The Sixthreezero "In The Barrel" with the three speed Nexus IHG from Shimano is one of the coolest beach cruiser bikes available as it is, but add a motor, and the game is irreversibly changed for the better!
You can't take a test ride on this bike without wanting one! It's impossible! Several dozen times now I've seen people who were indifferent to ebikes, and had never rode one, wizzzzzz by me at only half speed with the biggest smiles on their faces! You really have no idea until you've tried it!
This bike has such a killer frame! They make awesome E-Bikes, but hold their own as just regular pedal only bikes, but lets face it, once you've had the E-Experience, just having a pedal only bike is sort of a bummer. Especially when you've been cruising up and down the strand on one of these!
Still just a prototype at the moment. Wire connections need to be extended so they can connect inside the battery box, and not be seen. This takes a bit of time to do, but it's worth it for a clean looking finished bike. Form is as important as function. You can have the coolest bike in the world that hauls ass and beats everyone on race day, but with wires all over the place, it'll just look like crap. I'll be using a fabric shrink wrap instead of the zip ties. This should add a extra level of cool to the finished bikes.
You can see how the wire connectors look out in front of the bike. This along with the zip ties are unacceptable.
I'll offer it with the standard 17T rear sprocket (30mph with a 46T front sprocket), or a 20T for more bottom end torque if you have a lot of hills to climb.
Standard 17T rear sprocket with Nexus 3-speed internal geared hub (IGH).
I still have a lot of things to do on this bike. The wires and shrink wrap as I mentioned above, and I'll need to put a new radius on the chain guard to better fit the 46T front chain ring. With the correct radius I'll also be able to lower it to where it should be over the chain. It looks fine without the guard, but I like it.
This chain guard was meant for a much smaller front sprocket!
Brakes. Since the three speed only came with a coaster brake, I added rim breaks front and back. The way the seat stay is, I had to invert the rear to fit. And a couple more temp zip ties for the rear brake cable. On the production bikes, the cable and all the other important stuff will be routed threw the battery box.
Inverted rear rim break with Kool-Stop brake pads. Latest version of shop cat in background.
Front rim breaks with Kool-Stop brake pads.
Battery Box. Yeah, you know the style. It's been replicated quite a bit in the gas bike world. The first ones I'll be making myself out of tin and aluminum. Eventually I'll want to have a cheaper plastic and carbon fiber option available. I'll be making two sizes. One for 52V 20Ah packs, and a larger one for 72V battery packs for anyone wanting a 3000W fire breathing 50mph Cyclone motor!
I'll make them to fit the same curvature of the frames back bone and eclipse the bottom part of the tubing by 1/2 the tubing diameter.
This bike is using a BBSO2B Bafang motor. A BBSHD would be the better motor, but for a simple prototype (the little 02 ain't a bad motor), I didn't see the need to spend the extra money. Especially when the next one I build will have a 2000W Cyclone, and the one after that will have a 3000W Cyclone motor. I would rather save the extra money the BBSHD costs to build a bigger battery for the less expensive and much more powerful Cyclone motors! With the Cyclone, the motor kit itself is cheaper, but they need a much larger battery to reach their full potential. I already have both of the Cyclone motors ready to go with some cool improvements over the factory parts!
The only place I'll be buying the BBS02B motors from for these bikes is Luna Cycle. I bet you can guess where I stole this photo from. They are local, and have upgrades to their kits over buying the motors direct, and it's always nice to support other local businesses when we can. Same thing goes for the BBSHD motors.
Yep, another Luna motor. The Mini 2000W Cyclone kit.
Save the best for last! The 3000W Cyclone motor kit from Luna Cycles!
Other options will be available, such as suspension front forks with hydraulic or mechanical disk breaks, drum breaks, Springer forks. Paint colors so long as it's black, matte black, red or white. Polished aluminum side covers for battery boxes, custom hand pin striping, etc. The list is too long for this post. Don't even get me started on pedal options! A guy can spend hours just looking at and talking about pedal options!
It's been a long road to get where I'm at right now, and It's not even the ending of the beginning. Now I need to get all these bikes out of prototype stage and into production bikes so next year in 2018, I can start on carbon frame mountain bikes, and all the other projects I have floating around in my head and sketched on bar napkins!
So the differences between the 1.0 seven speed version, and the 2.0 three speed versions are quite substantial. I would say that the 3 speed is about twice as much fun to ride! You don't have so many gears to worry about. It's just simpler. If you have to make a fast stop, no worrying about downshifting. Drop her into first when stopped at the light, or while cursing out the idiot who just cut you off!
The high gear isn't as high as a 11T seven speed high rear, but you can still get up to 30mph on the flats with the BBS02B without pedaling, and if you're in a hilly area, just swap out the 17T to a 20T on the nexus for more hill climbing ability.Three speeds is all you will ever need on a cruiser bike. No need for 7 or more gears unless you're seriously into mountain biking. That's a whole other animal.
No comments:
Post a Comment