Hobble

I'm down since mid-December with a broken collar bone following a hit with a bus stop sign at 25 km/h that was/is bang on the middle of a cycle lane. Spot the sign and apart from dark it was also torrential at the time of the crash. Didn't know what hit me at the time. The crash happened on the evening on my last planned cycling day of 2019 two days before we had planned to take a ferry to France. So a slight change of plans it was then for Christmas. Anyway, I'm off the sling now and recovering well. The bike survived with minor scratches and aside that have been working brilliantly since the issue with the chainweel adaptor. The BBS has now just over 10000 miles/16000 km on the clock and the bike itself has over 20k km. Can't wait to get back "on the saddle" hopefully no later than beginning of March. The helmet definitely saved my head and apart from the collar bone not a scratch on me so lucky in a way. It could have ended much worse for example if the sign had deflected me under an oncoming car. Wishing everybody belated safe and enjoyable 2020 and I'll be back.

So the precialps 130 PCD adapter almost left me stranded and I had to buy a temporary bike to keep me mobile. I contacted them about the failure but no response. As seen in the picture the adapter really began to come apart and started to heavily ride against the Bafang's body before I spotted the issue. I just made it back home applying only minimum assistance levels. A hallomotor replacement arrived yesterday and I'm back on the beloved ebike today. The new adapter looks much beefier and doesn't have any sharp edges in its design so hopefully it will last longer than the previous one. The original chainwheel I fitted in the old Precialp continues to be usable.

So, the BBSHD continues to work well and it was time to do a proper yearly service at 11800 km (just under 7500 mi) on the clock. This was due to the original rear wheel of the Boardman starting to disintegrate. The spokes had started to require frequent tightening and last week one spoke snapped and two or three spokes had started to pull through the rim so it was definitely time for a new wheel. Not too bad after close to 10 k miles on it in total I suppose. I had already bought another Shimano Deore cassette and SRAM PC1050 chain in preperation of the eventual drivetrain replacement and now was a good time after 7000 kilometers since the last replacement. The Deore had lost an estimated 20 pc of material from the rings 8 and 9 and the chain turned out to have stretched a full links length, quite a lot really. No wonder the gears felt a bit sloppy. The front "Blackspire" chainring looked almost new in comparison which was as well as I had to reuse it (note to myself: Don't buy a track chain chainring next time even if it's cheap, lol). I also took a quick look and greased the secondary gearset of the Bafang (all looked good there) and also the headstock bearings first time ever. They looked a bit dry and with a hint of rust so glad I did. Love the Schwalbe Marathon tyres. Both front and the rear have lasted for a full year (so like over 4k miles) instead of a few months the previous tyres lasted. I didn't actually need to replace them yet but but as I had a spare just decided to mount the new tyre on the new rim and keeping the other tyre as a spare. I reckon it would have still lasted for a couple (or more) of thousands of miles more. The California eBike torque arm had fractured near the top so I just drilled a new holes through it and the frame. It's quite hard material and lasted about 6000 miles or so of road use. Surprisingly the PreciAlps 130PCD adaptor also shows signs of fatigue and has a fracture almost going trough the alloy. Need to order a replacement, planning to go for a generic Chinese brand as not exactly happy with its short lifetime. Funny that the Blackspire ring might actually outlast the adapter. Bad form I think. The bike felt amazing today after all the broken stuff was replaced. Hats off, the Boardman MX is doing really well and still looks good after almost 3.5 years and close to 10 k miles on the clock (of which 7500 mi as an ebike as mentioned). Oh the original grips wore though, replaced them with some fresh ones. The original ones had odd consistency and it always felt like there were grains of sand on your hands after a spin. Now fixed by the new set.

Glad you find this helpful. I got lots of ideas and help from the others here and am really happy to give something back. Very impressed with both apparent and now actual Bafang build quality.

Cheers. Those versamounts look like the beesknees. That being said my battery is mounted just with the two bottle holder screws and is holding well with very little flex. I have meant to put on some velcro straps around it for a bit less stress for the mounts but keep forgetting to do it. As a matter of fact I'll do it just now as I have have some suitable velcro in the garage. If the bike was used offroad it would definitely need more a more secure battery mount.

So, end of the year 2018 update follows. I'm close to the magic 6000 mile mark now, the current odo reading is about 9500 km which means I put about 4000 miles on it in a year. BBSHD keeps working without issues and the noise and function seems exactly the same as when I first fitted it back in summer 2017. The durability of it has been a pleasant surprise. After to and froing I decided to sell my motorbike a few months ago so am 100 percent on the pedelec now rain or shine. And there has definitely been both. The only issue in the past 3k miles was that the alloy chainwheel bolts I decided to use kept coming loose but that problem was successfully fixed with some ebay stainless items. No more issues for several thousands of kms since then. The chain and sprockets now have 4600 km on them and all the items look dirty but no noticeable wear unlike the original Bafang chainwheel that was totally shot after 4800 km. The 10 speed drivetrain seem to be able to take my commute with ease. Another star of the show are Schwalbe Marathon tyres which have already lasted for over 5000 km and show little wear and I had only one puncture in that time (and as it was a slow puncture it could have been the valve instead, had just added some air in the tyre the day before). Before Schwalbe I had some Vittorio tyre which wore out in less than 2000 kms and I had two punctures too in that timeframe. Apart from the chainwheel wanting to part the bike, new tyres and that one puncture, the only service on the bike has seen was a new set of brake pads and liberal application of WD40 and synthetic chain lube too keep the salt corrosion at bay. Not sure how long the drivetrain will last but so far so good. The 17.5 Ah battery seems to be slightly down the capacity but easily lasts my return trip even when doing highish speeds and occasionally even reckless ones. And gale force headwind, don't forget the headwind. Apparently you do get fit riding an e-bike and it is good exercise as seen from the graph below when I decided to wear my polar chest strap the first time for a while. One the way back I actually hit 190 bpm at some stage which is a "tad" high for a middle aged guy but I feel fit and strong now. So there we have it. Have a great Xmas folk and keep on cycling!

I have been riding my HD without a gear sensor for quite some time now. It's easy to get used to "clutch" it, i.e. lightly apply the left (=rear) brake lever while changing the gear without even thinking about it. I actually rode a non-assisted bike at the weekend and caught myself clutching that too so it's actually difficult to get rid of the reflex once you get used to it.

Wait a minute, you said 104? My spider and the ring are 130.

Hi Anotherkiwi, I just fitted it without machining anything but as mentioned the bolts self machined themselves a bit against the motor. I mounted the adapter with the "precialps" text facing out in case it matters. Maybe your ring is made of a thicker material?

Will be interesting to see how that alloy ring lasts compared to the OE steel one. Who knows, maybe it will run out in a short while and next I find myself going for the bling ring or something else. So far so good though after another 300mi/500km since I did the service. The chainline is now pretty much perfect, i.e. aligned on 7th or 8th gear which are the most common ones I use and I can now (probably, as haven't needed to yet) use all ten speeds. The 1-3 are not needed on the road even on the steepest hills I encounter on my travels and even the 4th gear is almost unnecessarily short to use on regular basis unless you need to start from a steep gradient. For offroad use things would be different though. The HD is overkill for the type of riding I do and I went for it in a hope for a long service life of the power unit which is a reassuring quality on a daily driver. As mentioned there were absolutely no signs any wear inside the secondary reduction gearset and associated axle bearings when I took a look. There is so much torque on this motor that you'd get away with just three gears I think: Hill starts, cruising, downhills. Trying not to lug the motor though and will therefore give it plenty of 4th combined with as much as possible pedal assistance when setting off and at low speeds.

OK, looks muchos better now. The (alloy) bolts were lightly rubbing against the gearbox case for a short while but as the cranks were turning almost without extreme violence (heh) I just ignored it and 10 km later the problem was solved. With the sprocket fitted inside the Precialps adaptor the chainline now looks very similar to the original Bafang chainwheel.

Thank you for feedback all. I'll get some proper bolts for it and hopefully will be able to mount the chainwheel inside the adapter as meant. The M10 ones look very crude anyway. If worst come to worst I might have to space out the adapter a tiny bit to allow the chainwheel to attach inside, will keep you posted. The lekkie would be great but I decided to go for standard bike components so that getting a replacement will be easy going forward. The 8 speed might be a good idea in the future to be able to use heavier chain but at the same time I got 5k miles from the original bits of which almost 3k was done electric which I'm quite happy with and I went for slightly more expensive chain this time which I hope helps (PC1050 vs 1025). Would need new shifter and really like the current one. Will decide before the next drivetrain is needed.

HI Gilk, the only issue I have had was with the Anderson connector between the battery pack and the motor. I soldered the connections and it has been faultless since and used daily in Irish winter. I used red rubber grease on all of the connectors when assembling the bike last year which may or may not have helped. But as I said I have been really pleasantly surprised on the reliability. Probably best to use a bike cover to keep the bike somewhat covered if possible. Btw, I took out the "transmission" side cover of the BBSHD and there was no sign of water ingress there and everything looked totally new after 4700 km. A top tip: Replaced the paper gasket that tore upon disassembly with Loctite 518 anaerobic instant gasket sealant I happened to have in the garage. I was a bit worried that it would affect the running clearances but nothing bad happened and all is running sweet as ever. Added some moly grease in the cogs while at it. The bike now has a 46T alloy cyclocross front chainwheel with that precialp adaptor. The chain alignment is not great now and only close to perfect on the top gear now. Only gears 4-10 are usable now but the situation is not too bad as I never *need* to use them anyway due to the copious torque of the HD. Would be nice to eventually fix the alignment but it won't be easy as the M10 bolt heads inside the precialp adapter already had to be ground down to create enough clearance between the gearbox and the adapter. When next in a bolt shop will look for high tensile very thin headed bolts which might allow mounting the front chainwheel inside the adapter instead outside where it's currently installed. PS: The bike drivetrain is a real mix now: Shimano Deore 10spd cassette, SRAM PC1050 chain and Blackspire front chainwheel work perfectly with SRAM derailleur and shifter.

OK, 4700 km now on the bike since the conversion and the original chain finally ran out after 3300 + 4700 km (= 5000 mi total). The front chainring started to skip like mad on the way home yesterday almost without warning. It looks like the chain just suddenly stretched enough to lift off the visibly worn driven chain wheel teeth. I had already planned a big spring maintenance for the bike at 5000 km so this was brought forward a bit and the bike will be off road until my precialps 130 BCD chainring adapter arrives hopefully soon. New cassette, chain, front chainwheel will be fitted and I think I'll take the motor out to check how the nylon pinion gear is doing. There are no signs of any trouble with it just grease it all as preventative maintenance. Had one more puncture and the brake pads were changed sometime earlier this year but no other issues. Oh and two panniers have disintegrated with lock etc. rattling in them. I have been pleasantly surprised how reliable the bike has been. Going to keep the gearing the same as it is as I can't see any reason to change from 46T front and 32-11T rear.

I converted a 2014 Boardman MX Comp (Avid hydraulic brakes, SRAM Via Centro 2 x 10 speed) using BBSHD back in August and have been commuting on average 4 days a week 13 miles each way since. The bike had 3300 km/2050 M on the clock before the conversion and now another 1800 miles more. The full kit I bought from eclipsebikes.com consisted of BBSHD and a Whale 48V 17.5Ah battery and hydraulic brake sensors. After fitting the kit I found out that the motor was moving about quite a bit so after a couple of tightening attempts I finally added a BSB-1 Bafang BBSXX stabilizer bar from california-ebike.com after a few hundred miles which sorted out the issue for good. Another recurring issue has been the brake sensors: I epoxied the sensors on to the top of the brake handle bodies but they kept coming loose following smallest incidents when maneuvering the bike to/from the shed. I eventually cable tied and glued the sensors on front of the handles but had to do add small cable tie sized notches to the levers to get the magnets to stay on at the correct position. Not pretty but fixed that issue for good. I also had to solder the battery to motor leads after the initial connection stopped working following a shower but it's good as it allowed me to trim extra cable for neater installation. Since then no more issues and the bike is being ridden almost daily on muddy and well salted Irish winter. Apart from above the bike has been faultless. I suffered from 3 punctures in one week and none before and after. I was initially worried about the drivetrain of the bike but so far it's still running with the original chain and cassette after over 3800 miles of combined pedal and now electric powah. The brake pads are running very thin so will need to be replaced by 4000 miles I reckon. Back in August I was able to complete two return trips (52 miles) using the battery but the low power warning appeared during the last hill before home. I also kept the assistance at 4-6 out of 9 and used plenty of pedal power. Since then I have used almost exclusively assistance level 7 and wth the settings I have the top speed of the bike is limited to approx. 26 mph on the closed track using assistance level 9. The assist 7 results in approx. 16 mph, or something, officer. It takes me typically 40-45 minutes per direction, HR averages 135-145 bpm and the full battery very comfortably lasts for the return trip even when it's freezing cold. Yesterday, for example, it was quite mild and not much wind and the battery voltage dropped from 54 V to 47 V by the time I was at home so there is typically plenty of spare capacity for odd short trips to shop etc. without needing to recharge during the day. The bike carries panniers full time too so I reckon the range is excellent. I believe that it was the best decision ever to do this conversion. I used to commute mainly on a motorbike and although pedelec adds about 10 minutes of travel time per leg there is no way I'd ever go back to the motorbike for this commute. It's great fun to pedelec and it's great exercise too. The motorbike has only been used once since August and will most likely be sold on come spring. And before the conversion it typically took 55 min - 1:15 per leg to cycle depending on the wind and direction but under electric power the travel time is always consistent within a few minutes even where there is that wet Friday night 20 mph head wind against me.

Hi all, just thought I'll post the conclusion for this which is that I have ended up putting about 2800 km on my last December purchased bike with pedal power only, typically twice a work week. Still interested in going to the pedelec route "at some stage" but so far I have enjoyed the muscle power only. Currently toying an idea of buying a second bike to convert but need to sort out my parking arrangements first.

Yeah, the extra VAT is a pain adding extra few tenners on large purchases. Some vendors don't bother doing it though.

I'm thinking that the increased torque from 750W motor might stress the drivetrain components a bit too much but what do I know. Is there is any difference in expected range between the 36 and 48 volt models if you keep the average speed the same on a battery with the same number of cells? Will a quality 12Ah/48V bottle battery pack be able keep me going for 26 miles even on a windy day?

OK, thanks for the feedback all. 750w/48v sounds like it would be overkill then for my commute apart from a thumbs up from 1boris. I think I'll go for the 500w/36v just so that I have a bit more oomph for my amusement. Hopefully that combo will result in similar range to Nealh. 36v models have a less torque than 48 ones which should be good for the battery range, right, if lots of assistance is used. My bike has a 48 tooth front ring so will need to order one of those. It's a SRAM Via Centro 20 speed so will be a 10 speed with a 12-36t cassette. As mentioned in the intro section I'll probably put on a few miles on my bike without motor to get a feel of it and will order the kit early 2016. Thanks again.

Have been considering a Bafang BBS01 or 02 and a suitable battery for a commuter bicycle. Aside from the legal point which would mandate going for the BBS01-250 it's not clear to me whether I should go for a 36v or 48v setup when building from ground up without any existing parts. The bike is a Boardman MX hybrid with 700c tyres. My commute would be around 25 miles return (13 miles each way actually) and my home is at approx. 90 meters higher elevation compared to the work. There are series of uphill and downhill sections in between depending on which route I choose to take. I used to cycle several times a week for a while a few years ago but gave up due to the distance imo. being too much on regular basis especially when it's windy. However, have been looking into the pedelec option for a few years now and I think it would help me to stick on the bike. The initial thought was BBS02-500 or 750 with a 11.6Ah/48v bottle battery but would I be better off getting a 350 or 500W BBS01 and 15Ah/36V battery instead considering the distance I need to cover daily? I would probably want to put some input and pedal in semi enthusiastic manner. At the same time I would not be shy to use the assistance for headwind and hilly parts. What kind of range you think I could expect with the 48v vs. 36v option? I guess I could charge at work doubling my distance if I got a spare charger. And, in general, is 48v the way to go on a new build with no legacy parts whatsoever? I'm a bit afraid that 750w motor would provide too much torque for the bike to handle and result in wear and tear so thinking that 500w would be a good compromise for a bit of a go vs. longevity not to mention the range.

Cheers Trex, Cyclezee. Thanks for that. As a matter of fact I have been browsing at eclipse and also wooshbikes for the kit. Looks like prices are very similar and both seem to have good feedback ratings.

Hi there, have been pedelec curious for a while now but lost my would be base bike (GT Aggressor XC3) when it was stolen. New bike ordered, a Boardman hybrid, which I'm currently planning to Bafang BBS central motorise as my commuter. Have about 13 miles each way commute from the burbs to the city centre with few big hills in between. Anyway, will probably be asking questions once I have first put on a few miles on the Boardman without a motor.