Gazelle Chamonix C8 + BBS02B + internal cable routing

[capriyeee]

I live in The Netherlands and I didn't feel like paying silly money for a premium ebike when imo they all look crap, so I bought a brand new dutch-style city bike that I thought looked absolutely gorgeous and converted it myself.


The goals were to keep it looking as "stock" as possible, and legal, but still be a bit more powerful and have a ton of range.

The Build:



The first hurdle was finding that I couldn't the BBS02 because the frame was squared off and had a large metal spur jutting out at the bottom of the BB shell that interfered. After talking to metalworker friends they weren't concerned so I started taking off material until it fit. First with a dremel but that was hopeless so I went to the store the next day and bought the cheapest angle grinder I could find and a sanding disk, that worked beautifully. No proper before and after on that but these are the ones I took before going to buy the angle grinder.



Once I got the BBS02 securely on there I wasted nearly a week by repeatedly realising I was missing a simple tool or a simple part until the bike was working again. At that point I was quite busy with work so I put the battery on the bottle mounts, lazily tie-wrapped the cables and just rode it like that for a while.



A couple weeks ago I dropped the bike and the battery was suddenly very loose in the bottle mounts. That was always a temporary solution and I expected it to be a problem eventually, what I DIDN'T expect was the battery to entirely fall off just a few hours later while travelling at 25km/h, which cracked the shell and forced me to find a permanent solution sooner rather than later. This hack was good for a few days though!



So then I got to work for a couple of days on doing it all properly:

• Installed rivet nuts and mounted the battery directly on them.
• Internally routed the 1T4 cable through the down tube with a 3/8" hole and grommets.
• Internally routed the battery cable up through the top tube, through the head tube, and then back down the down tube.
• Reprogrammed the controller so that every PAS level has the same top speed, but increases the power in 20% increments.

And here's a photo slideshow of that work:













And the final product!





500km on it so far, aside from teeth issues with the front brake it's running like a dream!

 

[E-HP]

Wow, nice clean build! Is that suspension I see on that front fork?

You might be able to get rid of a couple of those zip ties used for routing your speed sensor cable by using some heavy duty clear tape, since you likely won't be removing it very often.

Gorilla 1.88 in. W X 15 ft. L Clear Repair Tape Mfr# 6015002 - Ace Hardware

Crystal Clear Transparent Gorilla Tape features the strength of Gorilla Tape, in a crystal clear tape that does not yellow outdoors. Made with a heavy duty adhesive layer and waterproof backing for extreme durability. This tape is UV and temperature resistant - great for projects and repairs...

www.acehardware.com

Looking forward to the 1000km+ update.

 

[capriyeee]

Wow, nice clean build! Is that suspension I see on that front fork?

You might be able to get rid of a couple of those zip ties used for routing your speed sensor cable by using some heavy duty clear tape, since you likely won't be removing it very often.

Gorilla 1.88 in. W X 15 ft. L Clear Repair Tape Mfr# 6015002 - Ace Hardware

Crystal Clear Transparent Gorilla Tape features the strength of Gorilla Tape, in a crystal clear tape that does not yellow outdoors. Made with a heavy duty adhesive layer and waterproof backing for extreme durability. This tape is UV and temperature resistant - great for projects and repairs...

www.acehardware.com

Looking forward to the 1000km+ update.

Thanks!

Yeah the front fork has a small 50mm travel suspension, weirdly built into the steerer tube instead of the forks. It's enough to dampen road bumps and bumping up pavements at lower speeds, all you really need for something that exclusively travels on roads and bike paths. The model down from it actually has colour-matched 100mm travel forks, but the tradeoff would have been no hydraulic disk brakes and a less sturdy rear rack.



I'll take a look at heavy duty clear tape next time I'm in the hardware store, that's an interesting idea. I think the better option there would be putting a couple tiny rivet nuts in there and internally routing the cable while I'm at it. The rear brake hose is already internally routed through that tube but the hole was just a little bit too small for the connector. I haven't had the rear wheel fully off since I first got the motor on there to really take a good look at it. Honestly that's probably tomorrow's project now that I'm thinking about it haha.

 

[E-HP]

Thanks!

Yeah the front fork has a small 50mm travel suspension, weirdly built into the steerer tube instead of the forks.

Canondale had that design in their head shock on their mountain bikes, which was fine for shorter travel applications. It's actually pretty stealthy used on a road bike like yours.

Honestly that's probably tomorrow's project now that I'm thinking about it haha.

Who has time for upgrades when you can be out riding!!