BMC 600w kit first ride

[aaronski]

I just got home from my first ride on my new BMC kit. Wow, it is awesome. My goal was to ride from my house to my friends house 24 miles and 8 towns away.

I figured there was no way my 10ah LifePo battery could make the trip, as my 12ah SLA's died 8 miles into the last attempt. I started with a 1500 foot elevation drop then up and down 500 foot elevation changes a dozen or so times along the way, 5 miles offroad and on the beach before arriving at his house.The battery made it, never dropping below 48 volts, and only using 7.5ah out of the pack and averaging 17mph.

The motor has plenty of power with the BMC 30 amp controller. I climbed hills there's no way I could climb without it, dropping down to about 12mph when I was out of energy to pedal, or keeping about 17 mph with WOT and pedaling decently hard. it was about 70 degrees Fahrenheit out and the motor barely got warm, same with controller and battery.

I couldn't figure out a good way to mount the battery so I just stuck it in a backpack. At 10 lbs it's a tad heavy but you forget about it after a while. It got warm but not hot in the backpack, so I think that is where it will stay.

The the only con's I've found are the throttle response is laggy and the throttle is pretty twitchy. You give it half throttle and nothing happens, give it 10% more and it feels like full throttle, go wot and you can't really feel a difference. There is so much torque on this motor that you can't power the bike while you walk, it's either no power or wheelie time.

I got the kit from Cycle9.com and was very impressed with them as well. it took 8 days from order to delivery and that included some battery burn in time and a wheel build. They were also super helpful every step of the way, as I didn't really know what I was doing. They gave me a breakdown of exactly what to expect from each of my configuration choices in terms of top speed, hill climbing, reliability and range, and having taken it for a ride they were exactly right. They didn't oversell anything which is nice.

For those in the San Francisco area here is the route-
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sou...22.219124&sspn=0.197738,0.445976&ie=UTF8&z=12

 

[Sacman]

I just got home from my first ride on my new BMC kit. Wow, it is awesome. My goal was to ride from my house to my friends house 24 miles and 8 towns away.

I figured there was no way my 10ah LifePo battery could make the trip, as my 12ah SLA's died 8 miles into the last attempt. I started with a 1500 foot elevation drop then up and down 500 foot elevation changes a dozen or so times along the way, 5 miles offroad and on the beach before arriving at his house.The battery made it, never dropping below 48 volts, and only using 7.5ah out of the pack and averaging 17mph.

The motor has plenty of power with the BMC 30 amp controller. I climbed hills there's no way I could climb without it, dropping down to about 12mph when I was out of energy to pedal, or keeping about 17 mph with WOT and pedaling decently hard. it was about 70 degrees Fahrenheit out and the motor barely got warm, same with controller and battery.

The the only con's I've found are the throttle response is laggy and the throttle is pretty twitchy. You give it half throttle and nothing happens, give it 10% more and it feels like full throttle, go wot and you can't really feel a difference. There is so much torque on this motor that you can't power the bike while you walk, it's either no power or wheelie time.

Thanks for the report. Is your BMC motor the 600W TORQUE or SPEED version? I've got the 600W Torque.
At 48V how fast did it do WOT on the flats, no pedaling?
Do you have a Cycle Analyst hooked up and if so do you know your wattage when cruising WOT on the flats and when climbing hills?

You're about the 3rd person who's made the comment that the throttle used with their BMC motor is twitchy and feeling like it's either all on or all off and very little variable range in between. What throttle are you using. I'm using a standard half-twist grip throttle with no LEDs from Justin at Renassaince Bicycle, in Canada and mine actually feels fine with lots of variable range.

 

[dogman dan]

I had a similar issue with my EVG, heinzmann motor. Very hard to get off on a really steep hill and use the throttle to motor the bike up the hill. Wheelie time for sure with all that torque. Fine on the flat, but on a steep grade you're halfway to wheelie allready. I wanted that motor too, but then found a deal on a used x5 and went that route.

 

[aaronski]

Thanks for the report. Is your BMC motor the 600W TORQUE or SPEED version? I've got the 600W Torque.
At 48V how fast did it do WOT on the flats, no pedaling?
Do you have a Cycle Analyst hooked up and if so do you know your wattage when cruising WOT on the flats and when climbing hills?

600W Torque. I live on a monster hill.
I think it went around 24-26 mph WOT on the flats, no pedaling. How about yourself? BTW, I'm 230 pounds on a 26" mountain bike.
I do have a CA hooked up. I think hillclimb was around 1000-1100 watts uphill. I didn't leave it WOT on the flats for long due to not having a rear break. I need to fix that someday...

dogman, I thought about the X5, but I have to carry this bike up and down several flights of stairs a day. Cutting 10+Lbs off the frame was a huge plus. now maybe for a recreation bike I'll do 96v on an x5, that should scream by comparison, yes?

 

[Sacman]

Thanks for the report. Is your BMC motor the 600W TORQUE or SPEED version? I've got the 600W Torque.
At 48V how fast did it do WOT on the flats, no pedaling?
Do you have a Cycle Analyst hooked up and if so do you know your wattage when cruising WOT on the flats and when climbing hills?

600W Torque. I live on a monster hill.
I think it went around 24-26 mph WOT on the flats, no pedaling. How about yourself? BTW, I'm 230 pounds on a 26" mountain bike.
I do have a CA hooked up. I think hillclimb was around 1000-1100 watts uphill. I didn't leave it WOT on the flats for long due to not having a rear break. I need to fix that someday...

Nice to see the comparisons since you have a BMC 600W Torque motor as well.
I'm also running my BMC motor on a 26" mountain bike and my rider weight is 250 pounds.
Difference is that I'm running at 72V 10Ah LiFePO4 batteries with a 50A Crystalyte controller.
I'm getting 33-34mph WOT on flat ground no pedaling (36mph with pedaling) and burning 900watts.
On 5% grade hills WOT I can do 19-21mph no pedaling and burning up 1600watts
On 10% grade hills WOT I can do 13-14mph no pedaling and burning up 1800watts
I haven't tried it on a monster hill with 23% grade like yours yet.
I should mention that my LiFePO4 batts are cheapo and only have 1.5C discharge rate so I get lots
of voltage sag (typically down to only 64V at WOT). Hopefully when I get the Headway batts in
I should get even better performance.

 

[aaronski]

I should mention that my LiFePO4 batts are cheapo and only have 1.5C discharge rate so I get lots
of voltage sag (typically down to only 64V at WOT). Hopefully when I get the Headway batts in
I should get even better performance.

I think my battery is rated 3c. I'll ask Cycle9 about that. I do know that after draining 7.5 ah out of the pack at WOT it sags to 48.1v on a 48v pack. I don't think I ever saw it go below 48v on a 24 mile trip. Of course I'm not pulling over 30 amps from the pack due to the controller.

I'll get more info on my ride this afternoon about WOT on the flats.
Oh, what do you think is a reasonable max power to run through this motor? 24 hours later and I'm thinking of upgrading the controller...

 

[aaronski]

Now with pictures.
The battery is in a backpack that plugs in under the seat.

top speed appears to be 26 mph at 1100w.
Also, I emailed Cycle9 and they explained how to disable the slow start switch and the bike is now much peppier. Makes my commute much easier.

 

[disndat]

Well let us know how to disable the slow start switch

 

[morph999]

aaronski, how was the packaging for your cycle9 stuff? I ordered from cycle9 too, granted it was the clearance item, but they didn't put enough styrofoam in for my hub motor and there were two giant holes in the box and the one of the hall sensor wires was frayed. I rate cycle9's packaging a 3 /10. (10 being best).

 

[aaronski]

yea, they did a pretty crap job packing it. But nothing was broken. it seemed odd considering how well everything else was done.

 

[Reid Welch]

Re: twitchy throttle.

Am using Justin's $15US thumb throttle on the submarine-to-be-ebike.

It is not twitchy. Have used half-twist grip throttles. No twitch to the ones I've used, but,
I like the thumb throttle.

eZEE front, Ping 36/20, C.A.,

And the control is smooth and perfect: I can power from 1mph on up to the max of about 20mph,
perfectly in control of all power at all times.

I am a fan now of the thumb throttle, even over rough terrain: Justin's, at least, works perfect and is cheap to buy.
A thumb throttle on a lever-less cruiser bike is super-stealth besides. It's a very clean look:

THUMB THROTTLE FROM RENAISSANCE BICYCLE COMPANY of Canada (Justin's firm)
[youtube]UwMZp2sAiEU[/youtube]

 

[aaronski]

1 month update:

I've been riding to work every day. 8 mi round trip including a 1000ft+ vertical hill. bike performs great. depending on my mood I use anywhere from 27 to 3.9 wh/Mi. I like the fact that I can use almost none when I want to and not peddle at all when I want to. Also, the 10ah battery is enough that I have no problems if I forget to plugin for one night. My friends still don't "get it" and Think I'm cheating, but I'm riding every day, and they can only manage once a week. I enjoy not puking at the end of a ride, is that weird of me?

 

[torker]

Not weird at all. I would like to try a gearmotor next. I just wish I had a 10 or 15 mi. commute. I am 30 mi. from Wichita which is where most of the work is around here.

 

[Russell]

1 month update:

I've been riding to work every day. 8 mi round trip including a 1000ft+ vertical hill. bike performs great. depending on my mood I use anywhere from 27 to 3.9 wh/Mi. I like the fact that I can use almost none when I want to and not peddle at all when I want to. Also, the 10ah battery is enough that I have no problems if I forget to plugin for one night. My friends still don't "get it" and Think I'm cheating, but I'm riding every day, and they can only manage once a week. I enjoy not puking at the end of a ride, is that weird of me?

Sounds like a nice set-up I can't maintain a lot of speed up hills my with Bafang geared motor but then I don't have any 1,000 foot climds here in Wisconsin either

I didn't ride an ebike until this season and now I have two bikes converted and never ride the one which isn't. I kinda get the "cheating" mentality but it IS completely misplaced. A person can still get plenty of exercise from riding an ebike if that's what they want or it can be an extremely efficient mode of transportation if that's the goal...and how is either of those things "cheating". Life is often a race however and cycling, even when it's recreational, is no exception. I admit I used to take some satisfaction in pursuing and catching a rider up ahead of me but only if that person turned out to be an even match-up. Passing a person many years my senior was never satisfying. Now that I exclusively ride an ebike any pleasure that I once derived from "beating" another rider is gone, which is maybe one downside to ebiking I suppose

I never puked after a ride but I sometimes coughed up a lung I was breathing so hard for so long. Since I'm 50 years of age I figured pushing myself so much probably wasn't the best thing to do but I didn't want to ride slow either. The motor assist allows me to get a good solid workout and the extra speed makes it even more fun. With the motor I also hope to continue riding for many more years and possibly cheat DEATH for a little while in the process...if I don't crash or get hit first :wink:

-R