donor bike
- Thread starter newboater
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Deleted member 4366
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A Carera Vengence, Kraken or Vulcan would be better because they have disc brakes. You can get Diamondbacks for about £ 250 with a similar specification too. You want a bike with a sizeable triangle in the frame. Avoid the modern ones that have no room in the triangle for a battery.
That crossfire should convert ok. Probably want rear wheel drive if it has suspension (normally aluminium) forks, and some kind of bottle battery.
Mech disk's are a bit of a pain. Personally I'd prefer v-brakes or Hydraulics disk (never had hydraulics, but others report that they are less hassle) but I could live with it if the bike was a bargain.
Mech disk's are a bit of a pain. Personally I'd prefer v-brakes or Hydraulics disk (never had hydraulics, but others report that they are less hassle) but I could live with it if the bike was a bargain.
£240 Decathlon Rockrider 500 Mountain Bike?
You tend to get a lot of bike for the money at Decathlon.
I used a £42 Ebay Decathlon Rockrider 5.2, as my donor bike for my Whoosh mid drive kit.
Edinburgh Bicycle Coop, own range of bikes, Revolution are good value for money.
Evans cycles own brand Pinnacle.
Halfords Carrera brand.
Best to buy one when they're discounted.
You tend to get a lot of bike for the money at Decathlon.
I used a £42 Ebay Decathlon Rockrider 5.2, as my donor bike for my Whoosh mid drive kit.
Edinburgh Bicycle Coop, own range of bikes, Revolution are good value for money.
Evans cycles own brand Pinnacle.
Halfords Carrera brand.
Best to buy one when they're discounted.
D
Deleted member 4366
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The Carera Vengeance is only a few quid more and has disc brakes., or the Subway if you don't want suspension forks.
Fitting the kit was very straight forward. No hiccups what so ever.
I bought the 350W BBS01, as I wanted a little bit more than the legal 250W.
I'd picked up a dremmel clone from LIDL ready to grind out the bottom bracket but it slid in effortless. The dremmel clone is still unused.
Couple of hours work as long as you've got the right tools to remove the cranks. If you're not sure about anything I found YouTube to be invaluable.
Quick zip tie of the cables for a test ride, which I've not changed after 400 miles.
Only pain was soldering a connector on the battery leads as the crimped ones in the kit didn't seem to match.
I'm very impressed with the kit, tending to just use the PAS now.
1st couple of times commuting to work it was very easy to use the throttle and overtake the roadies going up hills.
I like the kit because it makes me pedal all the time as I would have to do without it. It levels out the hills and makes it easy riding into headwinds and I still feel I'm getting a little of a work out.
It's easily knocked 5 minutes off my commute times. Using only PAS level 7, controller is unmodified.
I've no idea how it compares to hub motors as I've never tried them.
Hoping to use it much more when the weather improves.
Good to hear the install went well. Just for info you can buy the 250W version and reprogram to 350W - all it needs is a (custom) programming cable. The motors and controllers are the same and the motor then retains the 250W stamp on the casing for legal matters. Many other parameters can be adjusted as well, such as giving motor assistance throughout the cadence range even at lower power settings (instead of the assist being cut off at low pedal speeds when you choose low power settings) and also allowing full power assist when pedalling. By default the drive only provides partial assist when pedalling - you need to use the throttle for full power.
Michael
I wasn't sure if the 250/350 were the same unit with just differing firmware and since the price difference was minimal I picked the 350.
I've left it as stock for now as I didn't want to invalidate the warranty.
I did notice the difference between WOT and PAS only, but have found the PAS level 7 keeps me ticking along the flat at 20mph in top gear.
I know I've got reserves, another 2 PAS levels and throttle if I need it.
On PAS 9 pedalling with a WOT I was getting 27mph up hill, so have dialed it back to save the battery and to be less conspicuous.
But I am keeping an eye out for a programming cable.
27mph!? That's quite a speed! I haven't finished my conversion yet (to a flat bar road bike) but I do have a programming cable so if you're ever around Guildford you're welcome to use it!
Michael
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Deleted member 4366
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Be careful. The 350w Bafang is 36v 18A, so about 500w max to the back wheel. The speed to which the motor helps you depends on your gearing, but the higher the gearing, the less torque you get. 500w will propel you to 13 mph up a 5% hill without pedalling. On the flat with no wind, you could get to about 23 mph.
strictly for what it's worth, i just completed building an oxydrive kit (supposedly 350w but really 36V 18A max by controller) into a b'twin triban (all up weight in teh end is around 20kg) - i did a circuit including a very steep short hill and much longer relatively steep hill 9i'd groan in lowest gear up teh steep hill unassisted and jsut about really work to make teh elss steep one at around 6 mph iin a lowish gear).
teh thing is i tried it back to back with a friend's 36V 18 A crank drive in a simialr kind of 20ish kg bike (TCM crank motor). i found a surprising result: the hub drive does both hills faster - perhaps one pedals marginally harder 9at least up teh very steep hill because im not entirely sure teh hub gear will restart from standstill), but with very similar effort teh hub gear does teh circuit severla minutes quicker. I'm not sure why thsi is and sincerely dopnt wish to start a dispute - logically id have thought a crank drive would be more efficient. I liked both and think both woudl be godo to own
D
Deleted member 4366
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I keep telling you that out of every test I've done, none show the crank drive to be more efficient. Bikes with Bosch , Kakhoff, Panasonic and similar crank-motors give the illusion of being more efficient because they make you pedal harder. When the German magazine did an objective mountain climb test, the hub-motors were more efficient and climbed better.
Crank drives have the wherewithal to be more efficient, but they can't realise it in practice.
Crank drives have the wherewithal to be more efficient, but they can't realise it in practice.
the TCM motor you tested is powered by a 14A controller, your BPM is powered by an 18A controller, the BPM in the Big Bear by a 20A controller. That's why Woosh have put 20A controller in their Krieger (bigger TCM, the Krieger has the motor inverted, sitting above the downtube) to match the BPM raw power. That will even the playing field a bit. At the time the TCM was introduced, Hatti was totally convinced that it's illegal to power the motor with anything more than a 14A controller. If you compare the CD against other woosh bikes with 14A controller and SWX hub motor like the Gale or the Sirocco or the Santana, the CD will outrun any of them on any hill. The Krieger matches the Big Bear on pulling power, is quieter and faster if derestricted.
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Just checked strava, my average speed for the segment in question was 27.4 mph, were I remembered the figure from. But that did partly include a flat section before the hill.
The going up hill section was only a 4.3% gradient, I swear it seems more, I was doing 25.1 mph at the top. (It's a short hill)
I was on PAS Level 9, which was overridden with the WOT and me furiously pedalling to overtake the roadie who'd burned pass me on the down hill before the flat.
I did overtake him on the hill!
Also got a PR for that segment that day.
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