I have recently converted my Sovereign Roadster to Mid drive. The goals of the conversion was to make this heavy bike more usable in hilly areas while preserving the look and character of the bike.
The Tongsheng motor fitted with a little fettling; I had to grind out the welds on the bottom bracket a little to allow the unit to slide through, and the lower pump mounting lug stopped me fitting the support bracket as supplied.
To fit the support bracket I had to reverse it and bolt it to the prop stand bracket on the frame, unfortunately the bracket isn't symmetric and I had to fit a spacer tube and longer bolt to hold it onto the motor case.
The chain ring boss and chain guard on the motor wouldn't fit inside the enclosed chain guard on the bike, so in an effort to keep the original look I opted to cut the original guard around the chain ring guard. It worked out not to badly:
The original crank arms were reused, reducing the peddle width (Q factor??). The right hand crank had to have the chain wheel ground off, so no going back!
The battery is mounted onto the rear rack, not ideal I know. Originally I planned to mount it on the seat tube, but ordered a battery that was too long
So I 3D printed a mounting to fit the rack.
The panniers are a pair of canvas messenger bags from Amazon, more 3D printing to make clips to mount them on the rack and straps because they got in the way of my heels when they were full.
I ordered my motor kit with the VLCD6 display. It may not have the bells and whistles of the VLCD5 but it has all the functions you actually need and it looks much better on the bike:
I opted for the legal 250W, 36V kit and I'm very glad I did. The bike doesn't feel like a moped (well maybe a bit like my old Raleigh Runabout), but now the Pashley feels like my Ridgeback tourer to pedal, but with 50% more speed. It's amazing how quickly it reaches the 25kph limiter - in fact, I've selected the 45kph limit now as my comfort speed is around 28kph and the motor cutting in and out was frustrating.
I've only covered 150Km so far (one down side of the VLCD6 - it's only KM) so it's too early to really review the motor, but so far I'm really enjoying being able to cycle the 22Km (220M climb) to work every day in around 1 hour. The round trip (44Km) uses about 50% of my 12Ah battery using levels 3 & 4 assist most of the time, but most impressively, the bike feels exactly the same when pedaling with the motor turned off.
Hopefully I'll have more to say about the motor in a few hundred Km.
The Tongsheng motor fitted with a little fettling; I had to grind out the welds on the bottom bracket a little to allow the unit to slide through, and the lower pump mounting lug stopped me fitting the support bracket as supplied.
To fit the support bracket I had to reverse it and bolt it to the prop stand bracket on the frame, unfortunately the bracket isn't symmetric and I had to fit a spacer tube and longer bolt to hold it onto the motor case.
The chain ring boss and chain guard on the motor wouldn't fit inside the enclosed chain guard on the bike, so in an effort to keep the original look I opted to cut the original guard around the chain ring guard. It worked out not to badly:
The original crank arms were reused, reducing the peddle width (Q factor??). The right hand crank had to have the chain wheel ground off, so no going back!
The battery is mounted onto the rear rack, not ideal I know. Originally I planned to mount it on the seat tube, but ordered a battery that was too long
So I 3D printed a mounting to fit the rack.The panniers are a pair of canvas messenger bags from Amazon, more 3D printing to make clips to mount them on the rack and straps because they got in the way of my heels when they were full.
I ordered my motor kit with the VLCD6 display. It may not have the bells and whistles of the VLCD5 but it has all the functions you actually need and it looks much better on the bike:
I opted for the legal 250W, 36V kit and I'm very glad I did. The bike doesn't feel like a moped (well maybe a bit like my old Raleigh Runabout), but now the Pashley feels like my Ridgeback tourer to pedal, but with 50% more speed
. It's amazing how quickly it reaches the 25kph limiter - in fact, I've selected the 45kph limit now as my comfort speed is around 28kph and the motor cutting in and out was frustrating.I've only covered 150Km so far (one down side of the VLCD6 - it's only KM) so it's too early to really review the motor, but so far I'm really enjoying being able to cycle the 22Km (220M climb) to work every day in around 1 hour. The round trip (44Km) uses about 50% of my 12Ah battery using levels 3 & 4 assist most of the time, but most impressively, the bike feels exactly the same when pedaling with the motor turned off.
Hopefully I'll have more to say about the motor in a few hundred Km.
