Geared hub motors & Aluminum Forks

Lots of comments about the danger of aluminum forks. I am looking at a Priority Continuum bike and it has a 6o61 T6 ultra light aluminum fork. I am an old fart that is strictly a street/groomed trail rider. Presently using an EZEE geared hub on Townie Electra, 48 volt battery controlled by a V3 CA. Running 950 watts maximum. PAS most of the time at 100 - 200 watts. Do I need to be concerned about fork failure at the low power set-up that I normally run? :? MAC 10T in my future maybe could be.

Lots of comments about the danger of aluminum forks. I am looking at a Priority Continuum bike and it has a 6o61 T6 ultra light aluminum fork. I am an old fart that is strictly a street/groomed trail rider. Presently using an EZEE geared hub on Townie Electra, 48 volt battery controlled by a V3 CA. Running 950 watts maximum. PAS most of the time at 100 - 200 watts. Do I need to be concerned about fork failure at the low power set-up that I normally run? :? MAC 10T in my future, maybe, could be. 8)

Part of it is the torque that causes a twisting that the fork wasn't design for.
The bigger problem is wheel slippage which causes a shock to the fork and causes it to break.

I guess you know, AL tends to break rather suddenly where steel will bend.

I have about 45N-M which isn't much. 36v x 15 amps. I'm not worried. Much above that, and I would be concerned.

Well, some people do it with lots of torque arms!

I run a Bafang front hub at 36 volts in my aluminum front fork. That particular hub can only be fitted with one toque arm however I have not had any problems and I do check occasionally. See my signature for more info on the bike. One thing that helps is to make sure you keep your nuts tight ... the ones on the front axle.

The consequences of a problem were enough for me to use a Surly steel fork (plus torque arm). Maybe I'm too cautious.

Most old farts would like to get older, no? Must be a nice steel fork that fits a Priority Continuum.

I just posted this... similar question

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=75850&start=25

I just finished a build today on an Electra Townie 7D. I believe the Fork you are referring to may actually be steel while the bike itself is Aluminum. Have you verified that your fork is in fact Aluminum?

I chose to use 2 Grin V2 Front Torque Arms (One of the reasons I went with the new Mac 10T is the side Exit cable allowing me to do this easily). That's half an inch of Stainless Steel plus the Drop outs. So I'm pretty confident.

Sadly I did have to file the Axle on the cable exit side. On the other side the Torque Arm slid right on. Crazy Chinese Quality (I know some day some Chinese person is going to get back at me for all my "Chinese Quality" comments by stabbing me in the neck)... but I'm not too worried because they will probably use a Chinese knife and it won't kill me

Also the Washers did interfere just a little bit with the cable exit. So I wrapped with a little extra electrical tape. I was worried that vibration might cause the cable to be cut by contact with the washer.

But I wouldn't run Aluminum Forks and any motor... Forks are cheap, Crashes... might not be.

As mentioned in post linked above... I was riding a Trek Mountain Bike with an Shimano LX Crank (Aluminum) and it sheered right off. The bike was almost new. Scared the Begeebus out of me. And introduced me to the concept that aluminum is not forgiving and gives little warning.

Surly Steel Forks ROCK!

Duplicate post? I have sometimes posted by accident to the Electric Vehicle when I meant Electric Bicycle too.

I believe you already posted this as I just replied and so have several others under Electric Bike not Vehicle.

docw009 said:

Most old farts would like to get older, no?

Click to expand...

Most of us would rather get younger but .....