Thanks for the great info, bullfrog.
I know and agree with pretty much everything you said. I get criticized for being too long-winded, but then when I simplify/shorten things, I then get "corrected", lol.
EM3EV does not carry any 26er rims between 32 and 80 mm. At least, they didn't when I bought. I'd be gleeful if I were wrong now, but I don't think I am. It's just a huge gap. Before Paul sold fatbike kits, and then while he was preparing, I encouraged him to choose 50mm as the fatbike rim, if not something in the 60-ish range, for fatbikes, not 80mm. Or, I said, if you carry 80, please carry something between 32 and 80. You can see that already, I was looking towards Plus bikes, which were so nascent they didn't even have an agreed-on name. I tried to tell him that the 50-ish/60-ish rims are much more versatile, and that there were "fat" tires less than 4-inches. "Mid-fat" was a term I'd heard, and I don't think I'd heard the term "Plus" used yet. People usually called them "fat" (there was less distinction than now). And indeed, fatbikes rims did indeed start in the 40mm range (44mm SnoCat was 1st commercially available fat rim), and even a Large Marge is in the 60s (65 to be exact). IMO, for most fatbikes, 80mm is not necessary, and indeed a hindrance, unless there is a fashion statement to be made, or people feel they need the back to look like the front, but I think of ebikers as more nonconformists.If you want to go 4.8 or 5 yeah you'll want 80mm, but those are fairly rare, and were almost unknown at the time, and most LBS's didn't even have a single vanilla fatbike in stock. Paul didn't go with my advice, obviously. It was not easy, because the 36-spoke was not used much on wide-tire bikes, so there was/is a very limited rim selection (hence the reason I put out the call in my last question in previous post). I'm not entirely sure of Paul's thought process, but I know he wanted a strong rim, prefers to buy from AlexRims due to a known quality/strength/price combination, and IIRC, AlexRims didn't make something in that (~50mm) size at the time--and I am still not sure if they do (their website sometimes makes deciphering inner widths difficult). They did make an 80mm Blizzerk in 36 spokes, and that's what he went with. Paul told me it was strong, and he was right. It would be easy for tubeless, as there are NO weight-saving cut-outs in mine. Full-fat wheelsets are ridiculously heavy, even before you add liners and/or sealant to prevent flats. I want some width, but the height, width, and rotational weight of 4-inch tires is more than I need or want. I don't know how pedalers ride these things without assistance. If I run my tires at the comfy low pressure pedalists claim they normally do, my controller gets pretty warm just casually riding around, flat, and my voltage goes down strikingly faster. If I pump up the pressure, it's basically room temperature doing the same, showing me how much more energy low-pressure riding takes, even further baffling me how these fatbike pedalers do it!
I just spent some time re-aquainting myself with AlexRims.com. It does look like AlexRims now makes 40-something mm rims, but ONLY in sizes taller than 26er--which really suxxx!! I couldn't find anything 40-ish for 26 (I'm hoping someone will contradict me). In 26, you can get 32, 34, and 35 (a lot of choices in a small range)--and then--nothing, until 70mm! So there is still this huge gap that I've been talking about. What, we need a hundred choices between 17 and 25 mm, yet we have to literally "double it" to go to the next step from 35? This is, honestly, why I asked for advice.
So, while I'm glad to see anything less than 80mm, I really don't get why AlexRims would do 70mm (so close). And not something more between 32 and 80, which was their gap when I bought (which was even worse, but not much worse). The average between 32 and 80 is 56, BTW, i'm just sayin'.
It's really maddening, b/c they make 40, 45, and 50 mm rims, but NONE for 26ers. Why can I get a 50mm rim in 27, 29, and even *24* inches, but not 26?! Why can I get a 40mm rim in 24-inch and even TWENTY inch--but not twenty-six?
Some of AlexRims naming baffles me. For instance, "Supra35"-- its specs say 559x30mm. So why not "Supra30"? Yet, DX32 is actually 32mm ID. XM35 is 35mm. You would think the Volar 3.0 would be for a 3.0-inch tire, right? No, it's 30mm. The SX44 is--you guessed it--20mm.
Update: hey now, what's this. Okay, more naming weirdness:
Specs on the "Blizzerk 80" are 559x73.
Spec on the "Blizzerk 70" is 559x64. Huh?
So, the "Blizzerk 70" (64 actual) is basically equivalent to a Large Marge (65).
Okay, so 35-65 is their (AlexRims') gap now. That's still a huge gap.
35 could do, though. You could run standard MTB, up to 3.0. I don't think I'd feel comfortable running my 3.5" Sunlite Speedster on crushed rock/unpaved roads though--- or am I being overly cautious?
For Newbies:
Regarding the rear spacing of the Terrex as Bullfrog noted.
A lot of newbies doing research may think of buying what they think is a 'standard' mountain bike (if there is such a thing), not realizing that the spacing may not be matching axle shoulders of the motor they got. As far as I'm concerned, WesNewell is the expert on getting motors to fit into frames they aren't sized-for, so I would point to his posts for newbies who may have gotten into a... jam (not jam nut). 148mm should be the new 'Boost' spacing... whether Terrex really fully follows the Boost standard, or is just 148mm, or whether that even matters, I don't know. How doable it would be for mechanically-wary people to fit it onto a 135mm motor, I don't know. Some cheap Plus bikes are using 155mm rear spacing; I really haven't heard of this elsewhere. Also funky bottom bracket sizes. You'd think it'd be cheaper to just stick with established tooling. I don't know what is up.
After doing some research, I am here on it:
These 2 videos pretty much de-convinced me to keep researching in this direction (right or wrong):
Huffy fortress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_fcNixfU-c
Mongoose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S78kVm7RtY
And this one made me realize something and decide that I, personally, will probably never buy a bike with rim brakes.
I do hear that rim brakes actually perform better on the cheapest bikes than the ones with disk brakes--issues like the disk bending the fork to the left, causing self-steer; rotors out of true, difficulty adjusting, etc. However. The risk of overheating (or other malf's, like pad rubbing on tire) to total failure is much much lower.
Will a Walmart Huffy survive a Downhill Mountain Bike Trail? | Skills with Phil
Watch out, it's about an 8 on a 10-scale pucker factor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMnk_eCDQU&feature=youtu.be&list=PLKhb73W7eMREOqKUAP4u-qXKzvgUy0zGW
You may say, "He rode that bike in conditions it wasn't designed for". Yeah, but what are we doing with ebikes?! Being able to go 30 is pretty dommon outside of entry-level, torque-oriented, and socialism-marxism-fascism-leftism-authoritarianism-loving, lawfully-castrated eURO-bikes. The increased range and increase in sustainable speed gives us the ability to access places we couldn't before, including areas where we might have sustained downhill. The cheap rim-brake bikes are clearly not up to sustained downhill, especially on the original pads. The FIRST upgrade you should, no MUST do as an e-biker, in my non-expert but researched opinion, is get quality 3rd-party replacement pads. I hear it will also help on that horrible noise. This bike isn't alone on this. They all do it. Here is WesNewell's Fortress. Wes if you read this, respect. Just linking as an example of the sound, which, in fairness, you said in the video you were planning on getting better pads too. [Note: actual pics of the bike is at the very end.]
MXUS 3000 on Huffy Fortress 3.0 24s lipo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w97n4ig8254
A Mongoose Ledge dual suspension fares better in the first videos here. But only after a complete rebuild of the bike. This shows me that whoever is buying these bikes, should basically have full-fledged bike mechanic skills (and the patience required to do so), or be having sex with someone who does. The sad thing is, most people buying bikes like these, and who I think the bikes are really aimed at from a marketing standpoint, are at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Cheap Bikes & Torture Tests [playlist]
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5S7V5NhM8JSRoe6ovF2fifd5L7BsyLRF
This video series also caps my thoughts on entry-level "MTBs": IF you fully tune/re-tune them/maintain them, and IF you keep your riding LIGHT DUTY, AND with a little luck, you'll probably be okay. One thing I don't think anyone will dispute me on, is that (aside from the frame itself), if you test the limits, the components (including critical components) are much easier to damage or break completely, than a higher-quality bike. Basically, the threshold is crossed sooner. And it will almost certainly take more maintenance along the way.
One of the most interesting videos is of bike tires being completely filled with WATER, and ridden, to see how much heavy wheels really affect performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq7fF0_AjW0&index=4&list=PL5S7V5NhM8JSRoe6ovF2fifd5L7BsyLRF
A really interesting thing is, once he was going, things actually felt pretty normal. It was stopping, starting, and trying tricks that needed lots of effort. That seems to match my observation that my fatbike's battery goes down noticeably faster with more starts and stops, no matter how gently I try. I was still amazed at some of the tricks he could still do with water-filled tires.
The final video is '$149 WalMart Enduro bike', or something like that. I want to share my main pick-up there too. 2 trail-biking enthusiasts took a trip to remote & rough Pigsah Nat'l Forest bike trails, and for whatever reason, instead of bringing their good bikes, they bought $150 bikes at the local Wal-Mart. The INTERESTING thing is, they both bought the SAME model [Genesis brand, dual-susp, front disk, threadless steerer]. While they both made the trip together, the cameraman rode faster & harder, just going for it. The buddy tended to lag behind, not pushing the bike as hard. Interestingly, by the end of the trail, the cameraman's bike was completely ruined in multiple ways, while the lag-behind buddy's bike was actually still completely operable! Actually with nothing broken. Same bike model, same assembly line, same trail. This is really interesting, because it nearly pinpoints a fine line between "it's fine", and "total disaster", including very real safety risks (especially since there was no cellphone service, nor emergency vehicle access, on the park's trails). I realized that, by definition, all ebikers are pushing their bikes harder than normal riders. But some people are riding fairly gently, with medium power, on good pavement. WesNewell's suburban riding videos come to mind. But when you're often riding on farm roads, crushed rock, jarring dilapidated pavement, and the occasional bumpy field, like me, things change. I'm reminded of why I bought a front-suspension fatbike in the first place, not that I really knew what I was doing (and I knew that). And for trail riding, well, clearly, all bets are off.
While this is long, I don't post often either, so I put a lot into each post. I hate to say this, but this spate of research has made me appreciate B*kesD*rect bikes more. As much as I dislike the company's marketing strategies, the sales/support staff who are completely inaccessible by phone and randomly blow you off by email, I even dislike the website.. what I <i>can</i> say is, the bikes are solid compared to these entry-level big box bikes, and most importantly, generally not a danger to you as a person--where that certainly cannot be said for far too many of these big box bikes, especially how they're delivered. I'm surprised a class-action lawsuit hasn't arisen yet. Some of the QC stories of these Chinese bikes are just egregious. And it should remind us to always resist socialism/marxism; whatever's going on over there-you don't want it here.
In the '$149 WalMart Enduro bike' Pigsah Nat'l Forest video, this line pretty much summed it up, regarding one bike being completely destroyed, and the other completely fine:
"...it was clear that speed was the major disruptive force on these bikes".
Obviously, he means how hard it's ridden, and in his case, going faster meant more stresses on the bike. And the stresses weren't coming really from the speed itself, but the impacts; however the speed made it worse. It's kind of how comedian Ron White said, 'in a hurricane, it's not the wind that kills ya. It's the stuff IN the wind.' But--speed makes it worse. And speed is what "e" gives us. Range, too. We're going farther, which means more variety of terrain. More uh-ohs, "oh shit" moments, and hitting them harder. I remember I spent the (to me) crazy cash on my bike with bleeding edge features for perceived safety improvements. Buying an entry-level big box Plus bike just for the tires, and tubes, and lace-able rims is tempting, I'll admit--with a frame left over for maybe a 2nd build/to experiment with. I thought I'd probably upgrade the fork and handlebars. But after watching the video, I see now that most of the cheapos have scarily fragile handlebars and quill stemps/headsets--not more-confident threadless steerers. I didn't even know what any of this crap was when I started considering ebikes!
So now, yeah--if I actually thought I might do a conversion to an entry-level BBB [big box bike--there is a forum called bigboxbikes.com, actually], my minimum standard would be disk brakes and threadless headset... which will disqualify LOTS of models. Oh well, probably for the best. Originally, I thought: replacement handlebars are super-cheap (and they are). An ok budget suspension tube ain't much, either. And yeah, the bottom brackets are weak, but I won't pedal much. But then I see that the hubs are also fragile (and definitely need checking/adjusting before riding--beyond most rider's skill level). Okay, the rear 'hub' will actually be the hub motor. Still leaves the front hub (not as big of a deal IMO). Even if just left with the frame, you're still stuck with the overly-weak headset--yikes. Hm.
Also in fairness, in the 'Cheap Bikes & Torture Tests' playlist, the author reviews a Mongoose Dolomite, which broke the Big Box trend by using fairly standard, simple, and durable components--albeit with an inexplicably high-toothed front sprocket. What I drew from this was, a budget mfr can make a reliable, "dare I say, 'safe?'" [quote from the video] cheap bike if they want to, if they keep the gimmicks low, and focus on simplicity and reliability [ridiculous 100mm-rim fat tire gimmick aside].
And, interestingly, WesNewell owns 3 of the 5 bikes reviewed in the above videos. No disrespect, Wes! LOL. Wes was actually important to me and the start of my e-biking. Of all the prominent members here, he was the actually first ebiker I actually zoomed in on. It was due to his signature at the time. He had one bike, and included basically his whole recipe in his signature, which gave me my first real starting point. I really hadn't found full 'recipes' anywhere else. And, like most of us when we're first getting into this, and experiencing 'sticker shock', his 'recipe' was budget-oriented, so less of an initial turn-off, which may have kept me in the game. I strongly considered his recipe, but ultimately began modeling off Neptronix 'recipes', as I began to talk myself into spending 'beaucoup bucks'.
It was, however, almost immediately clear to me that, despite WesNewell's budget approach, he'd forgotten more about bikes than I ever knew. He had enough spare parts from upgrades to build a spare bike, and the knowhow to do it. Whereas, I didn't own a bike. At all, much less spare parts. Nevermind the knowhow. So I somewhat blindly spent more on a bike, somewhat compensating knowledge for money. Now that I know bikes better, the more I researched low-end mountain bikes, the more I began to appreciate mine. It really is a solid bike. And if I didn't have to have the fancy suspension, I could've gotten something just as good, maybe even better-suited for me, for less than half the price, or a few hundred dollars. But that's still 2-4 times more. And while I'll won't controversially say 2-4 times better, I will entertain maybe "2-4 time safer", or likelihood of something going dangerously wrong.
I know there will be newbies doing research, finding this thread doing websearches/all-night research, like I think we've all done on multiple occasions. This was long, but after having gone from zero to actually having some wherewithall, I try to give back with hopefully-accurate, well-reasoned POV's, after being helped so much by others who did the same before me.