I promised I would post some pictures and notes of my progress through the modification of my daughter's Peugot ladies road/touring bike, so here it is. I'll start with some observations on the bike, the kit as received and then move on to the conversion job. Hopefully this will be interesting to current e-bike owners and useful to browsers and would-be kit buyers. The order of this monologue is roughly historic, but I'm taking the liberty of applying some hindsight to bring some things forwards in the story to a logical place (it also makes it look more like I think of *everything* ). Posting is starting before we finish the job so please be patient...
The bike was purchased in the mid 1980s (the deal was you get a bike to get to college for two years plus driving lessons, instead of a season ticket for the bus ). It has a steel frame and conforms mainly to French standards (thanks to Alex 728 for this link French Bicycles by Sheldon Brown which explains these). Wheels are 700C with 26 tyres, no room for MTB tyres so I checked the rim width with Alien before ordering - it's 25mm.
I picked the Alien kit after much browsing and lurking on fora such as this. On this forum in particular, I've had a lot of help and encouragement (Flecc and Old Timer, take a bow) even before starting in earnest. My spec is to assist my daughter up a 1.5 mile long 10 percent hill on her way to a new work site and a 36v 10Ah system is reckoned (by Alien and others) to be up to this. I also did some basic energy sums (and there are comprehensive spreadsheets on the web whic do it better) which imply that the energy from 60% of the charge in the battery is easily enough to lift her, bike and luggage up the hill. Time will tell!
The Alien kit arrived quickly and was well packed, nothing seemed to be missing or damaged. Runout at the rim of the wheel was under a millimetre as eyeballed with the axle clamped in the workshop vice and the rim sighted against a rule. Slight twitches of my eyebrows were been caused by:
- two bits of the system don't look particularly waterproof, namely the battery charge socket and the connection between battery and controller box.
- the bunch of thin wires leaving the controller are hopelessly tangled for the first few cms. Whoever put the connectors on the groups of wires just couldn't be bothered to get the wires sorted first. Given the lack of space inside the box, being able to route these wires in their groups is a must and the tangle will make that difficult.
- the controller manual is hysterical. Joking aside, if there's anything of value in this publication, it's lost in translation.
- there's a dire warning at the end of the downloaded installation instructions about not plugging a charger into the battery if the charger is powered up. If it's that important, Alien should fit warning labels on the cable by the plug, and on the battery
Here's pictures attached to illustrate the power connector
...and the tangle of wires...
Obvious (now!) issues, some to be solved by further application of wallet:
- the brake and throttle supplied with the kit are for 22mm handlebars. The bike has French-standard 23.5mm bars, so bars, stem and pin will have to be changed. Drops are going to be problematic in any case (the throttle goes where?), so conversion to straight is likely. Drop bar ends are available for these which may work (thanks Old Timer for finding these)
- a quick look at the carrier shows it's not intended for a bike with wheels smaller than 700C, so some modification/extension is likely
- the brake levers expect the cylindrical bullets on the ends of the brake cable inners, so inners will have to be changed
(to be continued...)
The bike was purchased in the mid 1980s (the deal was you get a bike to get to college for two years plus driving lessons, instead of a season ticket for the bus ). It has a steel frame and conforms mainly to French standards (thanks to Alex 728 for this link French Bicycles by Sheldon Brown which explains these). Wheels are 700C with 26 tyres, no room for MTB tyres so I checked the rim width with Alien before ordering - it's 25mm.
I picked the Alien kit after much browsing and lurking on fora such as this. On this forum in particular, I've had a lot of help and encouragement (Flecc and Old Timer, take a bow) even before starting in earnest. My spec is to assist my daughter up a 1.5 mile long 10 percent hill on her way to a new work site and a 36v 10Ah system is reckoned (by Alien and others) to be up to this. I also did some basic energy sums (and there are comprehensive spreadsheets on the web whic do it better) which imply that the energy from 60% of the charge in the battery is easily enough to lift her, bike and luggage up the hill. Time will tell!
The Alien kit arrived quickly and was well packed, nothing seemed to be missing or damaged. Runout at the rim of the wheel was under a millimetre as eyeballed with the axle clamped in the workshop vice and the rim sighted against a rule. Slight twitches of my eyebrows were been caused by:
- two bits of the system don't look particularly waterproof, namely the battery charge socket and the connection between battery and controller box.
- the bunch of thin wires leaving the controller are hopelessly tangled for the first few cms. Whoever put the connectors on the groups of wires just couldn't be bothered to get the wires sorted first. Given the lack of space inside the box, being able to route these wires in their groups is a must and the tangle will make that difficult.
- the controller manual is hysterical. Joking aside, if there's anything of value in this publication, it's lost in translation.
- there's a dire warning at the end of the downloaded installation instructions about not plugging a charger into the battery if the charger is powered up. If it's that important, Alien should fit warning labels on the cable by the plug, and on the battery
Here's pictures attached to illustrate the power connector
...and the tangle of wires...
Obvious (now!) issues, some to be solved by further application of wallet:
- the brake and throttle supplied with the kit are for 22mm handlebars. The bike has French-standard 23.5mm bars, so bars, stem and pin will have to be changed. Drops are going to be problematic in any case (the throttle goes where?), so conversion to straight is likely. Drop bar ends are available for these which may work (thanks Old Timer for finding these)
- a quick look at the carrier shows it's not intended for a bike with wheels smaller than 700C, so some modification/extension is likely
- the brake levers expect the cylindrical bullets on the ends of the brake cable inners, so inners will have to be changed
(to be continued...)
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