motomech
10 MW
The bike is a 2003 model that had never been used. That model had a recall(under hard off-road usage, the chain stays could break)and it had been pulled from the showroom of a large bike shop and lost in the warehouse. I wanted something with Hyd. disc brakes and quality suspension components.
The geared Mini Might frt. wheel kit is from Hightekbikes and the 48V 8ah batt. and rack are from E-Bike CA(Excellent service from them). The rack is a nice piece of work, but I would caution those considering this type of rack to make sure the the frame seat post reciever extends high enough to facilitate the mounting clamps. The batt/rack's three-way switch(master on/off and batt. lock)is very convienent. The sm. controller is mounted entirely under the Schwinn touring seat and the excess wiring and connectors are stuffed into a sm. camera bag strapped to the frt. of the seat post reciever.
The title of this post refers to the mounting of the motor in the Marzocchi mag. alloy forks. In order to mount the extra thick Rev-3 torque arm, I needed as much of the motor axle to extend past the securing fasteners as possible. To this end, the flat washers were disgarded and c-washers were not used. Instead, I hand bored a flat surface in the sides of the drop-outs[removing the Laywer Lips] for the axle nuts to seat with the sm. Dremel standard cut-off disc, which has the exact same diameter as the nuts. Minimal metal was removed. These Italian forks[made for jumping] are high quality and I have absolutely no reservations of running this low-power motor in them. I also had to clearance(sounds better than grind)the hub and brk. caliper and spend time aligning the frt. whl.
The performance of this motor/controller has been well described here, suffice to say that it is no power house, but as an assist, it's perfect. The top speed is well matched to the bike's 44/11 sprockets. In general, I use 8 of the 9 available rear derailleur's gears.
Total weight is 47 pounds, 17 of which came from the conversion. The frt. to rear balance is excellent and I can easily carry it using the rear shock as a hand-hold. This was important to me as I live on an Island in the Carribean and needed to be able to carry it on/off the inter-island ferry boats.
I read and lurked here for days and it payed off, as I am very happy w/ the results. The only thing I would change is that I probably forgo The Cycle Analyst 2.2. It's quality unit, but I have no need for the limiting features it provides.
The tires are Continental Town and Country's.
I am not an accomplished cyclist and I really like the way the motor helps me out of noob situations. I can wait to down-shift at the bottom of the hill and use the motor power to ease the strain on the deraileur's gears as I down-shift. Also, the frame(a 20.5 incher)is somewhat tall for my 30" inseam and the motor helps to pull me out of "tippy" situtations and 0 m.p.h. starts.
Much thanks to all who provided their expertise and a special thanks goes out to Dogman. For awhile I was on the fence about using the frt. motor w/ the alloy forks, but his experience's moved me in that direction and I'm glad I did.
Now, if I can lose 40 pounds of excess rider weight, I might reward my myself with a rear mini-motor(dual motor set-up).
Motomech
The geared Mini Might frt. wheel kit is from Hightekbikes and the 48V 8ah batt. and rack are from E-Bike CA(Excellent service from them). The rack is a nice piece of work, but I would caution those considering this type of rack to make sure the the frame seat post reciever extends high enough to facilitate the mounting clamps. The batt/rack's three-way switch(master on/off and batt. lock)is very convienent. The sm. controller is mounted entirely under the Schwinn touring seat and the excess wiring and connectors are stuffed into a sm. camera bag strapped to the frt. of the seat post reciever.
The title of this post refers to the mounting of the motor in the Marzocchi mag. alloy forks. In order to mount the extra thick Rev-3 torque arm, I needed as much of the motor axle to extend past the securing fasteners as possible. To this end, the flat washers were disgarded and c-washers were not used. Instead, I hand bored a flat surface in the sides of the drop-outs[removing the Laywer Lips] for the axle nuts to seat with the sm. Dremel standard cut-off disc, which has the exact same diameter as the nuts. Minimal metal was removed. These Italian forks[made for jumping] are high quality and I have absolutely no reservations of running this low-power motor in them. I also had to clearance(sounds better than grind)the hub and brk. caliper and spend time aligning the frt. whl.
The performance of this motor/controller has been well described here, suffice to say that it is no power house, but as an assist, it's perfect. The top speed is well matched to the bike's 44/11 sprockets. In general, I use 8 of the 9 available rear derailleur's gears.
Total weight is 47 pounds, 17 of which came from the conversion. The frt. to rear balance is excellent and I can easily carry it using the rear shock as a hand-hold. This was important to me as I live on an Island in the Carribean and needed to be able to carry it on/off the inter-island ferry boats.
I read and lurked here for days and it payed off, as I am very happy w/ the results. The only thing I would change is that I probably forgo The Cycle Analyst 2.2. It's quality unit, but I have no need for the limiting features it provides.
The tires are Continental Town and Country's.
I am not an accomplished cyclist and I really like the way the motor helps me out of noob situations. I can wait to down-shift at the bottom of the hill and use the motor power to ease the strain on the deraileur's gears as I down-shift. Also, the frame(a 20.5 incher)is somewhat tall for my 30" inseam and the motor helps to pull me out of "tippy" situtations and 0 m.p.h. starts.
Much thanks to all who provided their expertise and a special thanks goes out to Dogman. For awhile I was on the fence about using the frt. motor w/ the alloy forks, but his experience's moved me in that direction and I'm glad I did.
Now, if I can lose 40 pounds of excess rider weight, I might reward my myself with a rear mini-motor(dual motor set-up).
Motomech