Kyle201
10 W
Hi everyone,
Excited to be joining this small but interesting community pretty soon, and looking for some input before I pull the trigger on my first electric kit.
I'm an experienced mountain biker, looking for something fun to ride around on light trails and roads while my ankle recovers from an injury, and also to commute to work and other places quickly, being able to avoid all the horrible car traffic in my city!!! E bikes just seem like a lot of fun!
My goals for the bike are
- Fast and thrilling when I want it to be, able to do short but sometimes fairly steep hills up to 20% for short distances
- To be used for roads, pathways, and light trails
- 60kph top speed is probably enough
- Comfortable
- Reliable
- As stealthy as possible for the amount of power/speed I'd like to have
- Still have useful pedal input at slower and fast speeds and be able to get good exercise
- To have a minimum range of ~15km going fast
- Highly tuneable
- Safe and easy to use battery chemistry
- Maintain excellent handling characteristics of a good unmodified bicycle as much as possible..
- Waterproof for winter and light rain rides.
Here's the electric kit specs I'm pretty much settled on:
Motor: Crystalyte H4060 laced to wide 24" rim (maybe oil cooled for heat and corrosion resistance)
Controller: Crystalyte 60A Regen Controller 18 - 4115 fets
Battery: 24S - 72v - Headway 40152S 15ah LiFePO4
Cycle analyst: V3
Throttle: Split twist (opinions on throttle types? Thinking split is the best because I can use comfortable silicone or perhaps ergonomic grips for the other half)
Torque arms: Ebike.ca's or maybe custom designed
Regen: Lots of small and sometimes steep hills in my city. Going to start out with a push button activation since I will be using hydraulic brakes, but unsure of how well this will function.. anyone have experience in this area? Would like to have some sort of modulation with this ideally, so as not to ruin proper braking properties for trails and other fast riding.. at least need to be able to adjust the amount of regen. Maybe a second half throttle set up for regen would work really well, but not sure if possible. Can't find much info on regen for ebikes really, anyone know if I will be able to change the level of regen using this controller and the CA V3?? Even the CA V3 manual isn't very clear on this.
Hoping to fit as many of these 24 headway cells in the triangle as I can for handling.. but I'm almost certain not all of them will and will have to somehow mount the rest above the top tube or below the bottom tube. Thinking maybe a falcon or other frame bag?? Or maybe try and do a custom hard case. Perhaps just mount them securely using bolts and lexan or something of the sort, and build a cheap light box out of some painted coroplast and silicone.
Perhaps I will need to install a fan for cooling to run 60A with headways but not sure if necessary.. Hard to find a lot of info on a lot of these things but I've seen a few people say they can handle 3-4C and at 60A I don't think I'm pushing it too much. Surely I won't need to run at the full 60A continuous all or even most of the time either, just want the extra power to be there when I want it.
Love riding bikes in the snow and winter, so hoping this bike will be able to handle it, but very worried about condensation buildup in the motor. I can charge my bike at work, but thinking there might be issues riding in the cold (I currently bike in all weather conditions, and am comfortable riding in -40 even) Thinking I will limit my e-bike exposure to the headway temperature range specs, something like -20C, but what about bringing the bike into a heated garage, or heated shop after riding in the cold. I'm thinking bad corrosion and moisture build up in the motor. But what about charging cold batteries, or just warming and cooling them like that each day. Maybe I need to design a removable pack, to keep and charge in heated places, and then swap it in before riding in the cold to maintain battery range. This seems like a difficult and possibly unviable option though.. Anyone have experiences with winter e-biking??
So now about the bike I will be using for this project.
I've done lots of extreme mountain biking with my other hardtail bike and figure one should work fine for roads even loaded up with batteries and going fast.
Sinister Ridge all mountain hardtail, fairly beefy aluminum frame, nice gussets for strength, 5Lbs frame weight. Really nice tire clearance, manufacturer says it fits up to 26 x 2.6 or 24 x 3.0 tires in the back.
Some specs that the complete project will have:
- Wide Downhill Aluminum bars
- 160mm Travel Ti Coil Freeride Fork
- 203mm rotors
- Shimano Deore Hydraulic brakes
- Cane Creek Thudbuster seatpost for seated comfort
- 24 x 2.4/2.5 rear tire slick/semi-slick tires and will also try a 24 x 3.0 to increase comfort/stability.
- 26 x 2.5 front tire
- Knobby tires at times for trails or snow
- Thinking 2 Chainrings up front for low and high speed pedalling
- Probably 5 Speed Cassette, not sure what will fit with this motor - hopefully more than one speed - and a 135mm dropout frame (don't want to stretch it wider if it can be avoided)
So with 72v and up to 60A, that's up to 4300 watts. I realize this is a lot of power, but I'm currently doing up to 70+ kph on my pedal bike downhill roads and 50+ on certain trails. I want to be sure I'll have enough power for my desires, hopefully do these kind of speeds with stability on flat.
Thoughts on torque arms? I've seen all types of torque arms and I'm not sure what is best. I want to be sure this frame will handle the power.. Is it better to have them extended and mounted down the seat stays or the chain stays? Is there a difference? What about below vs above the tubes, what placement is best? Will some standard torque arms be enough or should I go custom? My frame has square seat/chainstays and I feel like they would be easy to design a very strong torque arm for maybe better than round ones, but not sure if I could build some my self or perhaps find a machine shop to do it... what's that sort of thing cost to have machined anyway?
Anyway, I'm sure I have more thoughts but hopefully someone makes it through all of my ramblings I've already put down, and can provide some good comments or suggestions?? Looking for all the information and help I can get
SOO I will finish with some pics of the bike I will use for this project. Thanks for reading.
Excited to be joining this small but interesting community pretty soon, and looking for some input before I pull the trigger on my first electric kit.
I'm an experienced mountain biker, looking for something fun to ride around on light trails and roads while my ankle recovers from an injury, and also to commute to work and other places quickly, being able to avoid all the horrible car traffic in my city!!! E bikes just seem like a lot of fun!
My goals for the bike are
- Fast and thrilling when I want it to be, able to do short but sometimes fairly steep hills up to 20% for short distances
- To be used for roads, pathways, and light trails
- 60kph top speed is probably enough
- Comfortable
- Reliable
- As stealthy as possible for the amount of power/speed I'd like to have
- Still have useful pedal input at slower and fast speeds and be able to get good exercise
- To have a minimum range of ~15km going fast
- Highly tuneable
- Safe and easy to use battery chemistry
- Maintain excellent handling characteristics of a good unmodified bicycle as much as possible..
- Waterproof for winter and light rain rides.
Here's the electric kit specs I'm pretty much settled on:
Motor: Crystalyte H4060 laced to wide 24" rim (maybe oil cooled for heat and corrosion resistance)
Controller: Crystalyte 60A Regen Controller 18 - 4115 fets
Battery: 24S - 72v - Headway 40152S 15ah LiFePO4
Cycle analyst: V3
Throttle: Split twist (opinions on throttle types? Thinking split is the best because I can use comfortable silicone or perhaps ergonomic grips for the other half)
Torque arms: Ebike.ca's or maybe custom designed
Regen: Lots of small and sometimes steep hills in my city. Going to start out with a push button activation since I will be using hydraulic brakes, but unsure of how well this will function.. anyone have experience in this area? Would like to have some sort of modulation with this ideally, so as not to ruin proper braking properties for trails and other fast riding.. at least need to be able to adjust the amount of regen. Maybe a second half throttle set up for regen would work really well, but not sure if possible. Can't find much info on regen for ebikes really, anyone know if I will be able to change the level of regen using this controller and the CA V3?? Even the CA V3 manual isn't very clear on this.
Hoping to fit as many of these 24 headway cells in the triangle as I can for handling.. but I'm almost certain not all of them will and will have to somehow mount the rest above the top tube or below the bottom tube. Thinking maybe a falcon or other frame bag?? Or maybe try and do a custom hard case. Perhaps just mount them securely using bolts and lexan or something of the sort, and build a cheap light box out of some painted coroplast and silicone.
Perhaps I will need to install a fan for cooling to run 60A with headways but not sure if necessary.. Hard to find a lot of info on a lot of these things but I've seen a few people say they can handle 3-4C and at 60A I don't think I'm pushing it too much. Surely I won't need to run at the full 60A continuous all or even most of the time either, just want the extra power to be there when I want it.
Love riding bikes in the snow and winter, so hoping this bike will be able to handle it, but very worried about condensation buildup in the motor. I can charge my bike at work, but thinking there might be issues riding in the cold (I currently bike in all weather conditions, and am comfortable riding in -40 even) Thinking I will limit my e-bike exposure to the headway temperature range specs, something like -20C, but what about bringing the bike into a heated garage, or heated shop after riding in the cold. I'm thinking bad corrosion and moisture build up in the motor. But what about charging cold batteries, or just warming and cooling them like that each day. Maybe I need to design a removable pack, to keep and charge in heated places, and then swap it in before riding in the cold to maintain battery range. This seems like a difficult and possibly unviable option though.. Anyone have experiences with winter e-biking??
So now about the bike I will be using for this project.
I've done lots of extreme mountain biking with my other hardtail bike and figure one should work fine for roads even loaded up with batteries and going fast.
Sinister Ridge all mountain hardtail, fairly beefy aluminum frame, nice gussets for strength, 5Lbs frame weight. Really nice tire clearance, manufacturer says it fits up to 26 x 2.6 or 24 x 3.0 tires in the back.
Some specs that the complete project will have:
- Wide Downhill Aluminum bars
- 160mm Travel Ti Coil Freeride Fork
- 203mm rotors
- Shimano Deore Hydraulic brakes
- Cane Creek Thudbuster seatpost for seated comfort
- 24 x 2.4/2.5 rear tire slick/semi-slick tires and will also try a 24 x 3.0 to increase comfort/stability.
- 26 x 2.5 front tire
- Knobby tires at times for trails or snow
- Thinking 2 Chainrings up front for low and high speed pedalling
- Probably 5 Speed Cassette, not sure what will fit with this motor - hopefully more than one speed - and a 135mm dropout frame (don't want to stretch it wider if it can be avoided)
So with 72v and up to 60A, that's up to 4300 watts. I realize this is a lot of power, but I'm currently doing up to 70+ kph on my pedal bike downhill roads and 50+ on certain trails. I want to be sure I'll have enough power for my desires, hopefully do these kind of speeds with stability on flat.
Thoughts on torque arms? I've seen all types of torque arms and I'm not sure what is best. I want to be sure this frame will handle the power.. Is it better to have them extended and mounted down the seat stays or the chain stays? Is there a difference? What about below vs above the tubes, what placement is best? Will some standard torque arms be enough or should I go custom? My frame has square seat/chainstays and I feel like they would be easy to design a very strong torque arm for maybe better than round ones, but not sure if I could build some my self or perhaps find a machine shop to do it... what's that sort of thing cost to have machined anyway?
Anyway, I'm sure I have more thoughts but hopefully someone makes it through all of my ramblings I've already put down, and can provide some good comments or suggestions?? Looking for all the information and help I can get
SOO I will finish with some pics of the bike I will use for this project. Thanks for reading.