E-S Stealth Electric Bike Owners

I took the bike to see a client the other day, he is a local bike shop manager and he is friends with one of my other clients who was an earlier downhill world champ rider, I let him have a go and before he got on I could tell he wanted to hate it ads he was super fit and wondered why he might need a battery to help ride this heavy bike....he came back and asked if he could go for a longer ride...he loved it and was taking pics on his phone!

So many Lycra riders just do not want to listen to the benefits of an ebike and they don't get what it can be used for...he said it was like an electric motor cross bike that was silent.

Brilliant! I am pretty sue Rob Warner would rag the sh*t out of one of these too, he doesnt live that far from you and me, gotta love Rob crikey this was 1998!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqWL3vVpvPk#t=02m54s

Wow Knoxie, was it really 1998? Seem it was only like a couple of years ago.. Oh, yeah - the orange Marzocchi Bomber forks, they pretty much gave birth to freeride.

What was the first MTB video you ever watched? Think it was Vicious Cycle for me, followed by Mud Cows and Chainsmoke.

Good to see you on here knoxie.

Brendan Fairclough lives about 5 miles from my house and when I went round there I saw guys doing amazing stuff on his jump track in the garden whilst he and I had a sensible business meeting, quite odd with blokes doing heel clicks past your window!

full-throttle said:

Wow Knoxie, was it really 1998? Seem it was only like a couple of years ago.. Oh, yeah - the orange Marzocchi Bomber forks, they pretty much gave birth to freeride.

What was the first MTB video you ever watched? Think it was Vicious Cycle for me, followed by Mud Cows and Chainsmoke.

Click to expand...

Hi Mate

Yes I reckon Mudcows was one of the first ones, I also loved the Sprung movies as well, I met rob a few times notably at the Malvern classic back in the day, he was so laid back, although it was clear his good buddy Steve Peat was going on to great things, he was amazing.

Justtoby said:

Good to see you on here knoxie.

Brendan Fairclough lives about 5 miles from my house and when I went round there I saw guys doing amazing stuff on his jump track in the garden whilst he and I had a sensible business meeting, quite odd with blokes doing heel clicks past your window!

Click to expand...

Oh right cool!! yes I used to be pretty handy on a bike certainly when it came to riding on just one wheel! ha ha, but when you see these young kids up at the jumps they are just mind blowing, the stuff they are doing now is awesome hey you should be able to get that bike of yours out in the snow this weekend

Took my Fighter for a ride to Homebush Olyimpic park (where the Sydney 2000 Olympics were held) and took some video. This was on my old Oregon Scientific extreme sports cam, so quality ain't that good, especially sound.

I mounted the camera to the cross bar on the front forks just above the wheel. It was a tight squeeze, but I managed to fit it with about a cm to spare from the camera rubbing the tire. The angle of the mount meant that bottoming out the suspension didn't cause the camera to hit the frame at all.

On the way I tried to cut across an oval to do a jump I've done before. This time I kinda failed though. :lol:
[youtube]hAbMGTu2ks4[/youtube]

This is just a nice area of Homebush to ride in. I especially like the fountains.
[youtube]x_y5OOGXNM4[/youtube]

So I attempted to ride up this really steep track on the side of this hill. Half way up I had to stop cause my handle bars rotated forwards on me. Guess I didn't do em up tight enough when I first got the bike. :lol:
[youtube]13d64HLyeL4[/youtube]

This was on the other side. It's a lot steeper than it looks. I forgot I had the rear suspension leaver set to firm so the rear was bouncing all over the place, and the back wheel was locked up the whole time. It's the front you can hear squealing.
[youtube]m5tS1NPi3A4[/youtube]

After this decent one of the rear wheel dropouts had slid backwards and the rear wheel was rubbing on the side of the swing arm. As I didn't have a spanner large enough with me I just had to kick it back into place and ride home...carefully. Now I carry a spanner with me at all times.

Cheers

Thanks for posting. Nice vids

It sounds like you need to do a spanner check all over your bike.

I have never had anything other than the side panels come loose and that from where I first fitted the battery and forgot to tighten up fully once the battery had settled in to place on the foam.

Thought this was good picture of a group of Stealth's taken on a recent cruise by full-throttle.

I think it's t3sla's picture, mine is somewhere down on this page

Great ride BTW!

I ended up using 17Ah, going from 4.15V per cell to 3.68V - not bad for a 70km trip!

The motor got very warm by the end, wish I had these stickers on Fri

You are right. My appologies to t3sla.

I like your photo too.

Nice, we must have nearly enough stealth owners in Sydney now to have a meet up
I'll organise one in a few months

As per my build thread here's a quick run of me testing the new motor on my fighter yesterday - nothing too exciting just a few flybys

[youtube]82G_IneeEvw[/youtube]

full-throttle said:

I ended up using 17Ah, going from 4.15V per cell to 3.68V - not bad for a 70km trip!

The motor got very warm by the end, wish I had these stickers on Fri

Click to expand...

It was a good pace on the way back that is for sure. The two Bombers and Fighter were staying with the traffic for most of the time. I did 90km and ended up using about 14Ah (at 120V though) Used 4Ah for the first half and 10Ah on the way home. :lol:

full-throttle said:

I think it's t3sla's picture, mine is somewhere down on this page

Great ride BTW!

I ended up using 17Ah, going from 4.15V per cell to 3.68V - not bad for a 70km trip!

The motor got very warm by the end, wish I had these stickers on Fri

Click to expand...

Yeah, there the one's I've got on. Hyena tested it, and at 60C on the external cover the windings are at 90C, so I might buy a bunch of the 30-60C one's as well for my Fighter cause that's a little too hot if you ask me.

Kepler said:

It was a good pace on the way back that is for sure. The two Bombers and Fighter were staying with the traffic for most of the time. I did 90km and ended up using about 14Ah (at 120V though) Used 4Ah for the first half and 10Ah on the way home. :lol:

Click to expand...

Were you guy's cruisin without much stop start?

I never see such good range per AH. Best I've seen so far has been around 11.5Ah for 35km.

I do tend to WOT a lot though, and my tires are not very efficient. Worst I've seen was 19.7Ah for 29km.

Hyena said:

Nice, we must have nearly enough stealth owners in Sydney now to have a meet up
I'll organise one in a few months

Click to expand...

That'd be awesome. I'm keen.

Cheers

Cowardlyduck said:

Yeah, there the one's I've got on. Hyena tested it, and at 60C on the external cover the windings are at 90C, so I might buy a bunch of the 30-60C one's as well for my Fighter cause that's a little too hot if you ask me.

Click to expand...

I only care about magnets and enamel on the windings, so 70-80degC external will do for now. So tempted to drill the covers..

Kepler said:

It was a good pace on the way back that is for sure. The two Bombers and Fighter were staying with the traffic for most of the time. I did 90km and ended up using about 14Ah (at 120V though)

Click to expand...

It was so much fun seeing drivers reaction as you guys passed cars lightly pedaling :lol: Oh yeah, my pack is 16S - 66.4V at the start, 58.9V at the end. The last 20km were on the same route as my everyday commute, so I took the opportunity to explore all the shortcuts involving dropping off some retaining walls that my hardtail wouldn't like.

On a slightly related note - scored 4x HWS600-24 power supplies (similar to MW 600W) today! In a nice metal box. Lab clean up :lol: Should be able to charge my pack in under an hour 8)

full-throttle said:

So tempted to drill the covers..

Click to expand...

Hang off on that, I'm working on some sweet CNC side cover designs that will look better than simple drill holes.
Hows about a series of lightning bolt air holes around the outer rim of the hub ? 8)

On a slightly related note - scored 4x HWS600-24 power supplies (similar to MW 600W) today! In a nice metal box. Lab clean up :lol: Should be able to charge my pack in under an hour 8)

Click to expand...

Surely you only need 2 and want to give the other 2 to me :wink:

Sounds good! Would go well with HopeTech Gothic rotors

Just avoid sharp corners, don't want any stress concentrators.

The supplies are 24V/27A nominal, adjustable 19.2~28.8V so I'll need 3 of them (57.6~86.4V)

full-throttle said:

Sounds good! Would go well with HopeTech Gothic rotors
Just avoid sharp corners, don't want any stress concentrators.

Click to expand...

Yeah thats along the lines of what I was thinking, though probably a little more spread out to make the shape more well defined (and not weaken the side covers too much) There won't be any corners too sharp, the CNC bits I've looked at only go down to 3mm so everything will be rounded. It might be a bit too hard to produce good looking lightning bolts actually...

The supplies are 24V/27A nominal, adjustable 19.2~28.8V so I'll need 3 of them (57.6~86.4V)

Click to expand...

Nice, that's closer to 700w 8)
Shoot me a PM with a price if you feel like parting with the other one - I parallel charge in groups of 6S so one set to 25.1v and belting out 27a would make a nice "little" bulk charger

Hyena said:

As per my build thread here's a quick run of me testing the new motor on my fighter yesterday - nothing too exciting just a few flybys

Click to expand...

Do you need brakes hyena, i thought you were using your bare plates of meat in the video :lol:
Nicely exfoliating on cornering.

Those fly by vids really give a good feeling of speed, how fast were you going (on a closed road of course)


I cannot work out why we do not have aluminium heat sinks on the outside of the motor covers in the air flow. My 911 has what they call "ducks feet" that hang down in the airflow an push air on to the brakes, I wonder if this would work on the hub motors too.

It wouldn't be that hard to have a small water pump running on a small radiator if someone could design this on to the hub. Subarus used to run a water spray on to the inter cooler, maybe we need a full throttle switch to give a mist on to a heat sink.

Whilst people are talking of cooling.....I was sat with a guy who has invested heavily in renewable energy. He showed me a motor for the car industry that produces 100bhp. It looked not much bigger than my bomber motor but one of the key ingredients was that it has cooling unions on the middle (I.e. in between where the spokes would be on a bike) and it could run water or oil cooling. Could you imagine even half that power on a bomber!

This would have to be tested, but it may work. 2 years ago I wrapped a soaking wet heavy cotton sock around my currie motor when it was 100 degrees outside. I thought it might of stayed cooler, but I have doubts due to reduced airflow.

Someone could prob fab up an 'ice pack' to be wrapped around a hub motor. Would work for a short while, perhaps just enough time for you guys. How much energy (watts) would it take to turn 3lbs of ice into 150 F degree water?

A misting system may be a good bet though. We have those here in Austin - to keep bar/restaurant patrons cool while outside in the summer.

Or have some CNC heatsink work done on aluminum stock that hug the hub well, inside the spoke area.

..or just do what keyne did viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26029 :wink: 8)

Hi, can I ask your opinions please, I've been reading this owners thread over the last couple of weeks with much interest as I'm very keen on the Stealth Bikes and I am considering a purchase soon,( another UK owner , Manchester), however the more I read it seems that new/existing owners are reporting quite a few problems with their bikes
I would hope that a purchase of a £7000-£9000 electric bike would be mostly reliable out of the box and I'm worried that as I'm not very technically minded
I would not be able to fix the niggles easily and would have to be dealing to and fro with Australia :?
Any opinions would be appreciated.

Cheers

Fraser

I dont see too many problems mentioned here, except where people are expanding their machines' capabilities beyond the factory spec... Just do it!

On the whole the bikes are very reliable, people swapping batteries out is a personal thing doesnt mean there is anything wrong with the cells they ship with the bikes, this is a tinkers forum after all so its no surprise folks are upgrading. If I had the money I would buy one hands down, Justoby is setting himself up as a UK dealer so speak to him if you are serious, if they are serious with the local suppliers then they must arm them with all the replacements that might be needed IMHO as I agree that shipping parts to and from OZ isnt acceptable esp if you are using your bike to commute on etc, it must be said that the factory response to faults does seem very good.