2019 Crust Evasion, Bafang BBS02 -> BBSHD, microSHIFT 9-speed drivetrain

[Mongo]

This frameset has had many configuration lives - as of now, the build specs are as follows:

• Crust Evasion medium frameset - steel frame tubes, fattish tire clearance with a narrowish Q, adjustable, replaceable 135mm rear dropouts with an inboard (within the frame triangle) disk caliper mount. For the drive side chain stay, the frame has a short length of flat stock - fairly common on cross or mountain steel frames these days, I think. It'll clear up to about 42T (tested with a BBSHD Luna Eclipse and a BBS02 40T Lekkie - overkill for the tiny CYC Photon secondary gear case)
• 73mm English BB
• Crust Clydesdale front fork
• 52-volt 17-25AH downtube mounted tray-style batteries
• BBS02B mid-drive, with the bbs-fw open-source firmware, swapped to a stock BBSHD (see below)
• Lekkie 160mm -> Shimano STEPS FC-E5010 165mm crank arms
• Lekkie 40-tooth chain ring
• KMC X9.93 9-speed chain
• microSHIFT 11-38T 9-speed cassette, derailleur, and trigger shifter
• 20 by 2.35 Schwalbe PICK-UP front tire on a Saltplus Summit rim
• 27.5 by 2.35 Schwalbe PICK-UP rear tire on a Velocity Cliffhanger rim
• TRP Spyre cable brake calipers
• Soma flat bars
• Portland Design Works rear rack
• Banjo Brothers Market Panniers
• generic plastic front crate

The front crate holds 3 upright paper grocery bags, and the rear panniers hold slightly more than one bag each. Not the best bike for the job as there's no proper dual-leg kickstand plate, but is manageable if I turn the bars full right when loading it up.

 

[123fast]

 

[Mongo]

Hummm, that would have been a heluva waste of food ...

While riding back with a full load of groceries, up a hill, 90+ degree temperature, in especially heavy traffic mix of cars to semi-trailer trucks (so I was pushing max throttle power/speed - 28 amps), the BBS02 started binding up the spindle. I could feel a lot of drag while pedaling - never experienced that before with any BBS motor. The motor drive / secondary gear speed didn't appear to slow down any.

Once I got out of the worst of the traffic, I eased it down to my preferred 20MPH pace, and after a little bit the binding cleared up. I've no idea what the motor temp(s) got to (no data display), and after getting home and unloading the groceries, the motor case was too hot to handle.

It still got the groceries home at a much quicker pace than I can pedal. They don't call the BBS motors workhorses for nothing. I think I rode this BBS02 to exhaustion.

I've swapped it with a "vintage" stock BBSHD, thinking that I better have a look-see and sniff-test the BBS02's innards.

 

[Mongo]

It's parts-swapping day, and I'm converting this bike to be more stock-ish. While it worked for grocery hauling, with a full load (groceries, 2-3 gallons of tea, a couple of laundry detergent jugs, and whatever else) it was too sketchy to steer one-handed at speed - hand-signaling a turn, for example.

I'm handing the grocery-lugging chore to a Salsa Marrakesh with a "big block" modified BBSHD.

This will be the third rebirth of this frameset, and it's had quite a variety of wheel/tire sizes thrown at it. As of today, it has an "old reliable" BBSHD motor, 27.5 wheels, and gravel-ish Marathon Plus MTB 2.25" tires:


Of all of the configurations I've put this frameset through, this latest seems to be its happy place.