All Parts Are HERE!

Now that the last part, the rear wheel with cassette has arrived, I'm finally ready to put the bike together. I hope to be able to get to this by this weekend. I have one more test to go so wish me the best!

Ambrose

Double wall 26" rear wheel with cassette

I also picked up a double-wall 26" rear wheel with cassette mount for my bike on eBay. This was the least expensive 26" double-wall rear wheel I could find and it looks like an almost identical match to my front wheel in terms of profile. I paid $15 for it with $20 for shipping. It should be here by the end of the week.

Cane Creek S-6 Headset

When looking around for forks, I discovered that I need some way to mount the fork on the bike! I asked for a recommendation and I was told about Cane Creek. I knew of them because of their unique "Thudbuster" suspension seat.

http://canecreek.com/component-seatposts

They also make great headsets:

http://canecreek.com/component-headsets?product=s-series

I picked up an S-6 headset from eBay.

Surly Instigator bike fork

I ordered a nice sturdy fork online last week. I asked for recommendations of forks from the Tidalforce group on Google. They knew this was a front hub motor setup so they recommended the Surly Instigator solid steel fork. It's designed to replace 100mm travel suspension forks so it's extra tall. It's also very wide so that it can handle 2.7" wide tires! I ordered it from here:

http://treefortbikes.com/#product.asp?pid=333222350528&parent=a82

The price of $63.24 was the lowest I could find by about $16! Shipping brought it up to $71. I'm expecting it to be delivered today.

It's a very solid, straight tubed steel fork with strong looking dropouts. There are removable cantilever posts and also a disk brake mount.

Zefal Beam Rack

I picked up my Zefal beam rack from REI yesterday. It's a rack that clamps to the seat post of my bike. I needed this since I didn't want a regular rack with the aluminum posts clamped to the bike frame. It doesn't feel extremely heavy duty, but I will give it a try. I'm going to mount my battery/box to it and also strap it to my seat so that if it should break, the battery won't fall to the street.

Toolbox to house battery

I picked up a compact plastic toolbox to house my 36V 20AH LiFePO4 battery. I couldn't see putting such a fragile component in a rear rack either by itself or in a canvas/fabric rear rack bag so I went looking for a hard case that would fit on a rear bike rack. I found this very inexpensive toolbox at Home Depot and it fits the battery perfectly! There are even spaces for the cables that come out of the battery so that they don't have to make a hard bend to reach the BMS.

I've ordered the rear rack from REI and it should be arriving tomorrow at the local REI in Rockville.

More later!

Ambrose

Two more major parts to go!

Now that I've picked up the front hub motor, the frame, the battery, all the major parts for the brakes, crank, derailleur (front and rear), and handle bar and seat, all I need are two more components. One is the front fork. I've got one that I'm bidding on in eBay. The other is the rear wheel which is proving challenging.

The rear wheel needs to hold a lot of weight. My weight plus the weight of a 20 lb battery pack, rear rack and the controller. I would guess about 30 lbs for the bike, 15 lbs for the front wheel/hub and 24 lbs for the battery and rack, plus my 170 lbs and my backpack and
it adds up to quite a bit of weight: almost 250 lbs!

I'm looking for a strong 26" double wall 36H rim with 12 gauge spokes and a Suntour cassette. These are not common!

If you know of any that would fit this description, please let me know!

Ambrose