A new 700C hybrid 'city-bike' build w TSDZ2

I'm 66 now, and out of shape, but always liked bicycling...

8 years ago, I built up a 700x32 3x8 geared bike as a fast comfortable 'city bike'... It started as a very cheap NOS (Specialized) Globe Vienna, but I changed the bars, stem, cranks, cassette, and tires. and seat+post. and some nice phat BMX 'pin' pedals.

I've ordered a TSDZ2 kit from eco-bikes, this will be my 2nd build with one, but my first OWN ebike.

Getting a 48V 14AH samsung 3500E 13S4P 'shark' battery pack. Ordered the TSDZ2 with the 52-42 double, hoping I can make it work with just the 52T front hah hah, but I'll setup my front triple derailleur to be a double if need be. my current cassette is 13-26 8 speed (Shimano HG50 'V'), and my current crankset is a 48-38-28 triple.

I ordered the flat right crank (hated the "Q" of the stock tsdz2 I put on my bro's bike, but he does'nt know what that is)

gonna put the FOSS firmware on it, and the 860C display (my brother's trek got a XH18 but he's cool with that).

I'm hoping this ends up as a bike I can spin lightly at 30 MPH on the flats, and still crank up a 8% grade at 10-15 MPH without busting my lungs. I'll probably end up wishing it had disk brakes instead of V-brakes, hah! I would need new forks for disks, the frame has the lugs already.

some original pics of this bike from when I built it...









so.... my first question, if you're still with me, what tires should I run? Currently have some 8 year old Vittoria Rando Hyper Pro that are high thread count and give a magic carpet ride. currently x32 but frame looks like it handles x40, thinking x35 or 38...

Nice bike, but not, IMO a good candidate for what you want to accomplish. Take a look at some turn-key commuter bikes. Most of them have either a suspension fork OR seriously large tires ~2.4". "30mph lightly pedaling" is not realistic with any tire that will fit under the fork crown of that bike. Actually 30mph lightly pedaling needs the TSDZ2's peak power. It's 'cruise' speed is probably closer to 20mph than 30mph. Cruiser bikes make surprisingly good e-bikes. They're usually pretty cheap to buy too.

fwiw, I should be able to put at least 40mm tires on there, probably larger, using my dial caliber. I think it came with 38's, I dropped down to 32 to build my 'speeder' as shown above.

if it can't sustain 30, so be it, I'll be happy with bombing around doing 25ish. I'm only thinking smooth empty bike paths and such at those speeds, not bad urban pavement, or trail.

if this really turns out to be an impractical ebike, I think I'll find a 29er hardtail aluminum mountain bike and convert it using the same parts, use some 45 or 50mm slicks, and put the original triple back on the Vienna02, and flip it.

750W won’t get you to a steady 30mph. If the electrical power to the motor is at least 1200W, then you have at least a chance of getting the 1000W+ at the rear wheel that will do it.

If you pedal hard enough to make up the difference, you’re likely to break the crank spindle of the TSDZ2, which is uncommonly small in diameter and cursed with a snap ring groove right at the point of highest stress.

10-15 mph up a hill is totally plausible. Easy cruising at 30 mph totally isn’t. Nor is that as pleasant as you think. 20 mph is quick and expedient compared to anybody’s pedal bike, but still quiet and comfortable on most street surfaces. 30 mph is noisy and harsh, will keep you laser focused on the lane surface so you don’t get spanked by potholes, utility covers, debris, etc., and will chew through your battery three times as fast while you cover half the distance. It’s not worth it if you ride a regular bike.

so, I get the motor mounted, and wow, I'm looking at a HORRIBLE chain line.



basically the 52T is lined up with the 13T #8 gear, and the 42T is lined up with the 15T #7 gear. I'm used to a 2x8 setup having the big ring lined up with about the #6 or #5 gear, and the small ring on #5 or #4

Not an uncommon issue with any of the kit bb drives. I use 42t, the smallest that will fit over the reduction housing, offset chainrings on my TSDZ2 bikes. They don't make any specific ones but you can mod the bolt pattern with a drill to fit the standard spider and some spacers. Will get the chain inline with the center of the cogs.

well, 52T is probably a little too big of a chain ring. I can maintain about 25 MPH on the flats in 52:13 at about 75 cadence, but the motor is pulling a pretty steady 12-15 amps and it fairly quickly got up to 300F ... and its a cool 62F kinda day out there, overcast marine layer.

so I swapped back to the stock 42, which has a much better chain line than the 42-52 double I got from eco-bikes...

riding to an LBS thats doing outdoor service(table setup under a awning just outside their front door, you ask, they fetch), I decided that 42:13 just isn't tall enough, so I got a 11-28 to replace my 13-26. 42:28 climbs just fine at medium power levels as long as I watch the motor temps and don't let it get up into the 180F range where it starts to throttle. and 42:11 is plenty fast enough for the flats, I was sustaining around 27 cross town.

LeftCoastNurd said:

I was sustaining around 27 cross town.

Click to expand...

Fun times ahead
:thumb:

The experts are probably going to tell you that the 11 cog on the cassette isn't going to last so it may still be an option to reconfigure the cassette and move the 11 to the inside behind the 28 to get the 13, 15, 17 further out.

On the flat you probably want to set it up so you spent a lot of time in the 15 or 17 at your desired cadence and speed and size the chainring (dished if possible in your case) to suit. I use a flat aluminium 54T narrow wide with the 15 and 17 predominantly. Needed a new longer chain. I only use the 13 and 11 with a tail wind or downhill at +40 kph and always change all the way down to a low gear when coming to a stop. If I forget I start off real slow with light pressure while changing down. Didn't bother to fit the throttle. I'm using Ackmaniaks fork of the open source firmware with the stock VLCD5 display but monitor current via BT BMS on the battery (discharge current) to mobile phone display. I'm typically only drawing 5 - 9 amps (if it's right) on my work commute at about 35 kph. It's only a short commute so I pedal quite hard. I used to use one of those in line watt meter power analysers and was never concerned.

https://www.amazon.com/Watt-Meter-Power-Analyzer-Measurement/dp/B07JM642NQ

My motor mounted just clear of the chainstay and chain line worked out fine.



I've done 1000 km and no dramas so far.

an 11t can only be on the end of the cassette. it screws on and locks the whole thing together. and I think a rear derailleur would throw a major hissy fit trying to shift from an 11 directly to a 28, hah.

Put the original 13-26 cassette back on.

Michael B said:

Put the original 13-26 cassette back on.

Click to expand...

I probably will if/when I can get a properly dished 48T or 50T front. with the 42T, the 11T is very usable for flatland sprints at 27-30 MPH. and 42:28 is just fine with moderate assist up the hills I need to climb, as long as i'm careful with power-heat management, with the bigger rings, I'll want a 30T or 34T '1st gear'

oh, and this 11-28 cassette was a $35 outdoor purchase at a local bike shop, installed on my wheel, old cassette returned in a bag. kudos to Bicycle Trip of Santa Cruz.

so I guess next up on my menu is new tires. I have a fresh pair of 700x38 Vittoria Adventure Tech to replace the 8 year old Vittoria Randoneur Hyper 700x32. I need to clean the brake rims too, and what better time than when the tires are off? trouble is, those Hypers ride really really nice, they are light and fast. the new tires I bought are much heavier and fatter. meh.

Quite right. I guess the other factor will be how much clearance there is between the dished 42 you have now and the chain stay, and if you go bigger and dished is there enough clearance?

I changed my cassette too and the rear derailleur won't work with the 40 or the 35 (they are still clean) but it has put a 31 where a 27 used to be, which I manage with for the steepest hill I do.

pretty sure there's good clearance. this is a 700C alum frame, set up for at most 40mm tires. the chain stays are rather flattened ovals too, so they don't bulge out much. its late at night or I'd go eyeball it right now...


btw, heh, I weighed the bike as is this afternoon... my fish scale says its about 44 lbs, thats with a rack and Banjo Bros trunk bag... not too bad, the bike was about 28 lbs pre-install. 52V 14AH batt (14S4P 35Q cells), and the TSDZ2. haven't installed the lights yet, but they aren't going to weigh anything significant. From my first test ride and how little power I used, I'm thinking I'd have been fine with a 14S3P 10AH...

oh hey, anyone know offhand what size metric bolt goes through the hole in a fork crown thats used for caliber/sidepull kinda brakes? I need to get a mounting bolt for my headlight kit, the fork has the hole there but uses V-brakes so its empty...

LeftCoastNurd said:

oh hey, anyone know offhand what size metric bolt goes through the hole in a fork crown thats used for caliber/sidepull kinda brakes? I need to get a mounting bolt for my headlight kit, the fork has the hole there but uses V-brakes so its empty...

Click to expand...

6mm

and I just mounted the Vittoria Adventure 700x40's, easily clear the frame. phew, what a loose fitting tire (having struggled in the past with Conti Gators on skinny rims), the old Vittoria x32 Randonneur Hyper's just about fell off, didn't need any tire irons at all, and it took special care to get both new tires fully seated as until they were pressurized, the beads just wanted to slide off the rims. I had to put like 10psi in them and go around them with my thumbs pushing the sidewalls into proper alignment on both sides of each tire, THEN inflate to 60 PSI. I gotta do the bathroom scale thing and figure out how much weight is on each tire, I'm 220 lbs, add 10 lbs of clothing, bike weighs 45 lbs, add a couple lbs of water (1 liter hydroflask lives in tail trunk bag), so lets call it 270 lbs combined. IF my bike is 40% / 60% (its a flatbar hybrid), I calculate 45 PSI front, 65 PSI rear.

now I have to get these Kool-stop pads to stop squealing in front... I cleaned the rims with alcohol, I followed the koolpad install instructions (finger tight, clamp the brakes, tighten the pads after wiggling things to put them in their happy place), probably need to increase the toe-in.

Michael B said:

Quite right. I guess the other factor will be how much clearance there is between the dished 42 you have now and the chain stay, and if you go bigger and dished is there enough clearance?

Click to expand...

miles of aisles for a bigger chain ring, like ridiculous amounts.




also the 40mm tires have at least 6mm clearance on all sides, I probably could run x45 if I wanted.





(ignore the temporary ugly wiring, its just secured with tiewraps for test riding, eventually I'll be wrapping and securing it permanently)

Just weighted my bike (well me then me holding the bike). Difference was 17.8 kg, so just over 39 lbs. Includes mobile phone and lights on the bike, 13s3p shrink wrap battery, but no water.

I actually put my batteries together. I've made three.

13s3p in 13x3 oblong configuration. 2nd hand LG MJ1 cells from a medical machine perhaps? Was a 36V 10s4p pack which I broke down and made into the 48V pack and used one on those Chinese bt bms to monitor condition/balance etc.

Then another one came up and I couldn't resist buying it too. LG MH1 this time (again $70NZ ~ $46US) which I assembled in a triangle shape.

I've also done a 13s1p using Samsung 25Rs. I'd previously bought four of these cells new so decided to buy nine more from the same local source and do a little one.

Mine is a cyclocross doner bike so I replaced the tires with Vittoria Randonneur Tech 700x35 and might go to 700x40 next time.

My plan with the big chainring was to cut the middle out of it and fix it to the stock dished 42T but in the end didn't need to. I just mounted the 54T narrow wide as close as I could to the black plastic motor cover and called it good enough.

Yours is really coming together. I hope you have a good run from it.

While I never used to put kickstands on my bikes, I liked having one on this hybrid, when I wanted to park it where there was nothing to lean it on, and didn't want to lay it on the ground. on my wife's ebike hub drive conversion, I used a double sided kickstand which worked quite well due to the weight of that rig... but the mid drive is in the way of all that.

LeftCoastNurd said:

While I never used to put kickstands on my bikes, I liked having one on this hybrid,

Click to expand...

Instead of kickstands on my e-bikes, I use locking brake levers. That lets me lean the bike up against almost anything at all without it falling over.