Hyena's e-bike builds (now with HD video)

[dan974]

Wow what an insane event! Talk about organised chaos!

yeah we got one old in Reunion too from volcano to the beach a must done in a life time =) dirt and crashs to resume =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCamGYFWAAc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb1pclqEzzw
EPIC

 

[Sokol]

Hey Hyena - looks like you have another satisfied customer - a few months ago a guy called out to me on my normal commute wanting some electric goodness - I recommended the Hyena treatment. Saw Ben this morning with a nice clean Hyena build... But with one serious problem... So I promptly pointed it out... "I'm not used to people overtaking me... Now you're going to! ...Everyday, damn it!"

 

[Rix]

Hey Hyena - looks like you have another satisfied customer - a few months ago a guy called out to me on my normal commute wanting some electric goodness - I recommended the Hyena treatment. Saw Ben this morning with a nice clean Hyena build... But with one serious problem... So I promptly pointed it out... "I'm not used to people overtaking me... Now you're going to! ...Everyday, damn it!"

+1, Pops cant stop talking bout how great your kit is.

 

[pendragon8000]

Hey Hyena - looks like you have another satisfied customer - a few months ago a guy called out to me on my normal commute wanting some electric goodness - I recommended the Hyena treatment. Saw Ben this morning with a nice clean Hyena build... But with one serious problem... So I promptly pointed it out... "I'm not used to people overtaking me... Now you're going to! ...Everyday, damn it!"

+1, Pops cant stop talking bout how great your kit is.

Yeah I been back on the hadron kit while the monster is down. Lipo was staging pretty bad in cold weather but I've been surprised at how its perked up ALLOT now its warmed up. Limited to 1.2kw I can get 60kph 29er

 

[Hyena]

Hey Hyena - looks like you have another satisfied customer - a few months ago a guy called out to me on my normal commute wanting some electric goodness - I recommended the Hyena treatment. Saw Ben this morning with a nice clean Hyena build... But with one serious problem... So I promptly pointed it out... "I'm not used to people overtaking me... Now you're going to! ...Everyday, damn it!"

haha sorry about that mate. I do have a higher powered solution for your problem should you wish to address it

Rix, glad you're old man is digging his. Wait until he gets some full suspension goodness under his bum, then he'll really like it.

I clocked a new economy record last night, I had a meeting across the other side of the city at 5:30pm and trying to get there by car at that time of day would have been suicide. So of course I took the bike. I used 4ah on the 16km trip getting there - riding in a collar and tie and my heavy jacket so was taking it pretty easy so I wasnt hot and sweaty when I arrived. I also didnt take a bag and thus charger with me so that only left 5ah to get me the 32km trip home. No biggy, I used the e-assist very conservatively, pedalled the whole time and used only 1ah to do to 16km (10mi) return trip back to work. That's certainly a new record and around 5-6 whr/km. I dont think I'll be topping that any time soon!

Ken that's interesting your lipo has bounced back in the warm weather. I've notice alot of sag in mine too but figured it was also age related. They still deliver good capacity but it's like the C rating just falls through the floor (IR going up?) On the commuter crusing around 500w the pack is fine but when I flick it into high power mode and get on the throttle it sags close to LVC with a 2000w load. And that's only 3C. It's supposed to be 40 degrees here in Sydney today (was 10 degrees yesterday morning when I got up, what's with that ?!) so it'll be interesting to see what the sag is like on my return commute. I think I'll be taking it VERY easy on the pedals in that heat!

 

[Rix]

Your effiency is off the hook. Being that you are pedaling more, lose some weight?

Rick

 

[Hyena]

No noticable weight loss yet, pants still fit the same so once they start to get looser that's the best indication. Infact I've actually put on a kilo in the last 2 weeks. I'd say that's increased muscle mass in my legs though rather than me actively getting fatter. The problem is I don't have the will power just yet to drastically alter my diet. I'm sure if I ate less and healthier I'd see more rapid results but given I'm not exactly obese I lack the inclination to live on salad

I've noticed increased stamina while pedalling along on the flat and a few times I've gone to turn off my cruise control only to look down at the CA and notice the motor wasn't actually on. For my return commutes I tend to set the motor in low speed mode, twist to full throttle and then tap cruise. This tops out at 25-28km/hr and I pedal along constantly. On the flat the motor is essentially doing nothing and I'm doing all the work but then on hills it automatically picks up the slack so I'm not shifting through the gears or having to work toooo hard. But when pedalling along the flat it still seems to draw about 150w essentially contributing nothing so I turn it off now. It sounds like a trivial amount but when you're chasing those sort of efficiency goals it adds up. It makes me wonder about the efficiency I could get out of a carbon 29er like Keplers but I'm happy to have the trade off of more comfort and the power to cruise in to work cool and dry. As a commuter bike it's a heavy drag but as an exercise bike it's the most nimble and well travelled one around

Speaking of exercise bikes and me not altering my diet, I grabbed a pizza the other night and walked past a gym on my way back to the car. It was at street level with a row of exercise bikes and treadmills in the front window. The sweating fatties were eyeing me off as I walked past like I was a bikini model walking through a prison! So I opened up the box and with a gameshow style circling hand motion showed them the goods. Most laughed but I think 2 were about to cry :lol:

 

[pendragon8000]

Infact I've actually put on a kilo in the last 2 weeks. I'd say that's increased muscle mass in my legs though

Is it just me or do bike riders need biger waist size just to fit the quads in? i need 97cm pants, but theres so much slack in the belt area. FT might experiance this seeing as he rides sans motor allot.

It makes me wonder about the efficiency I could get out of a carbon 29er like Keplers

starting to see the light? ...become a "fashion victom" haha. i think you should try a 29er next time you get a chance and you'll see how much easyer they are to move. its like day and night to me.

The sweating fatties were eyeing me off as I walked past like I was a bikini model walking through a prison! So I opened up the box and with a gameshow style circling hand motion showed them the goods. Most laughed but I think 2 were about to cry :lol:

LMFA! hahaha :lol:

 

[Rix]

It makes me wonder about the efficiency I could get out of a carbon 29er like Keplers but I'm happy to have the trade off of more comfort and the power to cruise in to work cool and dry. As a commuter bike it's a heavy drag but as an exercise bike it's the most nimble and well travelled one around

Speaking of exercise bikes and me not altering my diet, I grabbed a pizza the other night and walked past a gym on my way back to the car. It was at street level with a row of exercise bikes and treadmills in the front window. The sweating fatties were eyeing me off as I walked past like I was a bikini model walking through a prison! So I opened up the box and with a gameshow style circling hand motion showed them the goods. Most laughed but I think 2 were about to cry

I follow Keplers build and it amazes me how he hides the electrics in plain site, controller under the BB is one example. Probably wind tunnel his machine and it there wouldn't be much more drag than a lycra wearing rodie riding the Tour de France. But with his wheels and ultralight set up, probably keep it at 4 watts a mile pretty easily. Yah, I know what you mean about Pizza, its my kryptonite. We have the Pizza Barn which is located next to Planet Fitness, cant tell you how many times I have seen Zumba chicks finish up with a class and walk by the barn while I am eating a pizza and washing it with a beer while eating on the patio or at a window table inside. Yep, makes me feel solid.

Rick

 

[t3sla]

Uhhhhhh.....

Welcome to pedelec?



Under 250w on the flats, round 25km (honestly should be closer to 30 but still under) and say 3-5x that for hills.....

Amazingly only a few 100watts can do wonders when pedaling is your primary input.

 

[Hyena]

Is it just me or do bike riders need biger waist size just to fit the quads in? i need 97cm pants, but theres so much slack in the belt area. FT might experiance this seeing as he rides sans motor allot.

Yeah I find my pants are tighter around the upper legs than elsewhere. And that's in size 34 pants when I should only have a waist of 32.

starting to see the light? ...become a "fashion victom" haha. i think you should try a 29er next time you get a chance and you'll see how much easyer they are to move. its like day and night to me.

haha no I shall not become a fashion victim Besides 29ers are so last week, 27.5" is where it's at now. 650b is the new hotness yo

Welcome to pedelec?

Strictly for a commuter I could live with it. Coz you know, I'm all about following the letter of the law

Under 250w on the flats, round 25km (honestly should be closer to 30 but still under) and say 3-5x that for hills.....

Yeah, the key there is the burst of 5x the power for hills. That makes all the difference.
The main thing I dont like about pedalec is it's a bit fiddley. The automatic pedal assist is nice but as above I dont want it all the time, and sometimes I need a burst of power via throttle without having to fiddle around with some control panel upping my level of assistance, or switching it off when I'm on the flat. I guess a torque sensing one would be better in this sense, and adjust it so it doesn't offer any assistance at all at light pedal loads when you'd otherwise be happy pedalling unassisted. It still doesn't get around the occasional need for burst power to prevent you becoming a statistic on the roads.

Speaking of which, I'm digging my new brakes. I find myself braking really late just so I can whack them on hard, often to the surpise of peds around me. One guy commented today "geez those are some strong brakes, I was sure you were going to plow right into the side of that bus!"
I guess i better order some new pads sooner rather than later
Still missing my regen though

 

[Hyena]

So, I got ID'd today. I was cruising down a main road and had a guy pull up next to me in traffic and call out "you must be Hyena!"
To quote the soon to be late 11th doctor on dropping off the radar: "I got too big, time to step back into the shadows"

I knocked off early this arvo and with my new found enthusiasm for economical riding (don't worry I'm sure it's just a fad ) I decided to take a 30km detour on my way home and go exploring further afield in the royal national park. After yesterdays stinker in the high 30s it was quite pleasant to have temps in the high 20s and a cool breeze when doing a bit of work.
Here's a shot of the place I wound up

 

[Cowardlyduck]

Nice one.
Is that Port Hacking?

 

[pendragon8000]

Were you stressed when they ID'ed you? Cos your kinda blatantly breaking the law. I mean we all ,are but I wouldn't want ppl knowing who I am pulling up at the lights. Especially with my GCinDC inspired riding of late...

 

[Hyena]

Nice one.
Is that Port Hacking?

Yep, here's the spot on google maps
There's a big Christian youth camp near by and some nice looking houses marked as private residences that are no doubt tied up with it too. Looks like a deluxe facility on prime realestate!!

Were you stressed when they ID'ed you? Cos your kinda blatantly breaking the law.

Nah not stressed and even if it was a cop I was doing nothing wrong. I was pedalling along in the left lane going relatively slow about 35 km/hr and my legs were doing most of the work. A fit lycra could have overtaken me on most of the trip. If not for the armoured motorcycle jacket I wear I wouldn't have though anyone would take much notice. That said, clearly this guy did

New guy, speak up! Matty wasn't it ? What do I look like on the road ? What got your attention ?
I'm actually very courteous on the road (more so than most other cyclists) and obey all the road rules -stop at reds, give way to peds etc etc. I certainly don't ride like Greg does, I know he gets away with it there in DC and apparently regular cyclists ride a bit crazy too, but it wouldn't fly here.
I save the fast riding primarily for the bush. OK so there's the occasional high speed stealth vid on only semi-closed roads, but a flat smooth surface is necessary for R&D related purposes

 

[ManoisEscobar]

New guy, speak up! Matty wasn't it ? What do I look like on the road ? What got your attention ?

Heya! It's Manny. I've just developed some sick perversion of checking out the back wheel of every bike I see to check if it's electric. : )
I only noticed it was you because I saw a pic in this thread and recognised the gold bling! You would've blended right in as a normal cyclist to everybody else though.
I don't think you'll have any issues from the fuzz. That motor doesn't look out of proportion with the wheel at all.

I bumped into another guy from the forum last week sometime going across the Harbour Bridge. I didn't catch his name but he said he was on ES. Had a Magic Pie 3 on the back of his.

 

[Hyena]

AH, Manny, sorry I thought you said Matty. I recognise your user name now. There you go, small world
I'm glad to know it doesn't stick out too much to the casual observer. Yeah the motor is quite small and subtle, not like the larger DD motors and especially the magic pie. In a way the gold rims draw attention where the bike might otherwise be totally overlooked but I thought it could go the other way too, that people look at it and think it's just a flashy overbuilt mtb. But as the cool kids these days say, what evs

 

[pendragon8000]

Hey Jay, good to see your stealth bullet time vid got added by stealth on FB.
[youtube]87o4brfSDEI[/youtube]

 

[Hyena]

Cool. I really must get around to editing all that!

Looks like we're in for another hot day today, 37oC. This missus has taken the kids to the movies so I've got 2 hrs to myself to head out riding. Anyone object if my next video is a slow paced cruise along the beach instead of my usual fare? I hope there's not too many girls around in skimpy outfits

 

[Rix]

Cool. I really must get around to editing all that!

Looks like we're in for another hot day today, 37oC. This missus has taken the kids to the movies so I've got 2 hrs to myself to head out riding. Anyone object if my next video is a slow paced cruise along the beach instead of my usual fare? I hope there's not too many girls around in skimpy outfits

Jay, I will be the first to tell you, "Bring it". All your vids are great.

Rick

 

[Hyena]

Slim pickings at the beach today!
Though I did have a red bull girl ask to take my picture after she gave me a drink

Not sure if it's even worth editing but I guess I'll throw something together for those up north who are coming into cold weather.

Someone asked me a while back what I do with all the marginal "B grade" lipo cells I extract from the packs I make. Most find their way into my kids motorised toys or yard lighting or what ever, this salvaged pack got my wife out of a bind today. She came to me in a flap this afternoon needing to weigh out all these ingredients for a cake she was baking (for guests that were soon to arrive) and he scale had died. I found 2 dead lithium button cells powering it (or rather not powering it as the case was) but had no time to get replacements. So I hacked this together for her :lol:


I don't think she'll have to worry about flat batteries for a while

 

[Rix]

That what I call McGuyver ingenuity. :lol:

 

[Hyena]

Update on the commuter:
I painted the controller black and moved it to lower down on the seat tube. I tidied up the wiring but took the lazy way out for now and just tucked it up in a short length of inner tube. I also fitted a thin sheet of black fibreglass between the controller/wiring and the tyre which acts as a spray shield.
Fairly obviously I've also added a rear mud guard. This is quite wide and easily covers all the tyre, which is good considering they run fairly fat with the 50mm wide rims. Do you think the rear mudguard adds to or detracts from the look of the bike ? I'm in 2 minds. I picked it because I liked the style of it and figured it'd fit in with the boxyness of the frame. Part of my says it makes the bike look too bulky, but on the other hand I reckon it has a bit of batman sort of urban assault feel too it.






I also fitted the on-off switch to the top bar of the frame and fitted an internal DC-DC converter which powers both the switch and the 12v lighting onthe bike. Next time I design a custom frame remind me to leave some extra room for wiring and afterthoughts. The relatively straight forward process too me the best part of 4 hrs! All the plugs and wiring harness with loops or wire and parallel connections and what not are like a jigsaw and have to be all in exactly the right place to get the lid to fit back on. The battery box is jammed tighter than a midget at an african gang bang! (bet ya haven't heard that one before! )

The illumination on the switch was wired to be on all the time which I didnt like is wired it to be powered by the DC converter it's switching on (along with the controller) So now it only lights up when the bike is on, which makes more sense. The added and unexpected benefit it running it from the DC converter is that it takes a second to power up and down so the light fades in when you turn it on and out when you switch it off, which is a nice touch.

 

[remf]

Can't even see that controller now. NICE.

I like the mudguard, probably a bit more stealthy without but I don't think anyone's going to notice unless you do an 80 kph fly-by...in which case nobody's going to notice the mudguard.

Do you have any shots of it lit up at night?

 

[pendragon8000]

Update on the commuter:
I painted the controller black and moved it to lower down on the seat tube. I tidied up the wiring but took the lazy way out for now and just tucked it up in a short length of inner tube. I also fitted a thin sheet of black fibreglass between the controller/wiring and the tyre which acts as a spray shield.
Fairly obviously I've also added a rear mud guard. This is quite wide and easily covers all the tyre, which is good considering they run fairly fat with the 50mm wide rims. Do you think the rear mudguard adds to or detracts from the look of the bike ? I'm in 2 minds. I picked it because I liked the style of it and figured it'd fit in with the boxyness of the frame. Part of my says it makes the bike look too bulky, but on the other hand I reckon it has a bit of batman sort of urban assault feel too it.

View attachment 1

I also fitted the on-off switch to the top bar of the frame and fitted an internal DC-DC converter which powers both the switch and the 12v lighting onthe bike. Next time I design a custom frame remind me to leave some extra room for wiring and afterthoughts. The relatively straight forward process too me the best part of 4 hrs! All the plugs and wiring harness with loops or wire and parallel connections and what not are like a jigsaw and have to be all in exactly the right place to get the lid to fit back on. The battery box is jammed tighter than a midget at an african gang bang! (bet ya haven't heard that one before! )

The illumination on the switch was wired to be on all the time which I didnt like is wired it to be powered by the DC converter it's switching on (along with the controller) So now it only lights up when the bike is on, which makes more sense. The added and unexpected benefit it running it from the DC converter is that it takes a second to power up and down so the light fades in when you turn it on and out when you switch it off, which is a nice touch.

View attachment 2

Love the illuminated switch. I was talking to DunkenKBliths (bomber owner) about putting s switch like that in place of his key switch to prevent water ingress as he rides EVERY day. But with a rf remote "ignition".
I reakon the mud guard is nice . But maby too long although it fits the lines of the bike really nicely.
Close up of fibre glass?