Fatal Leg Syndrom (Bum Leg) A Perssonal How I Got Into E-Bikes Story.

I hadn't considered writing about this in previous months, although I may have mentioned a few times about my aching leg. 

What I think is going on, is a surgery I had almost a decade ago needs some attention. A family on their way to a Hawaiian holiday crashed into me on my way to work on the 405 freeway by LAX while I was riding my motorcycle. Broke my ankle in several places. Basically left my foot dangling by the ligaments and muscle. This was two years of my life in hell to say the least. Anyway, after the lawyers and hospital took their cut, I had a few bucks left over. Rather than spending the money on a bunch of toys and throwing it all away, I attempted to start a business. As it turns out, I'm not a good business man. Believe it or not, loving what you're doing, and getting over a million hits per day on your blog is not a recipe for success.

So I went back to plumbing as a master plumber with the union for a few years, then the work stopped. Yeah, I was building an orthopedic hospital in Santa Monica when I was hit. The work stopped long enough that I couldn't keep up with my dues after a couple more years from hell. I took a job with a motorcycle buddy of mine as an apprentice electrician. It payed some bills, Thanks Larry at South Coast Electric! 

I was desperate when I saw the add for bicycle assembly from Beachbikes here in Torrance. I was working part time as apprentice electrician and apprentice A&P mechanic / Mechanics helper at Torrance Airport when I saw the add for Beachbikes. I was still a teenager the last time I had that airport job! Yeah, I'm too old for that now. Too boring without Chief Lineman status anyway. Just a bunch of avgas and a rag! If you've been there, done that, then you know what I'm talking about.

So, to keep this story from being too long, what's happening now is that I can hardly walk. My bum leg is starting to interfere with my work. I can't finish one bike without having to sit down to rest my leg. When work gets busy next spring, the company may need another guy to pick up the slack. Less money for me to pay the bills. I can forget about loading up pallets from stored returned bikes to sell at discount. I'll try loading them right off the truck for a while straight onto the pallet for resale, but that may not work much longer. Hell, I can barely walk the 50yds to my carport or trash dumpsters this week. Disability (a dirty word to me) has been mentioned by family. I WOULD RATHER JUST BUILD AND SELL BIKES AND ELECTRIC BIKES! 

I don't know what's going on yet. I'll have to go to a county hospital to figure it out. Not looking forward to that! This is the slow sales season in the bike business, and I may not have the cash till the spring for such luxuries as medical attention. I may even go down to Old Mexico. At least south of the boarder medical services have not been affected so badly by mandatory insurance, and all the other BS like it has been here! Yeah, not looking forward to that either!

Lets face it. When you're faced with a major disability like this (can't walk), it's time to make some big changes in your life!

I'm not ready yet to do a go fund me account. If I were to do that, it would be for some bad ass ebikes to sell, not for my personal needs.  I like to work for my money! I'm not opposed to giving to charity, but as long as I can, I'm opposed to taking any! 

E-Mountain Beach Cruiser

I wish I could convince the owner of the bike company I work for into building a frame for the ebikes with disk breaks.

Photo for inspiration. 27.5" wheels would be great! Decent front suspension would also be a great option! Base model could come without electrics or a suspension set of forks.

I could add 5" to the wheel spacing of one of the models we already have along with the disk breaks and a modern style 1 1/8" threadless neck and 3-pc crankset and 11speed rear freewheel. That would be AWESOME! A bike like that would fly off the shelves! 

This is a customized single speed version of the bike. I've been planning on customizing one of the 7 speed versions for a while now. Just a 5" stretch between the axles would make this bike perfect for people like myself 6' 2" tall.

The above bike is the model I'd like to get modified. It's cool the way it is, but a little too short for a stable ebike capable of faster speeds. I've been wanting to do another 2wd bike out of the 7 speed version, but I may do a BBSHD first. 

The bike I want built could come with many options. Rear hub motor, 2wd, mid drive with either a BBSO2 or BBSHD. 

New BBSHD City Commuter Bike Sixthreezero Pave N' Trail

I've been having a ton of problems downloading photo's recently. My laptop has just missed my desire to chuck it out the window a dozen times now, and missed getting crunched under foot a half dozen times! 

I started a post last week where I took apart the In The Barrel bike I had the HD motor in that I've been riding every day for over a year, but the photo's didn't load to the computer. Probably for the best because after all the time I spent trying to get the photo's to the post, I had a bit to drink and started talking some truth. If I ever recover those photo's, I'll try again. Some interesting and good info about how to adapts a Bafang mid drive to a typical beach cruiser to be had using standard symmetrical BB adapters instead of having to locate the fancy overpriced eccentric adapters.

So let me start out by saying that I love this bike! I'm just not in love with it for me. I'm 6'2" @ 240lb. I feel a bit cramped. Probably best for people up to 6' tall. It hauls ass with me on it, but If I were to make her my everyday bike, I would change the rear wheel spokes to 13/14 single butted for strength elasticity and long life. If you're under 200lb, I wouldn't worry about it. Since I'm a bike mechanic these days anyway, I just torqued down the spokes on the rear wheel as far as they would go without pushing threw the rim or going full taco. This condition is as strong a setup as you can get, as long as you true the wheel while torquing the spokes down.

Rather than taking off the front derailleur and breaking the chain, I went the lazy route and left it on. I'll call it a chain guide. Don't need one with the Lekkie 46T narrow wide sprocket, but there it is. Chain has NO chance of dropping with this setup!

I haven't had a chance to take it for a real trial run yet, and I haven't added a shift power interrupt yet, but it feels a lot faster with the 7 speeds and 700c wheels than with the 26" wheels I've been using it with. I would of done one or two things different when building the next one, but overall she came out nice. That's what prototyping is for. Work out the bugs and find the best way to assemble the project. It only took me 3 hours to assemble. Most of the 3 hours was spent making the factory wire harness roughting look clean with some well placed zip ties.

The bike itself took longer to assemble since it was a poorly repacked returned bike from a customer with no mechanical aptitude. This should only take 1/2 hour to assemble and tune, but because of the bikes condition, it took almost 4 hours to restore to original condition. I hate it when that happens!

I had to change the rear shifter to use the ebreaks. The stock breaks and shifters are integrated on this model.

Aaaaand I forgot to take the last photo with the crank arms and pedals installed. So this is it! For now.

Bike Sales Job Listing

Ever wanted to make some easy cash selling bikes? I have a deal for YOU!

 

The bikes are Sixthreezero brand. Check out the link and you'll see that they are way below wholesale prices. I usually resell them at half price for the ones I build and sell. The link. https://www.sixthreezero.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiA5qTfBRAoEiwAwQy-6S-VrvMLFwwztwzk7MqwbvAhg5QU1GQ4hv0IoCZbJVxVpmCJGDj4jBoCwa8QAvD_BwE

The bikes are all returns. Many of them only have a box that got crinkled a little in shipping, or have a wheel axle or the end of another part like a kickstand sticking out of box. Many of them are perfect. Most of them are still in factory wrapping. All in factory box. Some of them have scuffs needing touch up paint. I even get them that were returned only because of overstock on some bikes. The most common reason I see for the 7 speed bikes is the customers overestimated their ability to tune the breaks and shifting. Occasionally we get the ones from people who got the bike in the spring, then return in the fall taking advantage of our "forever warranty." I go threw the boxes and remove these bikes if they are not in great condition or rebuild them myself if it's a highly sought after model, or something I want to turn into an electric bike.

I sell these bikes myself here on FB and on CL. We've been getting more returns than our small warehouse wants to store, and I can only build and sell so many bikes by myself. I already have one guy who buys ten to fifteen bikes per week from me. I could use another two guys like him.

The details:
*Minimum order is 10 bikes (One Pallet) my pic (what we have too many of).
*Buyer is responsible to check over the bikes to make sure it's good for them. A missing pedal or reflector is not a reason for exchange. If a frame is dented or bent, I will exchange for similar bike at next pickup.
*Single Speed bikes go for $60.
*Three Speed bikes go for $75.
*Seven Speed and 21 Speed bikes both go for $90.
*All pallets are mixed speeds and models. When they come into the warehouse, I check them over (open box and inspect condition) and load only good bikes onto pallets for pickup. The last thing I want to do is load junk bikes for re-sellers and have to deal with it later. It's as much in my best interest to inspect the bikes and only provide good ones as it is yours.
*All sales are final! Unless as mentioned above, if a bike has a messed up frame that we both missed with our box inspection. It does happen occasionally.
*Absolutely No refunds. Only exchanges are available for the above mentioned reasons.
*Some extra parts are sometimes available at no extra cost with a pallet pickup. If we have extra stuff I add it to a pallet. I don't believe in throwing perfectly good new stuff away. I would rather give it away than chuck it into the dumpster.
*No shipping! Only pickup from our warehouse.

So there it is. Christmas is coming! Time to stock up! Last Christmas I had over 60 bikes in my garage. I sold about 50 of them during the month of December from $100 (1sp) to $250 (3,7, and 21 sp) each. This year I rented a big storage and it's already full. This is a great opportunity that doesn't come around very often.

First come, first serve. After I get a couple more guys wanting to do weekly or bi-weekly pickups, I'll close the opportunity. We have a lot at the moment, so it's free for all until they're all gone.

I loaded a 10 bike pallet this afternoon and it's ready to go now!

Buss Drivers Really Hate Me Now! 2wd 2500w KISS Bike

First commute to work on the new bike today. Yeah, a buss was involved!

So this A-Hole sees me flying way in front of him doing at least the speed limit. I see him behind me starting to change lanes to go around and flooring the thing to do it! So what does he do after he just gets past me? Pulls over and makes me go around! Hahahaha, what a turd! Saved 1/2 second on his time by cutting me off in traffic! Thanks Gardena Jerk! 

Don't need no stinking gears, or speedometers! This bike is on or off, flip the throttle and GO by the seat of your pants! Super Simple Stupid!

So this bike is much faster than I expected. I'll say maybe 3x the torque and 10mph faster than a BBSHD for around 1/2 the price! At about half throttle it felt the same as the HD motor! That's not to say that the Bafang HD is crap. Plenty of people don't want to go 2x faster for half the price I'm sure! I just don't know any of them who want to pay more for less performance. 

As far as the battery range goes, the HD would use up an average of 3V out of my 25Ah pack to work. The 2500 2wd bike uses only 4v while hauling ass at full throttle! THAT'S BETTER THAN I EXPECTED! The only measuring device I'm using at the moment is the charger with Volt display. I'll figure out the Ah and Wh later. 

This bike just took safety and fun to the next level! Safety because I don't have to worry as much about getting hit from behind. Fun factor is going FAST! Fast is FUN! I would much rather eat pavement because of some loose gravel in the road, than get hit from behind by some freak texting dick pix to his friends while driving down the road! 

Yesterday I changed the forks and breaks on the front end. I'll be upgrading them to a set of Suntour 100mm suspension disk break forks as a X-Mas present to myself. I like to stop on a dime! I didn't touch the rear Sponge Bob breaks yet. I can change the levers to get more break by leverage, but I think I'd be better off eliminating some of the cable housing by brazing on a couple end holders. Even if I spent the money on better cable housing, they would still be Sponge Bob. Better to eliminate the housing for crisp breaking.

Better bullet connectors are on the way, and I should get a chance this weekend to work on swapping the worthless display the motors come with. I'll also have to order some 5 pin connectors to make hooking the two motors controllers less of an effort and more sanitary. The first two guys who test rode it at work want one, and I'm not about to go threw all the extra work I did on this bike and not have the wire bundle look nice even though it's out of sight.

So not a bad first day out of the gate! I got two orders, and a buss battle! Win Win IMOP!

Next Project BBSHD?

I wanted to do a 2wd bike out of one of these a couple months ago. Now I'm thinking after having slept on the idea, that it would be better suited to a Mid drive or rear hub motor instead. 

Sometimes I get excited about an idea and overthink it. The 2wd for this bike may of been one of those moments. Sticker price for the bike is $400. RWD 1000w motor would be about $200, 1500w RWD motor would be around $235. Battery for these motors would be a 48v 17.5Ah pack or a 52v 20Ah pack with the option of upgrading to the EM3ev 25Ah 52v pack. Price range for battery packs are from $400 to slightly over $1000 depending on cells requested for the higher end EM3ev packs. I don't charge markup on parts, only for my labor. You're more than welcome to have your motors and batteries shipped to me for installation. I actually prefer that you do! That way all the manufacturers warranties are in your own name.

The Pave & Trail makes a good entry level ebike. Upgrades are always available in motors and or battery packs.

I should have the BBSHD model ready for test rides by the end of next week, since I now have a spare motor and 17.5Ah pack just lying around like some old ghost. Yeah, I already miss my old daily commuter bike, but the new version with 2wd just kicks it's ass by so much, and I can't stand just seeing it laying around as a back up bike. It's time to breath some new life back into this motor with a new bike! It's the perfect street legal motor that's capable of getting you a ticket none the less! I've turned many heads while hauling ass with the BBSHD, including the cops! Buss drivers must HATE me!

 The frame on this bike is perfect for either a traditional hard case 48v battery or a bigger better triangle pack from 48v to 52v! It's always better to get the biggest battery pack you can afford! They last years longer if you take care of them, and motor upgrades are easily available with a larger pack! It should be against the law to sell anything less than 12.5 Ah 48v!

 This week looks like it'll start out slow at work, then pick up pace by Friday. That should give me plenty of time to build this bike and make the ebike BBSHD conversion. It should provide me with a bit more speed with the slimmer 700c tires. For anyone 200lb and over, you will need to upgrade the rear spokes to 13/14 single butted for an additional $100 including labor. 

The bike will be 7 speed with any mid drive motor. With a rear hub motor it can keep the 21 speeds or be turned into a more simple 3 speed bike.

Project K.I.S.S. Acryonim Changed To PITA!

It's a week later than I wanted to be finished with assembly and taken my first ride, but I got her done today and went for my ride!

First of all, this bike is fast! It feels like it has about twice the torque of the BBSHD, and I'm guessing about an extra 5mph over the BBSHD! Yeah, that's a gas to ride! 2wd is the way to go for 1/2 the price of a BBSHD! Even with these cheap $200 motors!

Sorry about the blurry photo. I was going to wait until tomorrow to take photo's, but decided to rush out my front to take a few tonight. I'm still excited about the first ride, and knew I'd want to post about it tonight.

It's not done yet. I started the build with a bike I parted together with a different set of forks. As it turns out, the axle is that much bigger than a regular bike that my break pads fall short of reaching the rim strip. I'll need to swap in the correct forks with factory break mount. So no front break for the moment! The rear breaks I swapped onto the bike don't work very well either, but I had to give them a try since I had them on the shelf. If I used a complete bike rather than one parted together with spare parts, the break issues wouldn't of happened.  A bike this fast needs both breaks that work better than just good enough!

That mirror has to go! Makes the bars and all the effort I put into keeping them clean looking worthless! The mirror just sticks out all over the place. I'll swap it out with the simpler and cheaper one I was using on my BBSHD bike.

In the above photo you can see how well the EM3ev bag works in this bike frame. Not very well. I'll be making hard case battery boxes for these bikes. You can also see in the above photo how I decided to mount the larger rear motor controller to the front of the seat tube. This looks better and eliminates any potential disasters of the rear tire destroying it in case of a blow out if I decided to mount it behind the seat post with only 3/8" clearance. It did shorten the seat post a bit by placing it up as high as I did. The seat post would of been an issue had I decided to keep it mounted to the rear anyway. I hid all the wires in the cheap controller bag I got with the front 1000w motor. It works for now under the battery bag.

This winter I'll be adding a hard case battery box to clean things up. The front motor controller will be mounted to the underside of the box just above the BB. The box will get a hard wired charging plug, and a two speed switch. Street legal, and what I'm doing now speeds.

This display is completely worthless! Since it's made for a 48V battery, it will show full charge until after I want to stop and charge my 52V battery for long life! It needs to show battery Volts! I was just at Luna the other day and I should of picked another one up, but for now I'll just swap in the unit I got with my 3Kw Cyclone motor with key switch. The remote key switch will be mounted to the new battery box. Rather than a On and Off switch, I may wire it as a two speed switch. Off would be full power, and On would be street legal 750w. I just have to figure out what wires I really needed to hook up today to make the bike work. I think I may not of had to hook up three of them. After the white wire wasn't enough, I hooked up the red and black. When that didn't work, I hooked up the yellow and brown and it worked. I think I can leave out the red and black wires so I can hook up the Luna Volt display with thumb throttle. Yeah, I don't like the full throttle these kits came with any more than the displays. It needs a thumb throttle!

So I still have a bunch of work to do. Tomorrow I'll change out the forks and take care of the break issues. After that, I'll be riding it to work all next week to see how she does. Then next weekend I'll be changing out the display, and tuning the wheels. For the first couple of weeks, at least, I'll be truing and tightening both wheels. I don't trust these 12ga spokes. When I first looked at them I was impressed by how much better they were than the photo's in the sales adds on Amazon/Ebay. When I took a closer look, I noticed some bend in them at the rim. Not a good thing. 

Overall, I got what I payed for. In the future I may just get the bare motors from Nexus. The wires are so thin from these motors that I don't dare think about overvolting them for more top end speed. The bike has plenty of torque! If I was any lighter and not leaning forward, I would be getting some unexpected wheelies out of it. The 2wd feels more stable than a rear wheel only bike. More like a little motorcycle. 

At my first light in traffic, I had a guy in a work truck next to me. I took off and got out in front of everyone (yeah TORQUE), and I could hear the guy floor it to get up speed to pass me. All I could think of was how much that gallon of gas cost him to get out in front of a guy on a bicycle! Hahahahaha!

So the advantages of a 2wd bike vs 1wd. You can get motors with high speed winding's to keep it a fast bike, and get double the torque of a bike using high torque winding's. Motors share in the work, so you don't need to get a mega big ass motor that does everything and watch your battery volts drop like crazy when you take off full throttle and decide to keep it at full throttle! Even these cheap motors just blow away the overpriced BBSHD! Period.