Bought a Pinion for my next E-Bike

MattyCiii · Jan 14, 2017

OK, I went out and purchased a Pinion P1-18 transmission for my next ebike.

I basically bought the Pinion drive without a bike. I'll be designing and building a bike around it. Kinda like this silly advertisement:

[youtube]6iEEbYIWhxM[/youtube]

This will be the most ambitious bike build I've ever done, and is quite likely the most ambitious thing I've ever done period.

I've wanted a Pinion for years but Pinion bikes aren't sold in the USA. So I waited and kept an eye out for one, and finally found one available on the bentrideronline recumbent forum. I dove in head first and just bought the thing. Here are more pix:

This particular drive has an interesting back story which is kinda fun.

Matt,

Glad you are excited about the Pinion. I bought a human powered boat from a lawyer who had these on the boat. The plain box is the box what they had it in. They said it came inside of another box. The short cables are standard cables for the Pinion. Other than contacting someone in Europe or online, I know of no where to get the parts here. I am trying to find out the same info as you are. If I do find the answer 1st, I'll let you know. I am not quite sure, but I think the dealer in Australia will sell parts to the USA. I will try and contact them after my hernia surgery. I am excited to get my new trike and get the P1.18 on it. Sorry I am not any more help.

They sold me the boat after they wrecked the boat during the MR-340 mile boat race from Kansas City, MO to St. Charles, MO. last summer on the Missouri River. There was four riders on the boat, all riding recumbent bikes with a Pinion drive on each, plus the extra new one that you bought. Two of the guys were Tri/Iron Men athletes, and had convinced the lawyer that if he had this boat built, all CF, they would win the race. The two tri guys were suppose to be awake from 12 midnight to 4 am, and then wake the other two guys. Well, they all four fell asleep and hit a wing dyke, breaking the CF shell and not finishing the race. They had it parked on a trailer at Washington, MO River Park where I was riding my low racer. I kept coming back by to see who it belonged to. About the 4th time past, there was about 6 people working on the boat. I asked what was going on. The lawyer said, do you want the boat? I laughed and said sure. He said, no, I am serious. So, he sold me the boat, trailer, and everything else for a very good price. He was so pissed off, that he didn't want to even pull it back to Kansas City. Since I was riding a recumbent, he thought I would be a good fit. The two Tri guys waited until the lawyer and the others left, then they came over to tell me why the lawyer didn't want them to ride back home with them. Ha. They had to rent a car to get back home. The lawyer had over $60,000 in just the 40 foot long special built CF boat shell! I still have the boat. I am going to turn it into a pontoon boat for me and my grandson's. I will cut the boat in half, and use as pontoons.

Jerry

MattyCiii · Jan 14, 2017

"Fools rush in..."

This drive came without cranks or a chainring. Crap. What have I done - after the excitement of having this marvelous device in hand wore off, I started to fear I now owned a $1000 paperweight. I wrote sales@pinion.eu asking how to purchase tools & parts (and still have not heard back).

After much searching I found suppliers:

Bikeman.com http://www.bikeman.com/P.html sells cranks and chainrings. I still needed a "lock ring" for the chainring.

"pinion-bikes" on ebay.co.uk sold the lock ring and its installation tool. http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/pinion-bikes?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

So now I have parts on the way, I'll be able to move forward with designing & building the bike...

markz · Jan 15, 2017

....now get to work

Looks like a cool motor.

Lay some specs down for us.

amberwolf · Jan 15, 2017

Is not a motor, is an 18-speed transmission built all into the BB/crank unit.

I remember reading of it and figuring it'd be as likely a find around here as a Rohloff would be. (as far as used stuff in junkpiles or thrift stores/etc where I look for stuff like this).

Samd · Jan 15, 2017

I nearly went pinion for a middrive last year but the torque has to be very low. I have opted for a hammerschmidt instead using crossbreak's method.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

litespeed · Jan 16, 2017

I'm just saying, "I live in the place they were boating to!" I feel somewhat connected! 8)

I didn't see race though!

the Missouri River is not known to be a human powered boat type river....it's pretty swift pretty much everywhere.

Tom

ions82 · Mar 7, 2017

I was kicking around the idea of using a Pinion for an off-road handcycle project. However, it is pretty much essential for off-road handcycles to use a gear reduction of some sort (my current rig has a Schlumpf.) However, it seems like a powerful mid-drive e-bike would be the perfect candidate for a pinion. I hope to see future progress on your project.

Bought a Pinion for my next E-Bike

MattyCiii

100 kW

MattyCiii

100 kW

markz

100 TW

amberwolf

Administrator

Samd

10 MW

litespeed

100 kW

ions82

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