Specialized Awol Conversion

Hi all,

New here but wanted to share along my conversion project.

Donor bike: https://www.specialized.com/us/en/awol-elite/p/65539
This has been my primary commuter bike for just shy of four years. The ride into work is about 12 miles, over the Golden Gate Bridge into downtown SF -- but I'm moving just a bit further north and want to keep riding.

For motor I wanted some thing as stealthy as possible, so I went with the Bafang G310 Grin Kit from the guys at ebikes.ca.

For the battery I went for the Luna Wolf pack - 52v 13.5 ah. The mounting system seems to be much more well conceived than other packs out there and the thing looks like you could throw it off the back of a truck and still use it after.

One problem that I have yet to fully solve is the difficulty of the drop-bar conversion. But I have a few workarounds that I think will work:

Bar extenders: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FD5DLG9/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
These things are pretty cheap on Amazon but should give me the ability to run 22.2mm clamps for the throttle, pas adjustment, etc.

Brake Sensor: I'm planning to find some way to rig a Tripwire https://www.ebikes.ca/product-info/tripwire.html up to the front brake pull, running it under the bar wraps alongside the brake cable.

A few questions I have at this point:

Programming the Cycle Analyst... Do I need to do set a power limit or has it already been set to this motor?
Reliability of the brake cutoff?
How do I keep this motor from overheating without a temp sensor?

A big shout-out already to the Grin team at ebikes.ca they turned around my order less than 24 hours. Also, I contacted Luna to ask specifically for the Panasonic cells in the Wolf motor and they did oblige, despite those not being an option currently on their website. So far both companies have been pretty rad.

How did the TripWire brake cutoff installation go? I just started a conversion of a Specialized Evo Dolce Gravel bike and I am curious if you mounted the TripWire on Brifters and how you did it. I was thinking a pull model with the snap button method would work if the button was mounted on the side of the Shimano brifter name plate (at the top of the lever, it doesn't rotate when you shift but it does create the pull needed when you brake) and then run the cable under the handlebar tape to my display connection.

Hey Cycliste,

I have a very similar solution running -- currently the tripwire cutoff (pull system) is running under the hoods, attached in my case to a small screw that holds in the clear plastic gear display housing in place on top of my Shimano Sora shifters. (Will try to post a pic soon). I got lucky that there was a little screw there...

BUT It's needs a little work -- because of the angle of the pull mechanism on the brake/shifters the tripwire will sometimes return at an off-angle, preventing the full closing of the tripwire switch. I can manage this while riding with just some thumb pressure (my hand is already quite close to the tripwire given my riding position) but it's not perfect.

Nonetheless it gets the job done for the time being. More optimizations to be done...

Otherwise no complaints, the system runs beautifully.

Another follow-up after the first commute in to work this morning:

Programming the Cycle Analyst... Do I need to do set a power limit or has it already been set to this motor?
I've set the CA to a max power 700 watts for the G310 -- there wasn't clear documentation on this outside of a single suggestion on one of the Grin pages about the motor. 700 watts would be plenty at WOT for me.

Reliability of the brake cutoff? Per the above -- it will need some adjustment to properly return to it's "closed" position, but it works well enough for now with the occasional manual adjustment back into position when it doesn't return fully while riding.

How do I keep this motor from overheating without a temp sensor? No clear answer on this, but with the max power setting and my max PAS assist set to 500W, I'm hoping that I'll never run enough continuous power through the motor for overheating to be an issue.

Aside from one road-rage incident this morning, I'm super stoked. What would normally have been a 1.4 hour trip took me 45 minutes.

After some experimentation I got the Tripwire brake cutoff to work on my Shimano Tiagra brifters every time and well. Airvibrations mentioned the Tripwire didn't always return properly so I thought of putting the Tripwire in some tubing, under the brake hood to stop friction and restrict bowing of the Tripwire, but still be capable of following the contours of the lever. My first tubing was 1/4 clear vinyl tubing approximately 3" long and I used the snap button to the inside of the lever on the side of the nameplate at the top. This worked, but not reliably enough. Second try worked great. I put the snap button to the top outside of the lever on the nameplate and then used a translucent, rigid Bic pen body, with the closed end cut off, for the tubing. Zipties and silicone tape didn't quite hold it stable enough to keep the Tripwire totally happy with my hands on the hoods so the final solution was to use the Tripwire drill bit and screw that came with it, plus a tiny washer and affix the Bic pen tube to my lever with a 3/8" plastic cable clamp. No excess movement and a consistent shutoff by the Tripwire every time. The best location for the clamp was somewhat exposed from the rubber brake hood and might irritate my hands on a longer ride so I cut a piece of cork handlebar tape to fit and tucked it under the hood and covered the exposed clamp. Took it for a 1/2 hour test ride and it performed flawlessly. Our tandem has Sora levers and after looking at them I think you could do something similar, but in a slightly different alignment. Photos of how it worked on the Tiagra brifters:

This is great, thanks for the update! I'll look at a similar (re)positioning on mine.