RadPowerBike RadCity Commuter

Alan B

100 GW
Joined
Sep 11, 2010
Messages
7,809
Location
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
RadCity-20190911_141157.jpg


I've converted / built a number of ebikes since 2010, this is the first time I've purchased a ready made electric bike. My adult son has been using a conversion I built for him based on the Peugeot Canyon Express using a 9C motor and controller. There are some things that are difficult to upgrade on his old bike, so we decided to get a commercial ebike for his 32 mile (round trip) commute. The story of the old ebike is here:

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27751 Canyon Express e-conversion Thread

If you want to know the detailed specs or the cost of the RadCity see the RadPowerBikes website.

This is not another RadCity review, there are plenty of those on the internet. This will be a journal of our experience with this bike from the viewpoint of someone like myself who has done many conversions, and from my son's viewpoint as someone who just wants to get to work and back. He never got around to getting his driver's license so he does depend on an ebike more than most.

When we ordered the bike they pulled shipping almost immediately but the box didn't get to Fedex for a couple of days, so the initial Friday delivery slipped to Monday. The box was out for delivery on Monday and Fedex claimed to make a delivery attempt, but we were here and watching for them and they apparently made that up. The box did arrive Tuesday. So it took about a week from order in Washington to delivery in California.

The box had some damage (photo is in my Canyon Express thread) on the lower corners. The bike was well packed and suffered no damage that we have found thus far. My son was disappointed they didn't have detailed assembly info in the manual, they do have videos online but that wasn't convenient since we were assembling in the front yard.

The first thing to do is get the battery out of the box and put it on charge. The charger is easy to find but the battery is not easy to get to until a lot of padding and cable ties are removed. They battery key has many positions corresponding to unlocked, locked, and fully on. The on-battery charge status check button doesn't work until the battery is fully on.

I was disappointed to see the charging connector is the standard coaxial type, I was hoping for a better connector there. I thought they mentioned a better connector in one of their videos. The charger says it is 2 amps, and it gets rather warm. There's no fan and it is fairly small so not hard to carry with you on the bike. The battery has two blade fuses accessible from the bottom when the battery is removed. The charging fuse is 5 amps.

The bike went together easily enough, though we will be making adjustments. There's a rattle in the front we should find. It needs a mirror but comes with most everything else out of the box. The kickstand is nice and solid, as is the rear welded-on rack. The rear light is triggered by the brakes so that's nice. There aren't any turn signals.

We saddled up and took the RadCity and the Borg to lunch. There were three random folks who had many questions for us, but they were all focused on the Greyborg. The RadCity was, to them, just another ebike. One asked me if the Borg could make it the East Coast without charging. Everyone wants to know the range of the Borg. They figure it has a lot of batteries under those covers, and it does.

So my son is comparing his experiences with the Canyon Express to the RadCity. The 48V RadCity is very silent but slower on the hills. I hope we can improve that. It bogged down pretty seriously. My son is not familiar with PAS and is mostly a throttle user. I'm trying to get him to pedal more. The Canyon Express has a 52V battery and a 12 FET generic controller that I originally got from Cycle9. It has seen a lot of use.

He likes a thumb throttle and the RadCity has a half twist. I'll have to look and see about 3D printing a thumb ring adapter to slide onto it. I've seen those around somewhere, not shure if someone sells them or there is a 3D design floating around for them.

Questions and comments from other RadCity owners or those interested in them are welcome.
 
Very interesting. Will follow.

The question I have...is do you get more value in a DIY conversion. I'm doing a Fuji hardtail conversion with hubmotor, Phaserunner, CA3, Bluetooth BMS and a home built 72V battery with new cells.

The dust is still settling on final cost, and how do you factor in the tools and bike stand work rack into the equation since they serve beyond the first conversion. But in addition to the battery, we are lacing the motor/rim. I figure it will be close to double the cost of a Rad, with a little higher top speed. In my case, no commute requirement, and I expect the build and tuning to be more interesting than using the final product. But is the end result worth the difference? What were the issues with the original conversion deemed not cost effective to remedy?
 
You ask some very good questions. Some things are difficult to add to older bikes. Each bike is different, in this particular case disc brakes are difficult, the Peugeot frame only has bosses for roller cams so even newer mountain bike brakes aren't compatible. The rear roller cam brake is under the chainstays so the area normally used for kickstands is taken by the brake. Adding suspension front forks can be expensive and/or difficult (though it could help out with a front disc). The front wheel doesn't have a disc setup, of course that hub could be replaced. Fitting fenders to an old bike can be tricky, I have heard. But I have not tried. Getting PAS rings to fit seems tricky, another thing I haven't tried. Cables into the frame can be a big effort. torque sensors are problematic. That's what I recall at the moment.

Another big issue for me is time. I have a lot of projects to work on, and working on his bike takes time. He needs it for the commute, so that constrains when it is available, and for how long it can be down. Now that he has two bikes we can more easily work on one, and the scope of work may change. For example we probably won't try to make the Peugeot as complicated, keep it simpler. Perhaps it won't be rigged for wet riding since the RadCity already comes with fenders.

We're going to find out about the limitations of this commercial ebike. The big standout today was how slow it was on the local hill. It is rated for 750 watts. Lots of ebikes will temporarily run more power, perhaps that's why this feels slow. It may be 750 watts peak rather than average. There may be some settings we can adjust. The Peugeot with 52V battery does better on the hills.

Each bike I have converted has different issues, beyond them not having fenders and kickstands. Mounting racks, batteries, changing shifting for the different gearing, changing to hydraulic disc brakes, etc.

The PhaseRunner is a very nice controller. Choosing your own controller and being able to fully program it will almost always produce some benefits. One one of my ebikes I programmed the controller to limit phase current to avoid lifting the front wheel. I just don't need that much torque. Also that bike has variable regenerative braking. So I made a brake lever that generates a signal and adjusted the regen gain to avoid skidding the rear tire on dry pavement. Having full control is nice. When my son was younger I dialed the top speed down a bit. Now he wants it a little higher, and we can do that within limits.

I don't necessarily expect a DIY ebike to be cheaper. Some folks do want that, and that's fine. I want to do interesting things and use some fun components that might be more costly. The Bonanza has some top of the line brakes. When it came up a bit short on torque I added a front motor and it has dual PhaseRunners and 72 volts. Quite fun, and it will idle up steep hills now.

If the RadCity is too frustrating we may decide to change some things. Might be fun to go to 52V and a PhaseRunner. I think we will keep his commuter pretty stock if we can. Time will tell.

I would like to have a folding fat tire bike like the RadMini but with a BBSHD mid drive. If I got a RadMini and took the battery off it would be a spare for the RadCity, and mounted a BBSHD and 52V battery that might be interesting.
 
Alan B said:
He likes a thumb throttle and the RadCity has a half twist. I'll have to look and see about 3D printing a thumb ring adapter to slide onto it. I've seen those around somewhere, not shure if someone sells them or there is a 3D design floating around for them.

I have a couple here that Cvin gave me to try out (she uses one on her RadRover, IIRC), the number on teh package googles to this:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32805379621.html
whcih matches it.

They work ok; I personally don't like the shape and size as I prefer a small tab, but I suspect more people would prefer something like this.
 

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I'm interested in the new rad runner it looks like like a great value I couldn't build a bike like it for the money. I'm wondering how many parts your bike has in common with it, maybe same motor, battery, controller? I'm following thread, especially interested in general quality.
 
Alan B said:
That's the idea but I'm thinking smaller, more thumb size than palm size.

The good news is you could easily trim the plastic of the tab down to whatever you want, as long as you leave enough connection across the base to support it from teh ring. If I had to use one of these with a grip throttle, that's what I would do.

Alternately, you could take the design and print one with the right shape instead.

I did some searching after posting the other one, but only found this
https://www.amazon.com/Throttle-Converter-SNOWMOBILE-THROTTLE-ADAPTER/dp/B07JQ58DKW
which won't do what you want.
 
Alan B said:
We're going to find out about the limitations of this commercial ebike. The big standout today was how slow it was on the local hill. It is rated for 750 watts. Lots of ebikes will temporarily run more power, perhaps that's why this feels slow. It may be 750 watts peak rather than average.

Right - it's too bad they don't have a display for such things (though perhaps just as well the rider looks where he's going instead), but it's sure likely that it's limited to 750W, as that's the maximum allowed in several states including Washington. Your recent numbers on the Canyon bike looked to me like 45A at 52V nominal, really not far from 4HP. I'm sure it's no surprise that isn't matched by a factory ebike. I believe it exceeds the limit for a moped in Washington (2HP), so it would have to be licensed as a regular motorcycle - not that anyone cares in that case, but manufacturers like RadPower do need to attend to such matters.
 
There is a power readout on the display. I haven't ridden it myself yet, but from reviews I don't think the display indicates over 750W.

A lot of ebikes temporarily hit values up to double the output level for a short burst. The laws don't mention peak vs average as I recall.

The old 12 FET controller isn't programmable as far as I know. I'll have to see if I can find the old specs for it, should be early in the Bonanza thread. It certainly doesn't seem to be that high, but it definitely hits more than 750W for a moment. I do recall that the rules were 1000W when it was built. The recent changes have lowered the power ratings here in California.
 
I think I'm at least a couple years late to the party. My wife keeps looking at the cost and asks why didn't you buy one already built for less? Several times now, every time a new box arrives at the door.

I elected to start with a new donor bike:

https://archive.fujibikes.com/2013/Fuji/police-special-29

New...but in a box for 6 years. Didn't really target a "police" bike, but reasoned it should be a reasonably durable build, and at $399, it was the best component to cost ratio I could find. That hopefully works around some issues like the caliper brakes you mentioned.

I also wanted better than 750W performance, variable regenerative braking and visibility to cell level voltages. I'm not sure there is even a high end production Ebike with all that?

But like someone said, as a hobbyist, there is no duplicating the Rads on a new donor bike for the same price. And probably the majority of users just want it to work.

Lots of Rad competition in the $1200-2000 price range. And presumably selling well. But I wonder where they will all go for service? I could not find a LBS with the ability to produce custom length spokes. Wonder how many have thumb throttles in stock?
 
Alan, BTW...when you used a brake lever for variable regen, did you sacrifice the standard rear brake?

I considered that, found a couple cable operated hall devices, but didn't want to give up the rear brake and instead planning on a left side thumb throttle.
 
After building a couple of "kit" bikes, I bought an '18 Rad City. I wasn't very impressed with the available power either. After riding it for a bit, I attributed much of that to what I call a "soft start" built into the controller. This means the controller will not allow full power immediately, but kind of builds up to it. This is so not cool when you ask for full power to cross a busy street for instance. You even have to anticipate the required power to crest a small hill in advance. If you wait until you hit the base of that hill to add power, the bike continues to slow until the power level comes up to the point the bike actually starts to accelerate a few seconds later. The only value I can see for this soft start thing is that it would avoid startling people not used to an e-bike with a possibly unexpected display of what full power feels like from a standing start.

After 6 weeks or so of this nonsense, I decided I loved the bike itself, but had enough of this controller that I was not able to program to my liking. So I installed an inexpensive "kit" on mine that literally replaced the entire electrical system with the exception being the 48v 14ah battery. It used tunable KT components, including the LCD3 display with a 35a max controller, and a 1500w DD motor. An afternoon of old man puttering had it all installed (it was my 3rd kit so I was pretty familiar by now). A couple more hours spent routing cables and tidying things up, and you would be hard pressed to notice the changes. Now we had a bike! With conservative settings it would still last longer than my butt would (20-25 miles) when run in PAS 1 and 2 running speeds of 8-12 mph. Eventually, I became a little disappointed in it's performance on some of the hills in our local (coastal) area riding where it seemed to suffer on some of the bigger stuff, leaving me panting hard on some of them....

That's when I became interested in a gear driven rear hub. More research led to the discovery of MAC's 12t motor. A few days ago, that motor replaced the 1500w DD motor, with the only other change being the addition of a speed sensor. The speedo did work with the gear drive, but would drop to 0 when coasting. The external sensor fixed that issue. Absolutely love the MAC 12t equipped Rad City. The ONLY downside I see is the fact I've lost regen capability. No big deal for a flat lander, but for those exposed to hills, it IS a big deal. We'll see how that goes. I may not be done with this bike yet.

The day the new MAC motor arrived, I discovered the existence of the GMAC. I had never heard of it prior. This motor, couple with a controller capable of variable resistance regen, now seems like the ultimate for my purposes. That could happen.....

My whole point is, this bike uses all off the shelf components. There is nothing proprietary on it. If there is something you don't like about the bike after you buy it and ride it for a bit, you can change it!

And last, talking about the value of a "kit" built bike? How do you put a value on the fact you designed and built this bike with your own hands? You came up with the ideas, researched them, sourced the parts, then made it work...... -Al
 
Alan, always enjoy your posts and interested in the joys and travails of this bike. One thing to consider is the "Rad" is Class 1 & 2 legal (AFAICT), and doesn't require license or insurance. Possibly a big advantage in litigious CA.
 
The Borg has the variable regen, and on that bike the Cromotor doesn't have much room in 135mm dropouts so there's no disc. That controller has really strong variable regen, enough to break traction, though I set the regen max current just shy of that. So there is no rear brake aside from regen. I did put dual 8" front disc on it. Plenty of braking on that bike. Details in the Borg thread.

I've been rereading the old Bonanza thread and taking notes on those components which are now on the Canyon Express that we're comparing to this RadCity. The Infineon controller was rated at 35A. The Cycle Analyst was seeing max values of about 40A with 12S 44V batteries so about 1.8kw with Vsag. That's input power, the old rules stated output power limit of 1kw. So you have to apply all the efficiency losses to that to get to output power. The new 52V battery is higher voltage but has more sag. I'll have to check the CA to see what it is doing. The CA peak values tend to be a bit "high" as it is sensitive to very short term excursions. Checking the reading while on a steep hill would give a better idea. I have a test hill near the house I have used for that with a good gradient.

With the "pre-class" power output limit of 20mph/1000W which this hardware was chosen for:

Using the Ebikes.ca simulator I see that for a mountain bike, upright, with 1000W output power, no pedaling, 120kg all up weight we get speeds of:

15% 11.7 mph
10% 15.6
5% 21.9
0% 30.0

To make legal speed of 20 mph up a 15% gradient requires output power of 1900W. I tried to find the power for 28 mph on 15% but I didn't find a combination that could get there in the sim.

With a power limit of 750W the new class I/II/III ebikes will be a bit slower:
15% 8.9 mph
10% 12.4
5% 18.3
0% 27.0

Interesting that throttle only level ground 28 mph isn't even possible with 750W and a mountain bike, at least according to the simulator's analysis.

If you take the limit to be input power then things get even slower. The overall efficiency under load varies but can be 70%. So a 750W input might only get 500W to the pavement.

Buying a commercial ebike is merely a different starting point, there will still be additional costs. Better tires, higher capacity battery or additional battery, accessories, and upgrades. To get similar control/performance perhaps a controller and maybe a display. The display on the RadCity is quite nice but if a PhaseRunner was fitted there would be no way to drive the existing display as far as I know. Getting the special connectors to be compatible with the factory bike can add some additional cost as well, compared to what a DIY setup might use.
 
The RadCity as it comes is stated as class I/II legal. Adjusting the speed limiter puts it into class III but it won't go above 24 so not fully 28 mph.

The 750W limit doesn't change when adjusting the speed limiter. That limit is generally internal to the controller and changed by programming or adjusting shunts.

Clearly they have chosen the power to be legal and soft to reduce the risk of someone unfamiliar with ebikes having an accident, as well as to maximize the range. It would be nice if they had an economy / power option like electric cars have, but they have to be careful about legal issues. I have no problem with that, it is necessary for their business, and it allows us to have a nice ebike for a decent price.

Unfortunately the lawmakers are driven primarily by people who think bikes are for exercise and entertainment, or who sell them and view them as a profit center. The transportation crowd is not effectively represented at all. So we get rules about power instead of just speed. No other "vehicle" on the road has a power limit.
 
AHicks said:
After building a couple of "kit" bikes, I bought an '18 Rad City. I wasn't very impressed with the available power either. After riding it for a bit, I attributed much of that to what I call a "soft start" built into the controller.
...

Yes it is fairly soft starting. I don't worry about that as much as peak torque. But it would be good to reduce the delay a little.

I wonder what one could do with a controller swap and the existing motor. The goal here is to commute. 25 mph on level and 20 mph on gradients up to perhaps 7%.

Part of commuting is very high reliability. Gearmotors are fine but they don't have the same level of reliability as DD hubs.

If you really want to change the performance put dual motors on. The Bonanza has DD rear and Geared front motors. Amazing performance.
 
Knowing what I know, I wouldn't hesitate for a second. That controller and the display, would both be history. You can buy an inexpensive kit on Amazon that will replace everything like I did, or everything but the motor. This saves sourcing all the parts separately, and saves some trouble with matching wires and connectors if purchased as a kit. The option is to get one of Kyle Bolton's kits. He came out with his own "kit" that is plug and play with the Rad connectors.

https://boltonebikes.com/collections/motor-controllers-and-displays/products/radrover-upgrade-kit

Though designed for the gear driven Rover, his kit works fine on the City as well, and has the same effect on performance - enhancing it noticeably and making it much more "customizable".

There is no doubt about one thing for sure. From a performance standpoint, the OEM controller sucks. Wishful thinking, maybe some day somebody will figure out how to unlock the controller and allow the SW900 display to be used to alter the crummy OEM programming.

Noteworthy maybe, is the fact I was able to sell the RAD OEM components I removed when installing the kit for more than the price of the kit.
 
On the other hand, there might be some merit in letting the younger generation learn to live for a while within legal bicycle limits. I know that sounds like heresy here, but I think many of us have long experience with bicycles that comes out even when we're riding illegally hot motors, and it's thus really a different thing than an e-moped, as it should be.
 
donn said:
On the other hand, there might be some merit in letting the younger generation learn to live for a while within legal bicycle limits. I know that sounds like heresy here, but I think many of us have long experience with bicycles that comes out even when we're riding illegally hot motors, and it's thus really a different thing than an e-moped, as it should be.

While there may be some merit to remaining "legal", there is nothing wrong with changing out the controller and display. It's not changing any of the ratings on the bike one bit (with the exception possibly being if you're Canadian). I'm guessing that was thoroughly investigated by Mr. Bolton prior to offering his "kit" for sale.

Not promoting or endorsing what I did, simply sharing with others that might be considering the same move or interested in the potential for one or all of them.

As far as the youth, sure let's force them to learn from the same school of hard knocks we did. Why in the world would old farts want to pass this info on to anyone? Sorry, our perspectives seem so different. Maybe they are? Perspectives are a lot like opinions. If they were all the same, this place would be incredibly boring.
 
I don't see the use of leg muscles in bicycling in the category "school of hard knocks". That's all I'm talking about.
 
It is nice to see there are options.

I'll go slow on this, we'll see how it works for his commute. First thing is to try to get him to use PAS and do more pedaling. Typically he has been pretty much a throttle and go user. He rarely ever shifts gears on the 18 speed Canyon Express. Having front and rear chainrings to deal with is something that he's never been interested in learning about.

The RadCity does simplify that with just the rear gears, and an easy to read indicator.

What tire pressure do folks run in their RadCity with the stock tires? The roads are torn up for repaving so there's lots of gravel and potholes, so we probably want to run it on the lower side. I started them at 35. They are rated 30-80 psi.

The spokes in the front wheel are very low tension. That probably needs to be addressed. They used 12 gauge spokes which some experts say is too heavy and hard to tension properly without damaging the wheels. The rear has more tension.

My son was reporting something rattling in the front of the bike. Can't find anything besides the front wheel spokes that is loose. So it probably is the spokes. They won't rattle with it sitting there, but might with a load and in motion.
 
Spokes are an issue that's generated a lot of complaints from RAD owners. Not from breaking them so much, but dealing with the clicking they can generate when too loose. I would plan on paying some attention to them.

Air pressure is so rider sensitive. There's too many factors, like weight and conditions, not even going to try suggesting an air pressure. I'll say that I'm running 65 in back and 60 in front, but I'm 300 lbs so that's likely useless info for you!

And heavens yes. Let him spend some time on it. You too! I rode mine for 6 weeks and put 300 miles on it before making my first move. I knew exactly what I wanted to change and why. Kinda like trouble shooting an erratic problem. Some will throw parts at it until it's fixed, others will employ a little logic trying to figure it out exactly.

If you haven't visited yet, there's a Rad specific forum on Electric Bike Review. You might browse through the string dedicated to known issues only.

https://electricbikereview.com/forum/threads/known-issues-problems-with-rad-power-products-help-solutions-fixes.13196/
 
donn said:
I don't see the use of leg muscles in bicycling in the category "school of hard knocks". That's all I'm talking about.

And I have to agree to a certain extent. For instance if somebody wanted to run a 30 miles commute regularly, I would fully endorse the use of a decent e-bike. I think that's the situation on point here, no?
 
FWIW, none of the Rad controllers are programmable at all (other than whatever settings can be changed via the display normally), even by Radpower, according to Radpower. (even though they have a programming cable, with a silicone cap, inside the plastic box the controller is housed in).

When Cvin wanted to change the way the bike she has starts up, and it's PAS, since it's display didn't have any settings that could be changed, she had to buy a whole new set of controller/wiring/display/etc. from Radpower to try to change it (wiring was necessary because the connectors were different from the new version to the old one). I don't think she was completely successful, but AFAICR she didn't want to go with a different system that *would* be more programmable; I don't recall why.


BlueSeas said:
I considered that, found a couple cable operated hall devices, but didn't want to give up the rear brake and instead planning on a left side thumb throttle.
FWIW, there are "splitters", or dual-cable brake levers (usually made for trikes to pull both wheels' brake at the same time, for the doulbewheeled end of the trike). Each cable can be adjusted separately.
 
Those dual-cable brake levers are a good tip.

I would probably try to fabricate a magnet position sensor that didn't mess with the cable or the switch that's there, but that would mechanically be challenging. The one I made for the Borg kept the switch and the magnet/sensor displaced the cable part of the handle since I didn't need the cable part. It was pretty straightforward with a linear hall sensor and magnet. It has been reliable. If the magnet falls off it will result in max ebraking which would be annoying. :)
 
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