First Ride: Mongoose XR-Pro Bafang 8fun BBS-02

I took the Frankenstein out for a spin today after I could not stand waiting any longer.
17.25 Miles. Top Speed 30 MPH. Tossed Chains - 2. Battery Disconnects -6 or more. Error codes - 1 (Missed which one it was. I think it happened because I hit the throttle to quickly after powering on.)

There are some things I liked and some things that did not impress me.

First some pics:

Posing at one of the ruins of an old Spanish Mission


A closer look at the battery pack held onto the bike with bailing wire and bubble gum.


Wires zip tied and fighting for a good idea how to secure that damned battery / boat anchor. I swapped the seat and post before the ride as you can see in the previous pics.

I'll be honest with you, speed is not one of my disappointing experiences. It easily could reach 25 MPH in the mid to higher gears on max assist. I did hit 30 on a downhill, I could possibly hit 30 on a flat with enough time but other autos in traffic were not being cooperative. Though the Serfas Drifters held true, the traffic scared me to death with several idiots accelerating like mad to pass me just to pull in front, slow down and turn against my path.

The pedalec is just about worthless with standard programming. In low gears, the bike wants to pop the front wheel off the ground and it was twitchy for my tastes. In lower assist modes the pedal feels like it's pulsing or trying to power through rubber bands or something. I don't know how to describe it other than annoying mixed with the fear of breaking something. On high assist this was not an issue regardless of what gear or speed I was going. Pedaling this bike at 25+MPH in high gear with max assist is a blast. This is only place the pedalec showed merit. Loved it.

Throttle is the best way to use this bike. I need to reprogram this for a no-pedalec / throttle only mode in 1 and to retain 0. 0 with no assist or throttle is good to keep the odometer recording.
Other things I wish to address before I call this project complete for use is some cable extensions for the battery to connect to the system. As you can see from my photos, theres very little slack on that battery line. Crappy set up. I'll see if I can fit that monster battery in a planet bike rack box and use a better and weather tight cable arrangement.

Verdict so far? Excellent. Love the bike and Bafang but it needs tweaking and the bike needs work to get it into a condition I would consider road friendly/worthy.
More laboratory time is in order for my dear Frankenstein's Monster.

Some additional information on the route for those who wish it.

About a 50-50% mix of trail and urban riding.



The speed and elevation tracks per mile. You can see where the higher velocity matches with downhill portions.

Looks good..
Never lost a chain on mine but then i left the front derailleur on mine as a chain guide.
It can be a bit twitchy in low gear and I am swapping my 28 tooth low for a 30 next week so should be even worse (or more fun depending on your view of wheelies ).
I assume your battery disconnects are down to your wiring as never had a problem there.
I have never had any pulsing(or cogging) issues on mine either and have even tried setting off in top gear to see what folks meant but it just sailed away without problem.
The only thing I would change is the lack of throttle in assist 0.
It has only been to 49.9Mph downhill so far but got a hydraulic front brake now so expect to beat that this week sometime.

KINNINVIEKID said:

I have never had any pulsing(or cogging) issues on mine either and have even tried setting off in top gear to see what folks meant but it just sailed away without problem.

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It seems odd that it only felt that way in the lowest assist level and happened regardless of starting gear.
If in the highest assist level, it did not appear to happen at all. Freaks me out. I find that the assist level 1 of 3 to be good for tooling on bike paths with 66% and 100% to be great for those stretches where 20+ mph is desired. Buzzing around in low assist is actually pretty cool being a controllable speed when in mixed traffic of other bikes and pedestrians. I'm hoping to get another try today time permitting. I'll bring the action camera to record some video. Yesterday would have been good to use it with the events I found along the way. A BBS-02 equipped bike is a great exploring tool.

0utrider said:

A BBS-02 equipped bike is a great exploring tool.

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So very true!

17+ miles -- impressive ride. How much of your battery was left?

My chain bounces off, too, once in awhile. I was thinking of putting my front derailer back on to fix that. Hie2kolob bought a little chain holder attachment that looks pretty cool. I think he might have posted a pic of it on his Cannondale build thread.

Get that weight off the back end its a much better experience.

Mushy

darth_elevator said:

0utrider said:

A BBS-02 equipped bike is a great exploring tool.

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So very true!

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I want to plan an endurance test through out downtown and parts around town while not straying more than a 10 mile radius from home to see what my expected ranges will be. I figure that if the battery dumps on me, 10 miles is not to far to comfortably pedal home.

darth_elevator said:

17+ miles -- impressive ride. How much of your battery was left?

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I'm not sure. Before I tested the system on the bike stand the first time a couple of weeks ago, the battery was sitting at 53 Volts. With no further charging and after my ride yesterday, the pack measured 52.5 about a half hour after I returned from the ride.. Which doesn't sound right. Hold on, let me test it again... Well that's weird, it's 52.6 some 28 hours later. I can report that the bars on the Bafang display showed no drops even under heavy acceleration. Though I pedaled along with the system, I purposely let the throttle carry me a for about a third of the ride up and down hills. Let me assure you zipping up hills with no pedaling was a blast. Weeee! Back o the battery and a good thing to note: the BMS seems to be doing it's job as all cells are reading the same. This is a relief.

I hope that 25+ or possibly more than 30 miles will be my range with this battery considering the amount of pedaling I add to the motor.

darth_elevator said:

My chain bounces off, too, once in awhile. I was thinking of putting my front derailer back on to fix that. Hie2kolob bought a little chain holder attachment that looks pretty cool. I think he might have posted a pic of it on his Cannondale build thread.

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Details please! Thanks for you comments. I hope to video the next trip.

mushymelon said:

Get that weight off the back end its a much better experience.

Mushy

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Mushy, yep. I'd like to do that but have no earthly idea how to accomplish that. A seat-post mounted rack would be treacherous considering the battery weighs about 18 lbs in my estimation. The arm and moment of the load might snap the post possibly causing me to be impaled. Yikes.

Mounting in the triangle of the frame might be possible but not in the battery's current configuration. I don't think it would fit in there. 20lbs in a backpack is not my idea of fun either. The good thing is that I can reconfigure these Headway cells in clever Lego-like configurations. I have an idea to mount 12 of the 16 much like ordinance on a weapons pylon on either side of the down tube between the bottom bracket and headset with two rows of three cells to either side.. The other four would be suspended from the upper tube with two sets of tandem cells. Luckily I can screw these cells together and place them inside a PVC pipe for weather protection and looks. The only bad thing will be that this array would have to be charged on the bike.

I would like to say that I'm used to a bunch of junk hanging off the back end of the bike anyway with my bags and panniers. I really did not notice any poor handling characteristics during my ride. Those Serfas Drifters make a cool suction cup popping noise when cornering at speed. Tentacle tires!

Nice build Outrider! Great fun pedaling with the assistance of your "Bafang Buddy"!

As darth_elevator mentioned I installed a chain guide on my bike and have not thrown a chain since. Here is a picture and the link:


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008ZTLV9W/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

hie2kolob said:

Nice build Outrider! Great fun pedaling with the assistance of your "Bafang Buddy"!

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Thank you sir.

hie2kolob said:

As darth_elevator mentioned I installed a chain guide on my bike and have not thrown a chain since. Here is a picture and the link:

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Thanks! Already ordered from Amazon on your recommendation!

Great first build. I wish I had gone with an bafang for my first!

If you wanna record your rides with more detail try using the Strava app on your phone, records elevation/speed as part of the ride very well. Only drawback is thats your rides might get flagged by people when you start beating their segment runs. Heee

I don't know very much about the cells you're using but have you checked into any of Additive's bags? http://www.bikeworldextreme.com/welcome/additive-bag-triangle-bag

How heavy is your pack? What other options have you looked into for distributing the weight?

markw said:

Great first build. I wish I had gone with an bafang for my first!

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Thanks. It's been great so far but I want to put it to an endurance test soon to see what it can do.

markw said:

If you wanna record your rides with more detail try using the Strava app on your phone, records elevation/speed as part of the ride very well. Only drawback is thats your rides might get flagged by people when you start beating their segment runs. Heee

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Interesting! I'll give it a shot.

markw said:

I don't know very much about the cells you're using but have you checked into any of Additive's bags? http://www.bikeworldextreme.com/welcome/additive-bag-triangle-bag

How heavy is your pack? What other options have you looked into for distributing the weight?

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Thanks for the link. I'll check it out. The pack which mounts near the steerer tube kinda looks like a motorcycle fuel tank!
The weight of the battery pack is about 18 lbs. So, if it was split in two, it would be just under 10lbs per side. If I reconfigured the pack, I'd also have to take into account the BMS leads as well and that would be a head scratcher for me.

I'm reaching the 100 mile mark and the longest ride so far is a 31 mile ride. I still had some juice left in the pack after a mostly-throttle ride. I really think I can get 40 miles with my heavy use of throttle. If I keep the speed to 20, I'm very sure of it. 50 miles seems a real possibility with keeping 3 and under on the assist.
A good happy place for the bike seems to be assist 5 and gear 5 on the bike. It's 20 to 24 mph and does not seem to tax the pack to a bar dropping moment like too much time on level 9 in 8th gear trying to max out past 30 mph. Unless I'm in a hurry, I don't usually like to cruise past the mid-20s.

So, as I'm blasting down the streets at around 30 mph for long stretches, I have to pause to think: SHOULD I BE DOING THIS? I mean, should I trust a Walmart bike at these speeds while wearing NO GEAR other than a bicycle helmet? Is that wheel going to destruct at any moment? I need to seriously think about wearing something more than cargo shorts and a wind-breaker if I plan riding 30+ mph for any stretch of my ride.

Now a couple of pics:

Half-way into a 31 mile trek.


Ok, more like 2/3's of the way into the trip.


The other side.



The batt-strap.


The system is working well with a few minor issues and two major items.

Minor issues and tasks, some related to fit and comfort on the bike and safety:
1. I may consider a stem riser to be just a hair more up-right. The seat and post are good; very comfortable.
2. Rerouting the shifter and brake cables on the back of the bike where the rack is ratcheted down.
3. After riding on some wet streets; fenders. Not a big issue but I don't like road spray in my face.
4. Wire up the buck voltage converters for the lights.
5. Component upgrades: Brakes, rear shock and if I win the lotto, I'll get me a Nuvinci!


The major issues don't keep me from riding but they certainly make it a planned affair with prep time that I would like to eliminate and make taking out the EBike as simple as airing up the tires and checking the bike for safety.

First, the bottom bracket gets loose after a long ride. ARG!!!! I have tightened down that nut to where I'm afraid of stripping! The retaining nut is worthless. I can fit another retaining nut and probably will order one to use instead of that saftey ring POS which does not seem to help. I have enough threads for it so in the meantime, I'll be removing the crank AGAIN and tightening the nuts. This time I'll be using thread lock!!!

In the meantime, enjoy this short 30 second clip of me cruising down a local street. I'm using a new chest mount for the Sony Actioncam.

[youtube]gZEV0kFOCzM[/youtube]

Hi can you give me a some tips on my build?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=91748&p=1337971#p1337971