Saturday, May 21, 2011

Friday 5-20-11 Bike Ride through Bethesda, Maryland

I took my bike out for a spin today. Went from home down through Bethesda, Maryland. I tried a different mounting position for the camera which I like. The GoPro is mounted on the left front fork facing forward. You can see the Schwalbe Big Apple tire and just a tiny bit of the SKS Shockboard fender.



The route:
http://goo.gl/maps/nron

This is best viewed in 720P. It's about 40 minutes long. I'll try and eliminate the dead spots in my next videos!

Ambrose

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Handlebar Arrangement

I finally installed the Ergon GP1-L grips on my bike. I took a small saw to the grips so that I could fit them onto my very crowded handlebar ends and still have them clamp on via the screws on the end of the grips.

Here's the right side. Starting from the right, you can see the Ergon grip cut down, then the grip shifter, the e-bikekit.com throttle, the brake lever with the e-brake cutoff wire, then the three-speed switch, then the Magicshine P7 headlight and finally the ebikes.ca Large Screen Cycle Analyst. It's very crowded!

On the left side: Starting with a very dirty Mirrycle mirror, the Ergon grip, the rear derailleur grip shifter, the broken compass bell (I need to replace this), the other Magicshine P7 headlight, and you can just see the handlebar camera mount behind the Large Screen Cycle Analyst. I use it to mount my Canon G7 point and shoot camera.

Here's the big picture. The LSCA looks really cock-eyed. I need to straighten it out!

More later!
Ambrose

New 26" Alexrims DM24 front wheel with disc brake

When i first got the iO bike, I thought that the front battery hub was bad or going bad. I planned on swapping it out with a plain disc brake enabled wheel so that I could reduce the weight of the bike and also restore it to full range and power. Little did I know that the battery would be in almost perfect shape. I can get 6+ miles from it in Turbo mode. I haven't tried Eco mode on it for any length of time.

In preparation for swapping out the front hub with battery, I ordered a similar wheel. It's a Alexrims DM24 rim with the hub that has the disc brake mount. The only difference that I can see is that this doesn't have the black paint on the inner rim of the wheel where the label is. I popped on a 140mm disc brake rotor I had laying around just to see how it would look. I don't know when I'll get around to replacing the TF battery hub, but it may be a while until I can use this wheel! I will also need to pick up a disc brake, probably an Avid BB7, to fit onto the front fork of the iO. Luckily, the Suntour front fork has disc brake mounts already.


More later,
Ambrose

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Beavinator's 12 FET 36V 40A Infineon Controller from eBikes.ca

I was just cruising my email and ES when Beavinator's posting for his free to a good home, 36V 12 FET 40A Infineon controller showed up. I was very happy to be the first replier to his posting so I got it! I sent him some money for shipping and it should be coming in shortly.

Lyen's Motor/Controller and Hall/Phase/Throttle Tester

Even though I don't really need one right now, I picked up one of Lyen's Motor/Controller and Hall/Phase/Throttle Testers to have in case anything should need testing...



Here's a video of it in operation:

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Group eBike Family Shot

I was cleaning out the shed and also moving checking out the Tidal Force iO I picked up recently when I looked at my stable and thought. This might be a good family shot!


On the left is the Mongoose Currie CB24V450 bike that I'm selling now to make room for the iO to go into the shed. In the foreground is the iO. The S-750 is directly behind it and the eGo Electric Scooter is on the porch on the right.

More later,
Ambrose

Monday, May 2, 2011

Updating the brakes on the Tidalforce iO

I had a pair of Tektro caliper brakes that I removed from my Tidalforce S-750 so I put them on the Tidalforce iO since the brakes on the iO were pretty much shot. Here are the pictures... The bike (after cleaning it up), looks good as new!