E-S Stealth Electric Bike Owners

Yah TV, the biggest acceleration performance increase we could gain is loosing say 50 pounds for so, at least for me. :lol: Yah, that's why your kid is getting you, 85 pounds lighter. How about some vids of your and your son, racing and riding?

Rix said:

Yah TV, the biggest acceleration performance increase we could gain is loosing say 50 pounds for so, at least for me. :lol: Yah, that's why your kid is getting you, 85 pounds lighter. How about some vids of your and your son, racing and riding?

Click to expand...

It's actually pretty amazing how close we really are considering the weight difference. I get the feeling this moose doesn't care about my weight, it's just the limiters.

I haven't worked out so hard since getting my bike. I probably lost a couple lbs last night alone. We're going to have a lot of fun in the future.

There's no other bike you can pedal that hard, at those kinds of speeds. They say there's nothing new under the sun, but this is a different kind of bike never seen on the earth before.

I've seen people say pedaling at 50 mph doesn't make much difference. If there's another Stealth right next to you, you can see the difference. There's actually a lot of difference. I don't like pedaling at 50, unless there's some jackass right next to me that needs to eat my tire dust. Then it seems a lot easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooh1qe7rKKk

[youtube]ooh1qe7rKKk[/youtube]

Awesome video

That's awesome ....... but
My rear shock is fully compressed just with one meter off the ground jumps, two days ago I added one more turn to the spring preload and I'm riding with the hydraulic compression knob fully hard and rebound fully soft. Also my lower rebound adjuster does nothing. I can turn it fully hard or fully soft and the rebound stays the same.
How many mm of preload are you riding Rix on the rear spring?

Theodore Voltaire said:

What fun, rat racing. It's funny, you can see things that normally are hard to see, with a Stealth riding next to you. Like when your bike hits the limiters.

Which bike is faster? Hint; it's the one the 85lb lighter guy is riding. Other than that, I don't think there's much difference other than the size of the tires.

But I was having big fun racing another bike like mine. When two bikes are almost identical power, the trick is to out pedaling the other guy. That's a loosing proposition for me because he's 31 yrs old, but I was going at it like hell, as long as I could. Which wasn't all that long really. I thought I was going to blow a gasket pedaling at top speed for a little while. And then doing it again a couple times after I recovered. I won't work out that had riding by myself. Add 85lbs to his bike, and I think I could take him lol.

My max speed when I got home was 53.4 I guess he can do 55, or a little more with those big stock tires, but we're close enough for government work.

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TV, just get a max.e and a new battery and then you won't need to lose any weight.

bigbore said:

That's awesome ....... but
My rear shock is fully compressed just with one meter off the ground jumps, two days ago I added one more turn to the spring preload and I'm riding with the hydraulic compression knob fully hard and rebound fully soft. Also my lower rebound adjuster does nothing. I can turn it fully hard or fully soft and the rebound stays the same.
How many mm of preload are you riding Rix on the rear spring?

Click to expand...

Your rear shock rebound rate doesn't change no matter how slow or fast you change the settings? You got a blown shock I think. When you compress your suspension, does it "spring up" quickly like a pogo stick? As far as my rear preload goes, on my old Bomber, I had a 750# spring on it, so my preload was set with about 2.75" or around 70mm of static rider sag. That was along time ago and I can't remember how many turns it was. Bombers made after early 2013 came with a progressive coil, so my settings on my old Bomber wouldn't be the same even though the shock body is the same. As far as preload setting goes on my Fighter, I got the spanner ring turned down quite a ways. If I go to much more, I will hit coil bind. Fortunately for me, the setting I have works and I still have a few turns to go before coil bind. I want to clarify for those that may not know, coil bind is when your spring coils hit each other during compression before your suspension is bottomed out. This is why you just can't take any spring for any rider, increase preload until proper sag is achieved and expect things to work properly.

Theodore Voltaire said:

Rix said:

Yah TV, the biggest acceleration performance increase we could gain is loosing say 50 pounds for so, at least for me. :lol: Yah, that's why your kid is getting you, 85 pounds lighter. How about some vids of your and your son, racing and riding?

Click to expand...

It's actually pretty amazing how close we really are considering the weight difference. I get the feeling this moose doesn't care about my weight, it's just the limiters.

I haven't worked out so hard since getting my bike. I probably lost a couple lbs last night alone. We're going to have a lot of fun in the future.

Click to expand...

I missed this earlier, laughing now, you sound like my dad, he always talks about how pedal assisting his Bomber is allowing him to gracefully transition into his 70s and stay fit doing it.

Rix said:

Theodore Voltaire said:

Rix said:

Yah TV, the biggest acceleration performance increase we could gain is loosing say 50 pounds for so, at least for me. :lol: Yah, that's why your kid is getting you, 85 pounds lighter. How about some vids of your and your son, racing and riding?

Click to expand...

It's actually pretty amazing how close we really are considering the weight difference. I get the feeling this moose doesn't care about my weight, it's just the limiters.

I haven't worked out so hard since getting my bike. I probably lost a couple lbs last night alone. We're going to have a lot of fun in the future.

Click to expand...

I missed this earlier, laughing now, you sound like my dad, he always talks about how pedal assisting his Bomber is allowing him to gracefully transition into his 70s and stay fit doing it.

Click to expand...

TV, that's one of the things that I really like about the bomber. The ability to pedal at any speed.

Rix said:

bigbore said:

That's awesome ....... but
My rear shock is fully compressed just with one meter off the ground jumps, two days ago I added one more turn to the spring preload and I'm riding with the hydraulic compression knob fully hard and rebound fully soft. Also my lower rebound adjuster does nothing. I can turn it fully hard or fully soft and the rebound stays the same.
How many mm of preload are you riding Rix on the rear spring?

Click to expand...

Your rear shock rebound rate doesn't change no matter how slow or fast you change the settings? You got a blown shock I think. When you compress your suspension, does it "spring up" quickly like a pogo stick? As far as my rear preload goes, on my old Bomber, I had a 750# spring on it, so my preload was set with about 2.75" or around 70mm of static rider sag. That was along time ago and I can't remember how many turns it was. Bombers made after early 2013 came with a progressive coil, so my settings on my old Bomber wouldn't be the same even though the shock body is the same. As far as preload setting goes on my Fighter, I got the spanner ring turned down quite a ways. If I go to much more, I will hit coil bind. Fortunately for me, the setting I have works and I still have a few turns to go before coil bind. I want to clarify for those that may not know, coil bind is when your spring coils hit each other during compression before your suspension is bottomed out. This is why you just can't take any spring for any rider, increase preload until proper sag is achieved and expect things to work properly.

Click to expand...

When I compress my rear suspension I think it works correct and I can adjust the upper hydraulic damper soft or hard. My problems are the followings:
1) The rear wheel tends to bounce over rough terrain under acceleration loosing traction so I would like to have a faster rebound setup (that's impossible right now).
2) The rear suspension fully compress even with small jumps (1 meter off the ground) look at the green check on the stem.

I have 7.75mm of spring preload that gives me 63mm static rider sag.

Dnm is great value.
But you'll get radically better rebound with a brand name shock bigbore.

Samd said:

Dnm is great value.
But you'll get radically better rebound with a brand name shock bigbore.

Click to expand...

Are you talking about something like this?
http://www.ridefox.it/product.php?m=bike&t=shocks&p=99301&ref=filter

But before buying a new shock I will try to change the oil on my DNM with something lighter

Samd said:

Dnm is great value.
But you'll get radically better rebound with a brand name shock bigbore.

Click to expand...

On the fighter, sure, but don't forget we're talking Stealth Bombers here Sambo - these run massive pitbike style shocks and they need to for offroad durability with the all the weight of X54 levering off them.
Size and weight wise we're talking Keira Knightly vs Rebel Wilson. If you're going to ride off a cliff, which one to you want breaking your fall ? :lol:

OK bad example, you'd rather break your neck plowing through Keira Knightly, right ?

bigbore said:

Samd said:

Dnm is great value.
But you'll get radically better rebound with a brand name shock bigbore.

Click to expand...

Are you talking about something like this?
http://www.ridefox.it/product.php?m=bike&t=shocks&p=99301&ref=filter

But before buying a new shock I will try to change the oil on my DNM with something lighter

Click to expand...

Simone, as Hyena pointed out, that DNM is a motor cycle shock. If you consider replacing it, do so with another MC shock. That said, you are the first that I have heard of that wants faster rebound. What I found is slowing down rebound helps keep my rear from tossing me over the handle bars when I launch from a kicker or square edged face jump. Whats going on here is when our suspension compresses at the face of a jump, it starts extending in mid air. If the suspension extends to quickly, especially just as we leave the jump, instead of the rear motor and wheel being pushed down, it pushes our ass end up. This is the one biggest disadvantages of unsuspended mass. So to negate this, having the rebound slowed down helps immensely. It comes at a price, though, small bump compliance sucks. I think if you speed up your rebound, you will like when you are riding on washboard road when you are seated and pedal assisting, but then you will hate it on everything else.

MY STORY SO FAR...

I am about halfway "quoted specs" through my battery life...
with 400 cycles and 15,000kms on the clock (commuter KMS - daily ride)
(yes I know 800 is the estimated cycles for a complete depleted battery) , I only do about 37kms a day so about about 1/2 - 3/4 depleted (depending on how I feel that day)

I recharge the bike every day for about 4 hours...which seems to have kept the battery very close to original capacity...(I test it every 6 months to see how many Amps I can get out of it to empty)

anyone else closer to the 800cycles or over....

looking to clock at least 30-40,000 kms before a new battery

Dunk

DunkenKBliths said:

MY STORY SO FAR...

I am about halfway "quoted specs" through my battery life...
with 400 cycles and 15,000kms on the clock (commuter KMS - daily ride)
(yes I know 800 is the estimated cycles for a complete depleted battery) , I only do about 37kms a day so about about 1/2 - 3/4 depleted (depending on how I feel that day)

I recharge the bike every day for about 4 hours...which seems to have kept the battery very close to original capacity...(I test it every 6 months to see how many Amps I can get out of it to empty)

anyone else closer to the 800cycles or over....

looking to clock at least 30-40,000 kms before a new battery

Dunk

Click to expand...

Dunk, my dad has my old Bomber and is up well over 800 cycles and near 10,000 miles. Actually, mileage wise, you guys are about the same. Never mind.

Rix said:

bigbore said:

Samd said:

Dnm is great value.
But you'll get radically better rebound with a brand name shock bigbore.

Click to expand...

Are you talking about something like this?
http://www.ridefox.it/product.php?m=bike&t=shocks&p=99301&ref=filter

But before buying a new shock I will try to change the oil on my DNM with something lighter

Click to expand...

Simone, as Hyena pointed out, that DNM is a motor cycle shock. If you consider replacing it, do so with another MC shock. That said, you are the first that I have heard of that wants faster rebound. What I found is slowing down rebound helps keep my rear from tossing me over the handle bars when I launch from a kicker or square edged face jump. Whats going on here is when our suspension compresses at the face of a jump, it starts extending in mid air. If the suspension extends to quickly, especially just as we leave the jump, instead of the rear motor and wheel being pushed down, it pushes our ass end up. This is the one biggest disadvantages of unsuspended mass. So to negate this, having the rebound slowed down helps immensely. It comes at a price, though, small bump compliance sucks. I think if you speed up your rebound, you will like when you are riding on washboard road when you are seated and pedal assisting, but then you will hate it on everything else.

Click to expand...

I gotta agree w Rick here. Slowing down the rebound does help. In addition the stock rst front forks are sheeettt.. Part of your problem may be the front end. I swapped out for marzocchi 888. Huge improvement. Also my spring was way to heavy for me. I wound up getting a custom lighter spring made and also a 3 stage revalve. Our shocks aren't terrible. They are set up terrible thoiugh. The internals are actually decently built. They really need a tuner to go through em. I had a 3 stage revalve done. My tuner found the oil to be cheap quality and the nitrogen levels were not correct. I ride dirt 90% and now I'm totally confident w the bike. I can land jumps without any crazy drama. High speed slides are totally predictable and controllable. A good front end and a revalve will go a long way... Good luck and don't give up on the dnm just yet!

1abv said:

I gotta agree w Rick here. Slowing down the rebound does help. In addition the stock rst front forks are sheeettt.. Part of your problem may be the front end. I swapped out for marzocchi 888. Huge improvement. Also my spring was way to heavy for me. I wound up getting a custom lighter spring made and also a 3 stage revalve. Our shocks aren't terrible. They are set up terrible thoiugh. The internals are actually decently built. They really need a tuner to go through em. I had a 3 stage revalve done. My tuner found the oil to be cheap quality and the nitrogen levels were not correct. I ride dirt 90% and now I'm totally confident w the bike. I can land jumps without any crazy drama. High speed slides are totally predictable and controllable. A good front end and a revalve will go a long way... Good luck and don't give up on the dnm just yet!

Click to expand...

Half the work is already done! I've been riding a Marzocchi R888 already and I'm liking the front end of my Bomber a lot. My problems are all at the rear. I bought it used and after delivery the rear spring preload was too much low so I started adding turns to the spring preload adjuster.
Now I have 7.75mm preload and it gives me a 63mm of static rider sag but the rear wheel tends to bounce over rough terrain under acceleration loosing traction. It always happens over potholes off road and on road.
I could be wrong but I thought that a faster rebound could stick my rear wheel to the ground

Then yesterday I had my second pinch flat at the rear .... now I start to be pissed off with the rear tires, I will try the last option that is to inflating the rear tire at the maximum pressure that can sustain and if it fails another time I will start looking at the rear MC rim and tyre upgrade

I'm not sure why or what variables are coming into play yet, but ever since swapping my front forks over to the DNM 200mm I keep hitting my cranks when I turn.
I think I might need to get a longer rear shock as I tried pumping up the current DNM one to the max and it's still happening.

Cheers

Cowardlyduck said:

I'm not sure why or what variables are coming into play yet, but ever since swapping my front forks over to the DNM 200mm I keep hitting my cranks when I turn.
I think I might need to get a longer rear shock as I tried pumping up the current DNM one to the max and it's still happening.

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The inside crank should regularly hit the ground if you are cornering fast, and pedalling or not turning the inside pedal up. That's one thing to consider.

If you never changed anything in the rear shock and a new problem has developed then I don't see why you'd replace the shock.

If you have the fork caps up a fair way above the triple clamps, then change that to raise the front.

Next you could compare your rider sag in the front, with the old fork and then the new. Sit on the bike in the attack position and measure how far the fork compresses. A simple cable tie on the lower fork tube will do the job.

If the sag is too much (front rides too low with the weight of you on the bike), then you need a stiffer spring or more spring preload (add [edit] external preload or more internal spacers). More spacers means opening up the left leg. It is not right to alter air pressure to change the ride height of the bike.

Adding air pressure in the bottom of the right leg mostly firms up the spring effect end of the stroke (last 1/3rd of the travel). Like a bottom out control. More air pressure also typically reduces cavitation - if the fork actually has some compression damping.

If the sag figure is no more than say 5mm beyond the old figure (near enough), then a possible cause of the problem (too much front dive) is a lack of compression damping in your new fork. I know my 2014 DNM fork had zero comp damping in stock form.

These forks are real easy to open and work on. Either leg.

See also http://www.stealthelectricbikes.com/forums/topic/dnm-usd-8-fork-review-and-mods/

Thanks Emmet.

I think my front is adjusted as high (in the clamps) as it can go before it will hit the handle bars, so I can't change that. I think I could probably let the front static sag sit a bit lower as the rubber ring for checking that has still never been pushed all the way down. There's no way I will be changing the spring...just too much else is a priority with this bike for a long time yet...so the only option is to let more air out.
I'm not fussy at all about suspension, so I'll give it a go letting some more front air out and see how it goes.

The other option is to firm up the rear more...when riding on road I've flicked the lockout on a few times and the pedals never hit then.

Cheers

You're welcome CD.

Cowardlyduck said:

Thanks Emmet.

I'm not fussy at all about suspension ...

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I know we all use our bikes for different things. Often wildly different. You might become fussy if you swap bikes and had a blast on mine on variable offroad tracks. In my experience, compared to a stock 2014 Fighter, double the speed with half the risk of crashing would be an understatement. Trust in a bike's handling can be a beautiful thing. Or you could settle for a least 2x the ride comfort.

CD, I forgot about the spring preload adjuster on the top of the USD-8 left fork leg. You have that option too. But preload is usually best used for fine tuning rebound (and therefore traction and tyre response) near full extension of the stroke. If you have the fork tubes slid up in the triple clamps that's the easy thing to correct.

Re raising fork caps:
Beware that lowering the front and/or raising the rear of your bike will increase initial turn into a corner. But that will also make it into a stinkbug which means the front oversteers, so it won't hold a long balanced line through a corner no matter how good your skills are. Stinkbug setup also means instability over any rough ground, especially fast rough straights.

Personally I loath a stinkbug setup. Especially in a light weight e-bike. When fine tuning I'll error toward a high front low rear setup because the bike tracks more stable. Making the bike turn is usually the easy part. Eg. Lean forward, lean chassis, more front brake, use more throttle.

I could be wrong but I thought that a faster rebound could stick my rear wheel to the ground

Click to expand...

This is true Simone, you wheel will stick better, but the price you pay for that going off bigger jumps is the ass end wants to catapult you over the bars, a 70s term we used for this was "Flying W"

Moving on.
A while back, Like 200 pages back or so, either Quigley of QMS or Quiet Rush had recommended a Brookes Saddle for those didn't like the stock set up. Last week I went for a 61 mile ride using just over 1100 wh. My ass was sore. So I bought a Brookes saddle remembering one of the above guys recommended it. Well needless to say, this is hands down the best and most comfortable saddle I have ever ran on 2 wheels that can be pedaled. My only regret was I didn't buy one sooner. So Quigley or Quiet Rush, which ever one of you guys recommended that, thank you.