JamesC

I have a collection of good equipment in excellent condition for carrying children (front mounted Bobike Mini and OKBaby seats + Chariot Cougar Double trailer), mainly used with a 26v Panasonic Kalkhoff Agattu. All maintained in very good condition. The same type of seats were described in this thread, together with my son and daughter in law's Kalkhoff Tasman. If you are within reach of Peterborough, send me a PM to have a try out.

I enjoyed the Bobike Mini front seat with my grandsons, usually fitted to a "step through" Kalkhoff with the seat mounted up on the quill stem and rotating with the handlebars (probably only suitable on the road). You may be interested in this old report that I wrote at the outset. Look forward to hearing about your rides with your daughter.

As Tilson says, I have been getting good results from the 26v 18Ah E-Bike vision battery over the past 18 months, with no issues to report. I had imagined that these German built batteries came from a different factory to the BMZ series that followed on from the original Japanese Panasonic batteries. It appears that E-Bike Vision now supply for the Panasonic 36V motors and the Bosch 36V motors, neither of which I have any experience of. Link to E-Bike Vision Range - you may need "translate" switched on. James

As far as I can tell, the decision to fit a dynamo to an e-bike has (or maybe had) a lot to do with the classification of the e-bike under German law. E-bikes assisted up to 25 km/h had to comply with the laws for bicycles which required the lights to be powered from a dynamo. "Fast" E-bikes up to 45 km/h were considered as road vehicles and could therefore power their lights from the e-bike battery. This link takes you to the Busch & Muller download page. If you look at Page 7 of their 2013 catalogue, they describe the requirements for e-bikes up to 2013. Maybe the law has changed very recently to allow battery powered lights on bicycles. James

Fitting the crown race to the new fork is likely to be the first job on the new fork, and takes only a couple of hammer blows with the correct fitting tool. Very likely your local bike shop would do this for you if you pop in with fork and crown race. I would not be happy with the saw cut approach in the bottom crown ring. All the upward forces are transmitted from the crown ring taper to the bearing taper as you pound along the rough tracks and kerbs, causing fretting between the cheap crown ring and quite an expensive fork. Certainly the upper clamping ring is slotted, but there are minimal downward forces involved. James

As far as I know, all of the 26v Panasonic motors are equipped with the socket to take the "walk along" pushbutton throttle. It drives at walking pace when top gear is selected on a standard bike, or a little faster than walking pace with a faster "sports" bike. Useful to check that you have a spare access hole with rubber grommet into the down tube of the frame to feed the cable down to the motor. Otherwise the cable can be clipped to the outside of the tube, but it can be a little untidy. The throttle comes with the cable plug disassembled so that it can be fed into the frame tube. Remember that it is much easier to put the cable pins INTO the plug than take them out. Click on this link to see one of the German suppliers who sell the throttle. http://www.akkurad.de/shop/de/verschleissteile-panasonic/schiebehilfe-anfahrhilfe-nachruestsatz-panasonic-e-bike-motoren-26v JamesC

I have successfully overcome wear on the early ProConnect frame with the stainless steel Surly Hurdy Gurdy chain tensioner. This works well with the forward facing drop out BUT sadly does not come with the necessary flat to act as the non-rotation washer on the chain side of a Nexus hub. In my case, using a Rohloff hub, the Hurdy Gurdy is on the chain side and a long/substantial torque arm prevents rotation on the non-chain side. Typically the Nexus hub will be using the Black/Silver pair of Shimano non-rotation washers with forward facing dropouts; one on each side of the frame. It may be sufficient to use only the one on the non-chain side. The insert washer supplied with the Hurdy Gurdy is only appropriate to wheels secured with quick release spindles.

HarryB - good to hear from you. I am happy to keep you in touch with any problems that arise with the Vision 6A charger. I purchased an 18 Ah Vision battery and fast charger from Germany before Christmas, and have been using the fast charger when the battery requires a fairly full charge. (Just recently I have not been riding so much due to a broken arm, but returning to normal now). The Vision battery has been performing well. The "onbike" charging socket near the base interferes a little with the plastic trim on the bike until the battery is swung into the clipped vertical position. This makes it a little bit fiddly to insert the battery onto the battery connector bayonets compared with the panasonic battery, but eventually one gets the hang of the best insertion angle. Charging works fine on the original Panasonic charger, which of course is silent as the low charge rate never required any fan cooling. The fast 6A Vision charger was still being supplied with a rather noisy fan when I purchased, but so much has been written about this on the German forum that they have probably found a quieter fan by now. As I tend to do quite long rides on a daily basis when away in the VW camper, the quick charge is useful, but the charger is noisy in the confined space. Definitely noisier than the ezee Torq chargers ! James

Hi Mike d8veh has covered pretty much all you need, but I am adding a few pics from doing the work on a 2008 ProConnect diamond frame. I am assuming that Mrs O's stepthru uses the same headset. The ProConnect head tube The head tube is for a Semi-Integrated, Zero Stack, Cane Creek style 1 1/8th inch headset The original headset is by VP componets, VP-A41AC The top and bottom bearings (shown at either end of the bottom row) are identical and are the cartridge type with the ball bearings contained within. These are pressed into the head tube. The "crown race" is the ring in the centre of the bottom row (shown upside down). This is a tight fit at the bottom of the steerer tube which rises up from the fork. You can just see the black crown race on the steerer tube in this pic of the grey ProConnect fork. The "crown race" provides a centralising taper that locates into a matching taper in the head tube bearing. If you purchase the original headset bearings, you won't need to replace the crown race as there is no wear taking place. For reference, the crown race is a tight fit on the short section of 30mm diameter at the base of the steerer tube. You will probably be able to get the original headsets from 50cycles. Alternatively on ebay from HongKong but it takes 15 days or so. VP-A41AC. The taper ring shown in the headset pic with the cut in it slides down the steerer tube into the top head bearing, and is pressed down into position when the head bolt is tightened down at the end of assembly. James

Apologies for the delay in replying - broke my elbow a week ago, so have been off typing. Good to know that the original set of wiring and controller are not too motor specific You mention the "3rd plug for the walk along throttle". I am one of the few enthusiasts of the "walk along throttle", which slimmed down to a relatively discrete pushbutton compared with the original lever style potentiometer. It is great for negotiating the bike along small garden paths etc. and almost essential for getting home with a broken elbow ! James

Agreed; very good that your 2008 ProConnect lives to fight another day. Just in case I ever need to replace the motor (Panasonic model # NUA009) on my similar bike, did the 2011 motor plug straight into the existing 2008 loom and handlebar control switch ? Having proven that the motor was the problem, is your 20,000 mile battery back in use ?? James

I was also disappointed that rims and spokes were unavailable for the 24 spoke wheels fitted to the early ProConnect. In my case, I wanted to carry spares with me when travelling with bike and campervan as I was happy to do any neccessary jobs myself if I had the bits. Anyway, I opted to build new 36 spoke wheels early on. To keep on top of cost with new wheels, decide whether you will stay with rim brakes and 8 speed hub. If so, then I can recommend the Shimano Nexus SG-8R36 8 speed hub which gives you the same 8 gears as your current WH-8R25 wheel, but without the facility for a disc brake rotor. Rose stock the Nexus hub here. It comes with a rotary gear shift, but no worries if you want to stay with your existing trigger shifter. This was just about the last hub in the Nexus design range (for rim and roller brakes), and incorporated most of the upgrades that came after your 8R25 hub. James

In one of your posts in the "Chainwheel" thread, you had said BTW, don't forget this is a single chainwheel and a 1/8" chain. You have just fitted the HG40 3/32" new chain, which is a better match for the narrow, 2mm, teeth of your chainwheels. Has the bike always been fitted with 3/32" chain from new ?

Apologies - I had missed the fact that you had changed from 1/8" to 3/32" already.

I think that the Agattu remains a worthwhile consideration for hard work with trailers etc in hilly areas, but going back to your earlier question as to the expected life of the chainwheel, it may well be that wide teeth and 1/8" chain are significant for this type of work. If you go back to a narrow 35T chainwheel, would you consider testing a narrower chain to see if it changes the unusual wear pattern that occurred ? I would be interested to know the answer. James