flat road that was long enough. In the end I settled for one that was roughly flat and rode it both ways. The flat section was not long enough so the speed was still increasing slowly at the end. The max speed may be 1-2 mph higher. My bike is a Jamis hybrid with an upright riding position. No attempt was made to crouch to reduce the frontal area. Going one way, the max speed was around 15.5 mph before I had to stop. Going the other, it was around 21 mph before I got to the other end. As I said, the speed would probably go up 1-2 mph if the road had been longer. The riding position on my bike is VERY upright and this has a major effect on top speed. I am not a speed demon. CA was unplugged to defeat 20 mph top speed. Speeds were given by cycle computer independent of CA.

[dogman]

Back to the subject of efficeincy on hills,,

I ride a big hill home eveyday, and done it on several types of motors. What I find is that when it comes to hills, there is a minimum work that you can't avoid. That is, the hill takes x amount of work to get y amount of weight to the top. No motor will make that number smaller. The difference in efficiency between motor 1 and motors 2 and 3 climbing that hill had more to do with the speed at which I climbed the hill than gears or no gears. These were all hubmotors though, and even the geared ones were geared a bit high for the hill. My way of judging the efficiency was monitoring the temp gain while climbing the hill. Less temp is clearly more efficient since less heat was made.

So even if the stokemonkey is a lot more efficient than the best geared hubmotors, it will still take some considerable watthours to get up the hill.

What is very interesting, is how long a hill could a stokemonkey climb heavily loaded without overheating? In summer, I found even the gearmotors got hot fast on a steep hill, like 10% or more. A truly more efficient motor system would make a lot less heat. That could be what really makes the difference rather than having more range. let us know when july comes.

[pdf]

Back to the subject of efficeincy on hills,,

...
So even if the stokemonkey is a lot more efficient than the best geared hubmotors, it will still take some considerable watthours to get up the hill.

What is very interesting, is how long a hill could a stokemonkey climb heavily loaded without overheating? In summer, I found even the gearmotors got hot fast on a steep hill, like 10% or more. A truly more efficient motor system would make a lot less heat. That could be what really makes the difference rather than having more range. let us know when july comes.

Dogman,
Exactly. Climbing up a hill, it is all about speed, load and grade. To move a given mass up a given grade at a given speed will take a certain amount of energy, even if the sytem is 100% efficient. Motor efficiency is directly linked to motor speed and power input. That is, if a lot of power is going into the motor and the motor is not turning at its most efficient speed (which is near the max speed, if memory serves), the efficiency will be low. That is, you will be sucking a lot of battery power and not much of it will be getting to the tires. If you have a big enough motor, enough batteries, and can shed the heat fast enough, well, there you go! The reason I like the system I have is that the motor speed is relatively uncoupled from the grade if you pick the right gear. You can see this in the data above; on the "Timberpass" ride, the grade varied between 1 and 20% but the speed only varied between 4.1 and 5.2 mph, about 20%. In that gear, the max bike speed is close to 5.2 mph so 4.1 is pretty close. The thing is more like a tractor than a bike at that gearing.

I think the question about how hot a motor can get can be thought of in terms of where a person is operating with regard to the continuous load of the motor. I have the power limited to essentially the max. continuous rating of the motor. I think I could put 100 lbs of dead weight on the bike and climb a 20% grade until the battery went dead but I would be going about 3 mph at which point is is difficult to keep the bike upright. The ebike sim. says this would take about 414W which I think would be do-able even in July here in TN. On my system, that is less than 12 amps. I have taken my daughter up a 25% grade (she weighs about 80 lbs) and have barely even pushed the pedals. So as you say, it is the combination of speed, grade, and load that makes or breaks the system. For hills of any significant grade, the bike is not likely to be going very fast so that the power required to overcome the hill is going to be nearly completely composed of the power required to move the weight up the grade (that is, wind resistance is almost nil by comparison) at the given speed.

So in the end, I have a 36V battery. If I limit myself to around 500W, that determines the speed I can travel up a grade with a given weight. In the limit as the speed up the grade goes to zero, I can carry an infinite mass up a given grade on fixed power if I pick the right gear. Who was it that said, "Let me pick the fulcrum and I am move the Earth" (Archimedes?)

For me, it is the hill climbing that makes my non-motorized commute a biaatch. For people who really want to haul butt, it is going to take a certain amount of power and 500W will not cut it no matter how you gear it; the ebike calculator says I can go about 27 mph on that much power on my bike on level ground. On the system I have, I could go to work and back traveling >20% grades without touching the pedals and keep my power usage very low. I have in fact done this just to prove it to myself. It took nearly an hour. Or I can do as I do now and pedal moderately and do it in about 30 minutes for about 1/2 Ahr/mile.

I think the main thing is for people interested in ebikes to be able to TRY them so that they can compare their expections and needs to the ability of various systems. For me, I like to have bike speed effectively decoupled from the motor speed. If you are able to keep the motor at near its max speed, it will be efficient, regardless (within reason) of the system used to get the power to the wheels. Some people prefer to go with bigger batteries and motors that handle more power. Either way, you can get the job done. The average hub motor system can be both efficient and fast, but it can't be both efficient and fast and efficient and slow.

One last antecdote of why I like my ebike. Two days ago I was recovering from a cold virus. I had ridden my bike to work and had felt pretty good in the morning and the weather was perfect for riding; 60 deg. F and sunny. But I was on my feet a lot that day and by the end of the day, I was pretty tired. I needed to go several miles out of my normal route to pick up something on the way home. One of my graduate students could have done it and volunteered to. But I thought "This is why I have the system I have. I have a 15 Ahr batt so I can go out of my way if I need to. I have a geared system so that if I am zonked I can get home with very little effort (although not that quickly). I have an Xtracycle so I can carry stuff without worrying about carrying capacity." So off I went. I felt about the same when I got home as when I left the office. If I had not had an ebike, I would have been dead on my feet.

If anyone wants to suggest a test of the hill-climbing ability for geared systems, I'm game. As long as I get to pick the fulcrum and lever (and if speed is no object). I don't know about the ability to shed heat but I assume it is similar to any system. It has the potential advantage of spinning pretty fast even at low speeds. On the Stokemonkey, the motor is a modified hub motor so the "casing" spins around and the "shaft" is stationary. I thought that was a weird arrangement at first but it probably helps supply convective cooling at low bike speeds.

Lastly, I want to thank, one last time, all those who patiently answered my questions last fall and suffered my suggestions on standardizing hill climbing tests of ebikes.

[hillbilly]

Now that I've put about 120 miles on my Surly Big Dummy/Stoke Monkey I'm ready to offer a few first-hand observations. First of all, "pdf" literally took the words out of my mouth when he said the Stoke Monkey was "like a tractor". Anyone familiar with my posts and questions knows that my main interest in ebiking is for the purpose of climbing hills. And not just "any hill" but the rugged foothills and mountains here in the North Cascades.

The route that convinced me to splurge for a Stoke Monkey is a logging road behind our cabin that ascends at least 2300 feet. I did this climb on my Trek (see my signature) and by the time I crawled to the top I felt as though I'd done an ultra-marathon.

On the Stoke Monkey's first test, I kept it just under 5 mph in a very low gear, pedaling at a comfortable cardio-workout sort of pace. As I'd hoped, the bike went up the mountain like a champ -- or perhaps I should say, "like a Jeep". I stopped occasionally to feel the temperature of the motor and controller -- neither was even warm to the touch.

A week later I did the same mountain, but this time I carried two batteries (20ah LIon and 15 ah LiPo4), a full daypack, a fairly heavy tripod, a couple of quarts of water and another of coffee, several small tools, a heavy Canon SLR and large binoculars, a rubberized poncho and a bunch of misc small items. I have to guess at this but the batteries and cargo must have easily weighed 60 pounds -- and I weigh 180.

I was amazed that once again the bike went right to the top of the mountain at the same speed as before. The motor and controller were barely warm to the touch.

I know that Dogman is going to challenge me to check the motor temperature in July. I'll be quite surprised, however, if the motor isn't still operating within reasonable limits. This thing is a serious mountain goat!

By the way... I intend to discuss the bike in more detail when I have time to write a full review but thanks to the fellow at the LBS who assembled the Dummy, I also splurged for high-end disc brakes. That was a very wise move as the return trip is downhill for over 5 miles and tricky in places -- I have the roadrash scabs to prove it!.

Carl

[Geebee]

I think you will find a higher ambient temperature will have almost zero effect on a well setup Stokemonkey system.
I have a 160w rated Tongxin hub driving as a stokemonkey and it will crank up 20% grades with close to no heat build up on 30 degree Celcius days, If you hold your hand on it after 20 minutes or so climbing you can just detect that it is above ambient, that is with me pedalling but letting the motor do its fair share of the work.
What other system would allow a motor with that rating make 25% hills relatively easy and still allow an extra punch at 60 kph.

[John in CR]

I think you will find a higher ambient temperature will have almost zero effect on a well setup Stokemonkey system.
I have a 160w rated Tongxin hub driving as a stokemonkey and it will crank up 20% grades with close to no heat build up on 30 degree Celcius days, If you hold your hand on it after 20 minutes or so climbing you can just detect that it is above ambient, that is with me pedalling but letting the motor do its fair share of the work.
What other system would allow a motor with that rating make 25% hills relatively easy and still allow an extra punch at 60 kph.

Your little Tongxin really gets you up to 60kph or so? I've got to get moving on one of my planned Stoke Monkey-ish builds. With the ease of ventilating a motor, while using a housing to keep debris out, it's gotta be the one way to maintain near silence and be able to combine both torque and speed, while allowing the advantage of getting that unsprung weight out of the wheel.

[Geebee]

No, I get it up to 60 kph and if i want a bit more punch the motor still delivers.

[katou]

I have a 9 continents motor I want to use in a stokemonkey sort of setup. How did you build yours GB? How is the sprocket attached for one thing. Did you drive through a stoker crankset or all on the left side?

Any chance you took pictures?

Katou

[Geebee]

Crude but very effective. I just spun a freewheel on as a drive because the motor is fitted in reverse to normal it all works out.
The left crank is the right crank off a chopper bike, the pedal is a close match from a spare set and I swapped the left pedal onto a right axle to allow the clipless assy to be the right way up, the only concession to the possibility of the pedal unwinding (due to the right crank fitted to the left side) was to make sure it spins real free, I did this on a previous bike and the pedal never unscrewed and it had a lot of use. Confused I am.

[liveforphysics]

Nice work GeeBee! Slick setup! I bet that has loads of torque.

[katou]

Why did you put the chain on the left? I'm sure you have a good reason, I always wondered. Wouldn't it be easier mechanically if all the chain business was on one side?

Also, if you have a rear-wheel hub motor with the sprocket cluster on it, couldn't you attach a derailleur to it and gain EVEN MORE speeds? Maybe it's just not worth doing.

"Hello, yes, this is my bike, it has 27 speeds human powered, and 189 through the motor. On my lowest gear, it goes 1 mph, but the torque!"

Katou

[amberwolf]

It looks like he did it for essentially the same reasons I did it on CrazyBike2--so that I could still have all the shiftable chainrings on the front of the regular bike drivetrain.

I'm guessing that no derailer is used on the motor end because of tensioning issues under speed. That's one reason why I didn't do it on mine, aside from not really having the need for it.

[katou]

It looks like the motor mount is 1/8" steel or so? I'm guessing that the black box is a battery holder.

That hub motor is very small! It fits in so nicely with the low-profile of the trike.

Yours was designed for a rear wheel correct? It has a freewheeling cassette mount on one side?

Mine is from a rear wheel, so I could put an entire cassette on, but I am not sure that the increase in width is worth it.

I'm surprised more people aren't doing this sort of modification, it seems fairly straightforward, and user friendly.

Katou

[Geebee]

The chain is on the left crank as I need all of the gears, as where I ride is extremely hilly.
The black box is at the moment just holding the bike computer and the Turnigy Watts up (makes them really covinient to read), when I go LiPo they will probally go in there as well.
The motor mounts are heavy right angle steel brackets from the hardware shop about 1/8 or a touch more, they are great as you can bolt them together (predrilled) to test you setup and then weld and lose the bolts or just leave it bolted.
Yes the motor is a rear wheel one running a 16 tooth freeweel with a 44 tooth ring up front, it gives me 77 rpm at the pedals at rated the hub rpm's and tapers to nothing at 90 rpm at the pedals so its a good match for human power.
I would stick with a single speed from the motor, just match it to your cadence, variable speed for the hub would be a pain as it would drive the pedals at uncomfortable speeds.
The hub is in slotted mounts so I just adjust it to suit the chain tension.

The beauty of a stokemonkey setup is that the bike is normal when un powered, no extra drag, standard drive train, rear wheel is removable as normal.
Powered you just ride as normal and when you would ease up to shift you just blip the throttle down a touch.

[katou]

I looked at your pictures again, and I saw that the motor is in fact, nearly UNDER the main bar of the trike! That fits in there so nicely I'm amazed. Did you pick that hub motor specifically because it was small? It never occurred to me that there would be a market for really small hub motors, but here it is.

How do you keep the drive cog from moving left and right on the cassette mount? I would think that if you took off a 7 speed cluster and put on one cog, there would be some space to take up somehow.

Thanks for answering these questions,

Katou

[Geebee]

I like the Tongxin as they are small, light and quiet.
I just fitted the single speed cog the spacer that are standard on hubs still maintains its position.

[pdf]

Today, I rolled over 1000 miles on the Stoked Xtracycle since the conversion in early January. Thought I'd take a minute to update my review.

This setup is an effective, utilitarian cargo bike. Both the Xtracycle conversion and the Stokemonkey work pretty much as I expected. The Xtracycle will hold four grocery bags (the reusable kind, not the plastic film ones) full of groceries. The Stokemonkey takes all the grunt out of carrying it. However, most of the miles are put on commuting to work and back each day, 13 miles round trip. I do between about 14 and 20 mph on the flat, which mostly depends on the condition of the road. I get 2.3 miles/amp-hr on moderately hilly terrain. I recharge every day, but on the one or two times I've forgotten it, the 15 amp-hr 36 V LiFePO4 battery will do the trip twice. Problems I had early on were that I had the throttle go bad and later had the charger go bad (both under warrantee and replaced by cycle9.com). Continuing maintenance issues include a need to retighten the cable that tensions the motor chain periodically (approx. every 300 miles) and checking the bolt that holds the Xtracycle to the chainstay bridge (approx. every 800 miles). I still have some small issues with gear indexing but it is not a serious problem. I think I need a rear deraileur with a stronger spring for the heavier weight of the long chain to the rear sprocket. Bike shops nearly universally conclude the rear hanger must be bent but it is not.

The setup on hills is terrific for my use. If the hill is over 10% grade, the speed will not impress unless you add significant input but the sheer muscle does. That little red motor spins and up it goes. I have the CA current-limited to 15 amps and it will do any hill I travel on a regular basis motor-only, although the Stokemonkey is designed so that the pedals don't freewheel. I have found that what the manufacturer says is true, having the pedals not freewheel is great feedback to the rider about what the motor is doing so that I shift at the right time. Although I have not done an exhaustive study with instrumentation, the motor stays cool at this current limit even when hauling a bike load of stuff. I think it is a good idea to keep the current limited when practical; it is good for the motor, battery, and controller.

I wish I could ride many setups so I could compare them. This setup is not cheap so I can't compare value with other systems. However, it does what I expect of it without fuss.

[Seriousknot]

I ran across this guy on my birthday last February. He said he had been living on this bike for 5 years. He's been all over the country. He wanted $10 to let me take the picture. I talked him out of charging since it was my birthday (I gave him $5 anyway). Somewhere under all that stuff is an Xtracycle. No motor though.

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[docnjoj]

Hey GeeBee
That is an elegant an beautiful solution. I'll have to give it some thought for the future for my trike. Any chance of a few more pics of the motor mount? I'm thinking of using the brackets and MDF.
otherDoc

[pdf]

Happy (near) New Year. I'm now at about 2600 miles on my Xtracycle/Stokemonkey combo and thought I'd report one last time. It continues to perform up to expectations. If I needed confirmation as to the degree to which the Stokemoney is providing input, my battery cut out early (more later) a couple of weeks ago and I had to hump it back home carrying loaded panniers. I thought I'd have a coronary on the hills. Turns out, my legs are hardly doing squat when going up hill motorized. Which is awesome! I don't care if I get exercise on the bike actually. My motivation is simply to get out of my car for commuting and I have immensely enjoyed that part of it. It is so much more enjoyable to cruise to the office out in the open; half my route is on a wooded bike trail and when the weather is pleasant, there is nothing better. Listening to nature all around on the drive is really the best part of my work day.

The 2600 miles have not been without (relatively small) problems. I have twice had the battery die at the LVC well before it should and had to send it back to the company where I bought it for repairs each time to have a pouch cell replaced. After the second repair, my miles/amp-hour have gone down noticably. Don't know why. It was at 2.3 miles/amp-hour consistently before the last cell replacement and now it is at 1.8 regularly. Don't like that. Ever since the Xtracycle conversion, the indexed shifting and gearing is not as clean; nearly always skips the "3" ring on the back and will jump the rear cog when in the "2" ring in the front and the smallest rear ring if I crank down on the trottle at low speed. It has been like that since first installed. Not much of a problem really though. The components on the bike were not top-of-the-line and I expect the longer chain and cable runs due to the "stretch" haven't made things easy for them. I went through a period when I got holes in the rear tire tube about every couple of weeks. I started being careful to stay off the verge and also when I change a flat, to carefully check the tire for tiny wires still sticking through. I have worn out my bottom bracket and am replacing that now. I (finally) got the fixed cup out (what a pain) and am waiting on a sealed cartridge from Jensen right now to replace the free ball bearing set up. Riding when it is sub-twenty F temps-wise is not much fun after the first 4 miles or so. My hands nearly freeze solid. Got a pair of Ice Armour gauntlet gloves for Christmas and will test after I install the new BB. The circulation in my hands has always been poor so I am not confident it will be much better, but it can't hurt. Also got a better rainproof shell. Riding in the rain is not that bad but you have to stay dry and the previous shell I had was not completely waterproof. I need a better pair of rainpants also but am using a cheap pair for now. I need to get a pair of rubber overshoes for riding in the rain or I will ruin my good shoes. You almost have to have an Xtracycle to carry all the gear for all conditions if you ride in the winter and rain. I don't know how people carry all that stuff without the extra space.

I have added a rear bike light (the one from ebikes.ca powered off the bike battery) and a front Magic Shine. I put together a DC/DC convertor so I can run the Magic Shine off the bike battery so don't have to mess with charging that separately. I also added a thumb switch to turn it on and off. I moved my batteries from the rear panniers to just under the top tube and prefer them there; the weight is carried more evenly that way. I started using a dry lube months ago because the chain stays cleaner, but just noticed that when it is really cold (sub 25 deg. F or so) the chain jumps the small rear cogs more frequently. I checked the rear cog and chain for wear but it all looked fine. I have finally determined it is skipping because the wax gets very stiff and the chain does not flex as well. Don't know if anyone else has experienced that. I am switching back to oil-based lube until summer.

All in all, I am very satisfied with the setup. I wanted it to climb the hills withough effort and it does that admirably. I have found that the 20 mph limit on the CA can be switched off (not that I would actually do that of course) but the system won't go much faster than that with my setup anyway so it doesn't matter much, only downhill really. However, for me, speed was never the issue because I don't have to go that far. It is just the hills that are the buzz-kill for no-motor biking.

I ride a bike trail everyday and have never had anyone complain. Because the bike trail is bumpy, speeds over 15 mph are ill-advised anyway. And there can be a lot of foot and jogger traffic so it would not be safe. I try to be courteous and slow down around walkers and use my bell liberally when approaching from the rear. I am never passed by the casual cyclist but there are a couple of lycra-folks that make it their mission in life to pass me. They often pass me only to have me catch them again a half mile later when they burn out but I usually do not pass them if they are keeping it over 15 mph. They will work very hard to pass me again if I do and I am not commuting to see who can do it the fastest. In truth, most of the racers I see on the bike trail are much more of a hazard than an ebike driven sensibly. At least one of the racer-types is very friendly and we always greet each other on the trail. The bike is so quiet, I've never had anyone comment on the motor. With the Xtracycle, it looks odd enough that people have a hard enough time telling what it is anyway. Most people react favorably to the Xtracycle part but I frequently get the "..but that's cheating..." when they hear about the motor. A very odd response but I'm preaching to the choir here.

So that has been my experience. My goal is to get 4000 miles on the Stokemonkey. That is close to the economic breakeven point for my costs. I'll probably write another summary then.

I wish I had the time and inclination to spend money on all the various types of ebikes. Would really enjoy experiencing the strengths and weaknesses of each system. I am envious of those with four ebikes in their signatures. One day perhaps. I toyed with the idea several weeks ago of motorizing either a bike for my spouse or my son. However, it is winter now and not much riding goes on except for me and my spouse has many many more preferred ways to spend the money. Wishing all a good year.

[Seriousknot]

When I was 19 I lived in Colorado and commuted 30+miles on a motorcycle (Honda CB500) in the winter. I couldn't afford proper gear and as a result my hands were the first to freeze, used to take a while to thaw out when I got to work. I now have a pair of Wind-Tex gloves for Adventure Riding (Suzuki DR650) made by Olympia. My hands almost never get cold even at 70 mph and 40 degrees F. There is also a product called Hippo Hands that mount to the handlebars http://www.hippohands.com/index.htm Haven't tried them but they look like they would also protect the throttle and switches as well. Happy New Year!!

[davespicer]

There is also a product called Hippo Hands that mount to the handlebars http://www.hippohands.com/index.htm Haven't tried them but they look like they would also protect the throttle and switches as well.

I've used these for cold-weather motorcycling and they work well. Just make sure they're Velcroed on carefully so the closed ends are actually closed

[katou]

Thank you very much for your continued updates. My friend wants to do a Stokemonkey setup on his xtracycle, so your experience is totally valuable. We hear lots about builds, but then they don't update us on how things went. Please keep it up, I'm always pleased to see this thread pop to the top again!

Katou

[Warren]

pdf,

"The 2600 miles have not been without (relatively small) problems. I have twice had the battery die at the LVC well before it should and had to send it back to the company where I bought it for repairs each time to have a pouch cell replaced."

Now this part of an ebike does concern me. Mechanical stuff I can fix myself. But the battery pack will be the most expensive part of my bike, and coming from the other side of the world. Shipping it back and forth would be a considerable expense.

Care to tell us the maker of your pack?

Thanks, Warren