Cycling UK Forum

Vorpal wrote: ↑6 Sep 2023, 4:13pm I like baseball style caps. They keep rain off my glasses and sun out of my eyes.

+1 and whilst I am an old man I don't necessarily want to look like one with a flat cap or beanie hat but I appreciate their advantages for some.

I have though, never 'warmed' to wearing a baseball cap under a helmet which although I'm sure is practical, never looks quite right to me.

But hey ho, we're all different.

Do you have an update for us please? I'm sure a lot of forum readers would be interested to know how you are getting on.

oldgit wrote: ↑20 Aug 2023, 4:00pm
i am pretty sure i have read on the site somewhere about diy battery's?

• The mere fact that you pose this questions says that you are not at all familiar with or have looked into the techniques required to build a lithium battery pack

• Building such packs is far far from a trivial task and requires a range of electrical, and construction knowledge that in the absence of which will put you, your loved ones and your possesions at considerable risk of fire - I kid you not!

• Having said that, many people with an approapriate attitude to such things, can learn to safely design and build their own battery packs, but nobody should undertake this task lightly.

• I have a working lifetime of experience in electrical engineering which firstly helped me to immediately understand the potential hazards of building such things, but secondly enabled me to assimilate the necessary knowledge and the three packs I've built are serving me very well.

Pinhead wrote: ↑26 Aug 2023, 6:48pm Is there a problem with FRONT hub kits ?

Oh crikey, now you've done it - asking that!

It's a bit like asking which oil is best on a motoring forum as in 'stand back' and get lots of varied opinions.

I've never ridden with a front hub but despite the oft given problem being the possibility of loosing the front wheel in certain riding circumstances, I'd be more than happy to ride one as I'd be using a 250w motor with relatively low torque (40nm) and I'm not a newbie rider by any means- but let's see what others say shall we?

JOINED that forum thanks

And pedelec.co.uk ?

• The origanl post asked about bike shops fitting conversion kits - whilst there may be such shops I suspect they are few and far between.

• As for a DIY solution, there are a range of choices starting with where to put the motor: front wheel, rear wheel or mid drive.

• Each choice will have it's proponents - ideally test ride each type

• The next choice is whether to go for a motor that offers power control through torque sensing (i.e. the delivered motor power is proportionate to your own efforts) or cadence sensing (just twiddle the pedals and off you go). Again, there are proponents of both systems

• Personally I love the TSDZ2, a torque sensing system - I've fitted 5 of these kits - two on my own bikes and one for the wife and two friends.

• All but one of them has been 100% reliable - for the one problematic one (noisy bearings) the motor unit was straight forward enough to strip down and for less than £20 I replaced the bearings and the motor was a 'goodun'.

• For those who might be interested, I posted about the noisy bearing 'fix' on Endless Sphere here

• For the reasonably competant DIY bike mechanic (e.g. you can change a bottom bracket), Bafang or Tong Sheng mid drive kits are straight forward to install and from what I've seen of other's efforts, hub drives aren't difficult either.

I suspect if these systems were more widely deployed, the authorities concerned would very quickly run out of manpower (aka women power/resources) to deal with the number of offenders.

Many years ago I worked in the IT dept of our local police force and I remember in the 'ticketing' office where they processed the speed camera footage, there were so many offenders that they often raised the 'threshold' for an offence in order to cope with the workload.

• I'm not a Mahle X35 user but out of curiosity I googled the issue you are having

• Firstly, some say pink light, others say it is purple

• Secondly, you are not alone in having this issue. I googled something like "mahle pink light" (or purple light) - certainly one youtube vid by SoloBikerDave had an error code indicating an overcharge - he simply rode the bike for a very short while to discharge the battery a bit and the error went

• Out of interest, is the range extender working OK ie does it charge up the main battery as it should? If it does and the error subsequently clears, then consider just putting up with the issue

Jon in Sweden wrote: ↑19 Apr 2023, 2:24pm
...........They're limited to 25kph and even me (only a moderately fit chap who's been back in the saddle pretty much exactly a year) can exceed that speed as an average for pretty much any distance over any (road) terrain without breaking much of a sweat.

The above is not entrely true (I'm talking about a legal ebike here) in that the electrical assist is provided up to 25kph but of course you can still pedal beyond this limit albeir just under your own steam, something I often do on my own ebike.

• Many years ago whilst preparing for a 5 month trip to the Falkland Islands on an RN warship, we (the crew) were topping up with some of our favourite items to see us through a long trip

• One guy swore by the superiority of Heinz ketchup over the NAAFI offering. One day shortly after sailing, he left his ketchup in the mess whereupon we washed out the Heinz and refilled with NAAFI ketchup

• 5 months later we told him of the ruse - would he believe us - not he would not!

The power of advertising eh!

... a chain getting caught in the front derailer could cause significant damage too but most of this seems at the rear derailer

Just to clarify, mid drive motors don't as a norm have front derailleurs although I know of some in the TSDZ2 world who have in fact fitted a double chain ring, and maybe some in the Bafang BBSxx world do too, but that's not the norm.

Having said that, I've just remembered that a friend has the Vitus E-Substance which has a double chainring and a Fazua mid drive but that's the first double chainring 'commercial' offering I've come across.

I may have misunderstood your point, but the motor cuts the instant you stop pedalling.

As said by Cowsham, not immediately. My only experience of mid drive is my TSDZ2 conversion and when you stop pedalling the chainring continues to rotate for a few inches, but there is little power in the drive at that point and I'm sure a 'chain off' on the sprockets would halt the motor in an instant.

Cowsham wrote: ↑17 Jun 2023, 2:22pm Another problem with mid drives I'd never thought about before I saw this. The power comes from the chain so any derailment causes more damage. Like a pro cyclist with strong legs refusing to stop pedaling after the derailment would cause much damage, at least when it's rear hub drive a derailment won't have any more consequence than on a non electric bike.

I'm not following your argument here in that the OP's chain came off of the chainring and a mid drive motor drives the chain ring, thus if the chain is de-railled off of the chain ring, the chain is not being driven.

I have a TSDZ2 and now and again the chain jumps off the chainwheel (mainly due to my bad gear changing I think). As soon as that happens there is no torque from the pedalling action and I also stop pedalling at which point the power to the motor is terminated.

No chain jam for me and I can't imagine that a mid-drive motor can be blamed for any of the damge reported.

slowster wrote: ↑6 Jun 2023, 11:05am Roger Musson's electronic book is worth buying.

The instructions in the book are very clear and there are good illustrations and photographs.

https://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php

+1 for the e-book. I bought it about 10+ yrs ago, made the simple to build jigs and have never looked back and have toured for 1000s of miles on my diy wheels without issue.

Wheel building isn't a dark art when you have a book like this one to hand.

Mick F wrote: ↑6 Jun 2023, 4:12pm
Helmet-less (like me when I ride a bike) are seen as more human IMHO and IME.

+1 for that.

After a period of illness off the bike and then returning to cycling on an ebike (kit conversion), I now usually ride in just ordinary clothing (except mitts and discreet eye protection) and whilst it's entirely subjective I feel more at ease on the road in respect of car users.

When I see roadies flashing by, now they all look the same to me hidden behind their dark glasses, helmeted head down and not a smile from these lycra clad 'humans'.

That research came as not surprise all.

• I'm with Dragon Rider on this one - assuming that you have a quality battery (ie. the Mahle one for instance) then plug it in after every ride and be happy that the BMS(Battery Management System) will prevent over-charging (and over discharging too).

• If however you want to eke out your battery life to the nth degree, it does seem to be the case that there are things that can be done on the charging side that will increase the total number of charging cycles (aka the 'life' of the battery)

• It can get very boring to read about these little tricks - some will find it interesting, others not and others who just get on and ride/use the blessed thing

• The Battery University website HERE gives you some idea of said tricks, but be prepared for a bit of a read!

.