Maiden Voyage

The maiden voyage has occurred. Minus 1 hand grip, gear changer not working, front brakes inoperative and rear brakes weak and lots of cable ties uncut.

I lost 2 of the cable ties securing the battery, some work needs to go in there...

Sorry that I have missed some bits of the story, I will go back and fill the gaps and add some photos later tonight.

Morning

Got up early this morning to work on the bike. I got the battery and controller mounted on top of and underneath the luggage rack respectively. Here are a couple of photos that illustrate the problem:


The battery mount plate was a bit tricky, I had to put on a few extra cable ties to prevent side-to-side movement. I have also installed the brake levers and the throttle hand-grip. The right-hand grip has an integrated throttle and the electronics are in a thick plastic collar on the inside. This is where I have hit my second snag. The thickness of the collar prevents the gear shift lever from moving and I can't relocate it anywhere that makes it work. Perhaps I will need a new changer after all. I'll give Greg from the bike shop a call today and see what he thinks.

Step 1 complete

Took the bike into Smith Cycles in Fyshwick to have the wheel trued and the dish adjusted. I also asked Greg to adjust the derailleur and brakes while it was in there. Got a call at around 2pm to say that the bike was ready and that while he hadn't been able to get the wheel completely centred that it was tracking straight and he had adjusted the brakes and derailleur successfully.

The problem with the derailleur was that I has gone from a 9-gear to a 5-gear rear gear cassette. This meant that either there was a difference in the distance between gears on the two cassettes or that the new cassette was similar to the old but with the top 4 cogs missing.

The first case would have meant a new gear changer and a new, fatter chain. This would have been a problem since no one makes a 5-gear changer anymore. As it turns out is must have been the second case.

Here are the before and after pics of the wheel:

---------Before-----------------------------------------------After-------------

Step 1, snag 1

So I didn't manage to get anything done last night, but instead woke up early this morning and swapped the tyre, installed the puncture guard and put it on the bike. Something looked odd and the wheel was rubbing on one brake pad even with the brakes disengaged.

Looking at the tyre nearest the frame it showed that it was much closer to one side than the other:



Thinking about this my first thought was that I needed to put some spacers in on one side, or adjust the axle inside the hub. Adjusting the axle didn't look too easy and adding spacers would increase the width required between the drop-outs so that was undesirable too. Speaking to some cycling enthusiasts at work I found that there is a "dish" adjustment where they loosen the spokes on one side and tighten them on the other essentially moving the whole rim left or right across the centre line of the axle. This sounds like the fix required so I will drop the bike into a bike shop tomorrow and have them adjust it.

Stay tuned.

Damage!

Got the kit today just before lunch. All was in order, no visible damage on the outside of the box and a superficial look doesn't reveal any damage.

As I was unpacking everything I inspected the rim in detail, no dings in the rim, but time will tell me if it is true (round). Some of the spokes don't look quite right, so I think I will get a bike shop to look it over prior to any heavy riding.

As I was about to hook the battery up to the charger I noticed that the metal casing of the charger was bent. When I plugged the charger in, one of the lights flashes red and according to the instructions on the front of the charger this indicates "abnormal" behaviour. I don't want to plug the $550 battery into it until I check it out so I rang Rod from EV-Power and he said that the damage must have happened in transit and that the light will flash until you hook up the battery, which I dutifully do and the lights indicate proper charging. I guess I have to live with the damage.

The charger is quite heavy (circa 2kg) and I think I will have to rethink my plan of commuting with it every day to charge it at work. We'll have to see what sort of range I end up getting before I fork out for another one. Rod has indicated a cost around $80.

Tonight my plan is to swap the tyre from my old wheel to the new wheel and install the puncture guards in front and rear wheels. After I do this I will install the new rear wheel and test the system prior to cabling everything up. The tyre that ships with the kit is laughable, but as Rod pointed out its primary role is to protect the rim during shipping.

Here are some pics of the damaged charger:

It's Here! It's Here!

Well at least it is in the same city as me now.

I had the worst night's sleep last night. I wasn't overly excited when I went to bed, in fact I kept falling asleep reading my book. During the night I just kept waking up and tossing and turning. Then at 2 am I woke right up after having a dream that the courier arrived and only had 1 of the boxes. The one with the battery. So I guess it was anxiety that was keeping me awake. Apologies to my lovely wife for the probable effect it had on her sleep.

Anyway, I checked the tracking site and found that my parcel was scanned into the Canberra depot overnight. What time do you think?

2:10 am. Spooky.

Sighting

Parcel spotted in Syndey this morning at 09:00. All things going well should see it tomorrow some time. Drum roll please maestro...

Bargains

Bargains to be had at Aldi this week.

Wireless cycle computer: $20
Coolmax cycle shorts: $20
Cycling gloves: $6
Reflective windproof jacket: $25

I thought I did pretty well and the perineum pad in the shorts made a huge difference in riding to work yesterday.

The courier's website now has and ETA for delivery for next Tuesday. Cant wait!

Disaster!

I've just learned that the kit is coming via road, rather than air as I assumed. I guess I made an ass out of me and umption.

So, probably no post until next Wednesday.

This is killing me!

All day yesterday I was pumping my tracking number into the courier's web site. All day it was telling me there were no records. This is to be expected though, it wont show up into the system until the item is picked up and returned to the depot. WA is 2 hours behind us so I couldn't expect anything until at least late in the day. Well at 10 pm local time there was still nothing. I desperately wanted to email Rod to see if it was picked up, but I was a good boy. I waited until the next day and guess what? Now the courier's web site is just timing out. So frustrating, but you know what they say "time be time mon"

Good News and Bad

Good news: Rod emailed me with the consignment note number so I can track my shipment
Bad news: He missed getting it on the courier today

Here is a picture of my bike, pre-conversion:

Investigation

Still no notification of shipping :( I don't expect much do I?!

Anyway, I was about to talk about the investigation I did. Once I had decided that the Powercor Pushies Whisper 905e frame was going to be too small for me I started looking elsewhere.

You see I have this perfectly good mountain bike that I got for a case of Coopers. It is a Shogun Prairie Breaker with a 24" top tube so is just the right size for me. They guy I got it off is 6'3" and the bike is in really good nick for a 5 year-old bike. Also the running gear had all been upgraded. I'm ashamed to say that I never ride it.

There are lots of cycling enthusiasts at work who reckon that I should just ride in, but I am a self-aware realist. I know I wont ride in if:

• I sleep in
• It's too hot
• It's too cold
• I put too much energy into playing volleyball last night

But my reasoning says I will if I have a little help. Onto my research:

I started out just googling e-bike purveyors in Australia and there are a surpirsing amount. Pretty soon I came across eLation. This looked pretty cool and had made it onto the ABC TV show, The New Inventors, so it had some credibility. I was impressed that they guy had designed the system himself and wasn't just importing a full bike. This was the first one I came across that was a chain drive system and not a hub motor. The marketing on the site was great and I was convinced that the weight it saved me (6kg for the motor and battery) was key. I tried to get onto eLation to purchase a kit and was told that Allan was processing back orders and was thinking that perhaps the order he was about to place on the manufacturer in China would sell out before he had even ordered it.

I'm going to assume this was the truth and it made me want it even more. If demand was that high, then surely it was a good kit. I told him I wanted to order one ASAP. In the end I am kind of glad that they didn't have anything, because I decided to ring around a few e-bike sellers to find out if they had any dealing with the eLation kits. What I found out was eye opening, but basically it turns out that they aren't as easy to install as the marketing blurb implies and that the power coming through the drive train has the potential to wear out components. So what did each one recommend? Back to the old hub motor and have a look at The Electric Bike Co, but @ $1,699 I was unimpressed with the price since the price of the Powercor Pushies Whisper 905e was only $1,600 for the whole bike kitted out with lights, disk brakes and tubeless tyres. The eLation kit was only $1,265 so the price point of the E Wheel Conversion kit was way to high.

More reasearch leads me to EV-Power Australia and the kit I have now ordered. Looking at the site and seeing the projects Rod has been involved in leads me to think that he really must know what he is doing, but the non-polished Golden Motor web site and lack of details gave me pause. One thing I noticed that was a plus was that I was pretty sure that the Powercor Pushies Whisper 905e had a GM as the power train. The look of the twist throttle, the power interlocks on the brake levers and the power assist mode on the Whisper that kicks in when you start peddaling all matched the features of the GM perfectly.

On to the Golden Motor Owner Forums, I trawled through just about evey thread looking for inherent issues and the only thing I was worried about was the 160 mm drop-out some people mentioned for the rear wheel kit. I double-checked with Rod from EV-Power Australia and he assured me that he specifically orders the kit from GM with a 135 mm drop-out as this is common to mountain bikes.

In fact, I have to say that dealing with Rod has made me feel really comfortable about my purchase. He was able to answer every question about the installation and operation of the kit and with the battery he supplies it is a truly integrated kit. No extra washers or power connecters should be required. That being said if I get away with a trouble-free installation I will be over the moon.

I'll take a picture of my bike tonight for posting comparison.

Order placed

Just placed my order and am waiting on the courier tracking numbers. Question is, will I be able to sleep tonight?

Excited!!

I am excited today. In fact I haven't slept well since Friday night. Friday being the day I decided to commit to buying this particular electric bike kit. For AU$999 it is a real bargain, considering the competitor that was recommended to me came in at a whopping AU$1,699.

I hear you all saying, "Well you get what you pay for" but sometimes you just can't afford to pay. This price mean the "Wife Acceptance Factor" (WAF) is much more in the fat part of the bell-curve, instead of riding the upper shoulder.

I've been excited about electric bikes for all of three weeks now, but before that I didn't know they existed. Then one night on my local news they had a piece on this guy who was spruiking and flogging electric bikes. For a while now I have been in a job which doesn't require me to have a car. In the last 14 years of my career I would have to travel to client site visits, not any more. Driving to work in traffic on my own, seeing all the other people doing the same drives me crazy (pardon the pun) it is such a waste.

I had already done all I could to reduce my fuel usage while still driving to work and not over-capitalising on my car. I bought my Daihatsu Sirion (1 litre 3 cylinder motor) at only 5 years old with 65,000 km on the clock for only AU$6,500 a couple of years ago. It has been great only using $20 worth of fuel a week. Now with rising petrol prices that has gone up to $35/week. My wife's car is a different story, a 3.5 litre V6 petrol guzzler.

So I went out to have a look at the powercor bike in action, it was pretty cool! Only one problem, it comes in one frame size. I am 6'5" and a too-small frame will kill my back and knees on a daily commute. I have to think about it.

I started talking to my Wife about it to gauge the WAF, my reasoning was this:
If we save $30 a week in petrol by me not driving to work and you driving the little car during the week when you don't need the big car, we can pay for the electric bike in only 54 weeks. I get some fitness out of it and with the electrics I reckon I can make it to work in 35 minutes, as opposed to 25 minutes in the car.

After thinking about it for a little while she agreed that it was a good idea, even if it was just something different in our lives, bless her cotton socks!

So I started investigating, but now I am out of time and have to get ready for work, maybe I will do another post at lunchtime about my research period.