Giant Trance X1 build for MAX range

dirt huffer · Jul 31, 2018

I picked up a 2013 Trance size XL to build a long range full suspension. I normally ride a large, but i'm going to put a 30mm stem on it so that it fits me. Stand-over height isn't an issue on this bike, even with it being a size larger, i have plenty of clearance.

Here are the plans:
1500w Leaf 5t hub motor
Custom battery - either 52v or 84v
Custom handmade frame bag
Phaserunner
Cycle Analyst
140mm X-Fusion Velvet fork (rear has 120mm travel)
203mm rotors
4-piston Shimano Zee brakes
Maxxis Holy Roller 2.4" tires

5-2-19 EDIT:
After build

billvon · Jul 31, 2018

dirt huffer said:
I picked up a 2013 Trance size XL to build a long range full suspension. I normally ride a large, but i'm going to put a 30mm stem on it so that it fits me. Stand-over height isn't an issue on this bike, even with it being a size larger, i have plenty of clearance.

You'll lose some of the benefit of the suspension with that heavy a motor. A cheaper full suspension bike might have made more sense given that you're paying for a lot of suspension - suspension that won't have as big an effect as it would normally.

dirt huffer · Jul 31, 2018

billvon said:
dirt huffer said:

I picked up a 2013 Trance size XL to build a long range full suspension. I normally ride a large, but i'm going to put a 30mm stem on it so that it fits me. Stand-over height isn't an issue on this bike, even with it being a size larger, i have plenty of clearance.

Click to expand...

You'll lose some of the benefit of the suspension with that heavy a motor. A cheaper full suspension bike might have made more sense given that you're paying for a lot of suspension - suspension that won't have as big an effect as it would normally.

I'll tune the shock and fork to better manage the weight. Maybe i'll send it to PUSH Industries to get re-valved. I'm pretty light weight myself, so hopefully it doesn't suck too bad. This is my first build. I've been mountain biking for many years and this is just something to tide me over until I return from ankle injuries. If it sucks too bad, i'll swap over to a MAC or something...

billvon · Jul 31, 2018

dirt huffer said:
I'll tune the shock and fork to better manage the weight. Maybe i'll send it to PUSH Industries to get re-valved. I'm pretty light weight myself, so hopefully it doesn't suck too bad. This is my first build. I've been mountain biking for many years and this is just something to tide me over until I return from ankle injuries. If it sucks too bad, i'll swap over to a MAC or something...

Let us know how it goes.

I tried this one on an older Kona Kikapu (26" full susp) and the ride from my perception didn't get worse - but the rear wheel tended to stay planted less over rough/rocky trails. But for less aggressive trails it might not be very perceptible.

dirt huffer · Aug 4, 2018

Well I've been trying to figure out what way I want to go with the battery. I can do two 20s6p packs or a single 20s12p pack. The idea with doing 2 packs is I could shed weight when I didn't need the high capacity and I could shorten my charge time by being able to have both packs charging at the same time.

If I go with a single pack I'd like to get a higher amp charger. Not sure if I'll go with GA or 35e cells yet. Seems like most people limit they're charge amps to 5. I'd like to go higher, but not sure how high I can go, or what the charge time would look like. Ideally I'd like it to be 2 hours. That way when I'm on the road I can find a power spot and hangout and charge up.

dirt huffer · Aug 19, 2018

Well I got the bike fitting well now. I'm really liking the ultra short 30mm stem and long top tube of the XL frame. I never thought i'd like riding an XL frame, but this frame feels roomy, yet my body feels natural and not stretched out. I feel like I'm steering a downhill bike and I have lots of control. The wide 760mm handlebar helps with this too.

The headtube angle is a hair on the steep side for me so I might install a Works Components angle headset to slacken the fork out a degree or two. I'm going to see how the bike handles as an eBike first.

Now on to the motor. Leaf advertised the latest motor as having 3mm phase wires... well im measuring 1.8mm with insulation. These wires are tiny and not very highly stranded. I'll probably remedy this before installing the motor. The wiring will do for now as I test everything.

thundercamel · Aug 19, 2018

I like the build, and will keep watching for updates!

dirt huffer · Aug 20, 2018

Been gathering ideas for a custom frame bag. I have a few places in mind that could make it for me at a reasonable price. I'd like to do this rope idea with neon green rope. The rest of the bag black, maybe with some dark grey. I'll have some internal velcro straps sewed in and some slits in the front and back to run wire into and out of the bag

Wish these Cycle Analyists were a little more low profile. This will have to do

hypertoric_amplituhedron · Aug 20, 2018

dirt huffer said:
Well I've been trying to figure out what way I want to go with the battery. I can do two 20s6p packs or a single 20s12p pack. The idea with doing 2 packs is I could shed weight when I didn't need the high capacity and I could shorten my charge time by being able to have both packs charging at the same time.

If I go with a single pack I'd like to get a higher amp charger. Not sure if I'll go with GA or 35e cells yet. Seems like most people limit they're charge amps to 5. I'd like to go higher, but not sure how high I can go, or what the charge time would look like. Ideally I'd like it to be 2 hours. That way when I'm on the road I can find a power spot and hangout and charge up.

I have a 24s11p of GA cells, and I can charge at 18 amps safely without hurting cycle life. The battery box gets a little warm over ambient, but never hot, and you won't need to charge for more than 30 min anyways. Most high end li-ion cells can take a 0.5C charge no problem.

Me, personally, I'd go with the single 20s12p pack. You'll start off having more juice than you ever know what to do with. But, give it 1000 miles, and you'll master the art of deep cycling whatever you've got. But, it depends on how you ride the bike. I'm on smooth roads and bike trails for 95% of the time. For off-road riding, you may actually want the 20s6p , which you can charge at 9 amps safely.

Before you decide on cells, just know that the GA will sag like a mutha. They're great for 0.2C and 0.5C riding, but 1C will really bring the volts down. Had I known this beforehand, I would have gone with 30Q , which has a great discharge and sag property, while only sacrificing 0.5 ah over the GA.

dirt huffer · Aug 21, 2018

hypertoric_amplituhedron said:
I have a 24s11p of GA cells, and I can charge at 18 amps safely without hurting cycle life. The battery box gets a little warm over ambient, but never hot, and you won't need to charge for more than 30 min anyways. Most high end li-ion cells can take a 0.5C charge no problem.

Me, personally, I'd go with the single 20s12p pack. You'll start off having more juice than you ever know what to do with. But, give it 1000 miles, and you'll master the art of deep cycling whatever you've got. But, it depends on how you ride the bike. I'm on smooth roads and bike trails for 95% of the time. For off-road riding, you may actually want the 20s6p , which you can charge at 9 amps safely.

Before you decide on cells, just know that the GA will sag like a mutha. They're great for 0.2C and 0.5C riding, but 1C will really bring the volts down. Had I known this beforehand, I would have gone with 30Q , which has a great discharge and sag property, while only sacrificing 0.5 ah over the GA.

Good points about sag and charge amps. The 30Q should save me quite a bit of money too. I don't think ill need the extra capacity of the GA cell. Before I injured my achilles, I'd do a 100+ mile pedal ride once a year just to prove i still had it in me. Now i just need to prove my back, arms, hands, neck are strong enough to do a 100mile ride :lol:

dirt huffer · Aug 23, 2018

I installed a set of offset bushing from offsetbushings.com today. These lowered my bottom bracket height a small amount and slackened my headtube angle up to a degree and a half. I don't have anything to measure headtube angle that is accurate but i believe i'm sitting right where i want it to be. Bottom bracket height is always a concern on a full suspension bike, mostly for pedal strikes, but since this bike will be throttle only, pedal strikes wont be an issue. One of the greatest benefits of lowering the bottom bracket height is better cornering. So i get the added stability of having a slacker headtube angle and a lower BB height all for $30... not back when you consider the price of an angle headset from Works Components 8)

999zip999 · Aug 31, 2018

I like it the rear Dropout is 140 142 could I fit a muxus 3000 Hub motor in the rear. And why are they so expensive 2009 and he wanted 1200 for it.. 400 in the blue book. what did you pay for yours if I may ask and where did you find it ?

dirt huffer · Sep 3, 2018

999zip999 said:
I like it the rear Dropout is 140 142 could I fit a muxus 3000 Hub motor in the rear. And why are they so expensive 2009 and he wanted 1200 for it.. 400 in the blue book. what did you pay for yours if I may ask and where did you find it ?

I found mine on eBay. Took a number of messages to talk the guy down in price. I looked on Pinkbike and Searchallcriags too

Anyways, i was able to talk the guy down from $1500 to $1100. The bike was hardly rode... Looked almost new so I didn't mind paying a bit more than what I had budgeted. Plus I knew it would be hard to find another XL frame.

I recommend reminding the seller that hardly anyone is looking to buy a 26" bike anymore (other than eBikers) especially if it's a large or XL. And if it has a straight headtube, not a lot of options for a quality replacement fork once the anodizing wears off the stanchions (although this is changing as demand increases to keep old bikes alive). Also they arnt making new tire molds for new high end 26" rubber as far as I've seen.

Some ppl are asking crazy prices for 26" bikes, but once they realize no one wants to buy their old junk, they'll be more open to negotiating price.

2013 was the last year for 135mm hub on the Trance. 2014 they went 27.5" with 142mm hub and ditched the straight top tube. The Giant Reign might have a 142mm for 2013...

dirt huffer · Mar 30, 2019

Some updated pictures

E-HP · Mar 31, 2019

Turned out great. Did you meet your long range goals? Must have a heck of a range.

PS. How do you like those Holy Rollers? I'm thinking about getting a pair and maybe mounting them tubeless. Did you black out the logos, or did they come that way?

motomech · Mar 31, 2019

He may have mounted the tires so the writing is on the other side.
Years ago, I got a smoking deal on the already cheap 2.4" Holly Rollers and bought 6 of them. I still run them on the frt., but they were prone to flats on the rear. The actual carcass is wafer thin and spines and thorns would go between the blocks.
These days I use Crazy Bobs on the rear, twice the price, but at least twice the tire. They are a much stronger tire.
For a while, I mounted the HR's ghetto tubeless and had a cactus spine go thru the thin sidewall. They were a pain to mount and I had to buy a new a new 20" tube every time I had the tire off(Have to cut the tube for the ghetto mount).
Now I run the Crazy Bob w/ a great extra thick Kenda tube and have been flat free for a couple of years(Knock on wood).

E-HP · Mar 31, 2019

motomech said:
He may have mounted the tires so the writing is on the other side.
Years ago, I got a smoking deal on the already cheap 2.4" Holly Rollers and bought 6 of them. I still run them on the frt., but they were prone to flats on the rear. The actual carcass is wafer thin and spines and thorns would go between the blocks.
These days I use Crazy Bobs on the rear, twice the price, but at least twice the tire. They are a much stronger tire.
For a while, I mounted the HR's ghetto tubeless and had a cactus spine go thru the thin sidewall. They were a pain to mount and I had to buy a new a new 20" tube every time I had the tire off(Have to cut the tube for the ghetto mount).
Now I run the Crazy Bob w/ a great extra thick Kenda tube and have been flat free for a couple of years(Knock on wood).

Good advice. I've found a few older posts on the forum and noticed that a lot of the same folks have moved on to other tires. How are the Crazy Bobs for hard pack or fire roads. I want good rolling to the trail, but OK traction off road, but not anything major.

motomech · Mar 31, 2019

All the low-profile, closed block read tires are going to feel about the same on hard pack, which is to say, pretty good. The low profile, open tread(more like nubs, rather than knobs) would be better, but they wear too fast on black top.
It's everything else, sand, mud, etc where they suck and full-on knobbies are the ticket.
I actually have a complete set whls/tires w/ the hub motors that I can swap out that run Kenda Nevegals, but I seldom use them;

The Nevegals are a good compromise but biased more towards off-road. Where the Crazy Bobs are something like 30% dirt and 70% road, the Kendas are the inverse. At least they don't "jiggle" the rider going down the hiway.

dirt huffer · Apr 1, 2019

E-HP said:
Turned out great. Did you meet your long range goals? Must have a heck of a range.

PS. How do you like those Holy Rollers? I'm thinking about getting a pair and maybe mounting them tubeless. Did you black out the logos, or did they come that way?

I had to adjust my budget mid-build after I purchased Commencal Meta Power for trail riding. This build is my city/commuter bike. I ended up buying a 52V 20Ah 14S made with MJ1 cells from U.P.P. There is a ton of space left in the bag for expansion if/when I need – so that’s good! I’ll take pictures of the inside of the bag later…

I like the 2.4” Holy Rollers…. I put Bontrager TRL tire sealant in the tubes to prevent flats. I got these Holy Rollers for super cheap, otherwise I might have bought Schwalbe tires… which I think are a bit better looking IMO.

A black paint marker murdered out the side wall print.

thorlancaster328 · Apr 2, 2019

It's nice having a bike with room for lots of batteries in the frame triangle. From the picture, I'm guessing that you could put upwards of 2 KW in there and get upwards of 60 miles of real range.

Have you considered building your own battery packs? I get my cells from NKON and they are about twice as cheap as anything I can buy pre-made (without counting my own labor).

dirt huffer · Apr 2, 2019

thorlancaster328 said:
It's nice having a bike with room for lots of batteries in the frame triangle. From the picture, I'm guessing that you could put upwards of 2 KW in there and get upwards of 60 miles of real range.

Have you considered building your own battery packs? I get my cells from NKON and they are about twice as cheap as anything I can buy pre-made (without counting my own labor).

Building my own pack is definitely something im considering for my next pack. I did quite a bit of mulling over building my own pack at first, but got hooked into a Black Friday special U.P.P. had. Good to know about NKON! Are you welding or soldering? I've been thinking of buying a spot welder but don't know what to get

thorlancaster328 · Apr 2, 2019

I build my packs by soldering. I use a high-power temperature controlled iron with a fat tip, along with 16awg copper wire to make connections. Before soldering the negative wires on, I tin all the negative terminals using aluminum flux and a temperature of 350°C. As soon as the solder starts sticking (around 3 seconds), I remove the iron. After tinning all the negative terminals, I wipe off the acidic flux residue with alcohol and a rag.

After building. I glue zip tie straps under the wires to eliminate the possibility of "shoulder shorts" that could cause catastrophic failure.

If you elect to go the soldering route, I'd advise practicing on old cells and keep the heating as short as possible.

Using this method, It took me about 16 hours of labor to make a 1.3 Kwh pack.

thundercamel · Apr 2, 2019

I can say that the Malectrics spot welder worked well for me. A user named Flippy recommended it to me, and it looks like he builds lots of battery packs. What he originally recommended to me is copied below, and you can view the link in my signature to see what I actually bought if you would like. I personally wouldn't solder 18650 cells.

flippy said:
as mentioned in the other topic some stuff for spot welding:

welder:
https://malectrics.eu/product/diy-arduino-battery-spot-welder-kit-v3-2-2-full_bundle_car_battery/
add cheap 40$ car battery yourself and prehaps a small board like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LM2596-DC-DC-Step-Down-Adjustable-CC-CV-Power-Supply-Module-Buck-Converter/173317274094
hook it up to a old laptop charger and set to 14.4V @ 2A or so to charge the battery if you dont have a proper battery charger

enough nickel strip to last you a good while:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1kg-roll-Thickness-0-2mm-High-Quality-low-resistance-99-96-pure-nickel-Strip-Sheets-for/32864774543.html
get the 8mm strip.

cell holders:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5Pcs-4x5-Cell-Spacer-18650-Battery-Radiating-Shell-Pack-Plastic-Heat-Holder-Heat-Rack-100-Original/32802485484.html

that should get you going making some proper reliable packs.

pro tip: first you weld the series strips and you put the parralel strips on top of those. also extent one parralel strip on eahc group so you can connect the balance wire from the bms on the side so you get a perfectly flat top you and insulate.

dirt huffer · Apr 3, 2019

@thorlancaster328 :thumb:

thundercamel said:
I can say that the Malectrics spot welder worked well for me. A user named Flippy recommended it to me, and it looks like he builds lots of battery packs. What he originally recommended to me is copied below, and you can view the link in my signature to see what I actually bought if you would like. I personally wouldn't solder 18650 cells.

flippy said:

as mentioned in the other topic some stuff for spot welding:

welder:
https://malectrics.eu/product/diy-arduino-battery-spot-welder-kit-v3-2-2-full_bundle_car_battery/
add cheap 40$ car battery yourself and prehaps a small board like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LM2596-DC-DC-Step-Down-Adjustable-CC-CV-Power-Supply-Module-Buck-Converter/173317274094
hook it up to a old laptop charger and set to 14.4V @ 2A or so to charge the battery if you dont have a proper battery charger

enough nickel strip to last you a good while:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1kg-roll-Thickness-0-2mm-High-Quality-low-resistance-99-96-pure-nickel-Strip-Sheets-for/32864774543.html
get the 8mm strip.

cell holders:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5Pcs-4x5-Cell-Spacer-18650-Battery-Radiating-Shell-Pack-Plastic-Heat-Holder-Heat-Rack-100-Original/32802485484.html

that should get you going making some proper reliable packs.

pro tip: first you weld the series strips and you put the parralel strips on top of those. also extent one parralel strip on eahc group so you can connect the balance wire from the bms on the side so you get a perfectly flat top you and insulate.

Click to expand...

Awesome, i'll look into that stuff! I think my next pack will be big enough to warrant a purchase of a welder to save on time 8)

dirt huffer · Apr 30, 2019

Pretty thrilled with my build so far. Last thing to do is set up the Regen. Not sure the best way to go about this. I have a Grin Tripwire Ebrake Cutoff that ill try on my front brake lever. Im not running a rear brake... i could possibly mount a small lever on the right side of the handlebar to operate the regen independent of the front brake - which might be nice. I guess ill try installing the Ebrake cutoff switch on the front brake first and see how i like it

Giant Trance X1 build for MAX range

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