ElephantsGerald

Did Wisper ever make the hi/lo controller available for retrofitting to the 2008 905SE? If so, whats the cost, has anyone fitted it, and is it worth it? Regards, Elephants

Well the obvious answer used to be to replace the 14-34T with an 11-34T, but those rotters at Shimano stopped making them some time ago. If you're really, really, really lucky you might just find an 11-34T out there somewhere (although others have tried and failed). You could try a 13-34T (available from Freemans Cycles, Evans Cycles) which would give a marginally higher top gear, although possibly not enough of a difference to be worth the effort. Regards, Elephants

I second the sentiment, I'm not sure my bike ever looked that clean even when I first got it! If you wanted to go for the Shimano 14-34T Megarange freewheel (as used on the Wisper 905SE), you should be able to change the short-armed SIS derailleur for a Shimano Tourney or Shimano Alivio Megarange derailleur for less than £15. BTW The 34 tooth cog is fantastic for struggling up steep hills. Regards, Elephants

I'm not sure my post will help you Rog - it sounds like Wisper have upgraded the control system since I got my bike last year. Regards, Elephants

No camper van, but I do have a 12 seat LDV 200 Minibus (from which I've removed the 3 rear seats) to cope with my 4 children and 3 step-children. I often cart my Wisper about in it, and quite often I've removed all the seats, lobbed in a mattress, and sneaked off for a weekend away from the kids. Regards, Elephants

I replaced my front disk with the Avid BB07 Road Disk Brake as opposed to the BB07 MTB Disk Brake which Phil the Drill has used. This version of the brake still seems to be available (try Cycle Sports UK or Wiggle). I don't really know what the difference between the MTB and Road version is, but it works a treat; much better setup and braking than the Promax. Make sure you get the 160mm Rotor version (this is the same size as the existing rotor so the screw holes are in the same place; in fact you could leave the Promax rotor where it is and just replace the brake mechanism if you were feeling really lazy!). Regards, Elephants

I spotted this today: Clean Mobile Looks interesting, although the trailer seems a bit bulky. Does anyone know anything about this? Regards, Elephants

Congratulations. Nice to hear you've had a year of happy riding and are still enjoying it. I'm enjoying mine too, although I have to say my grin was bigger in the summer; anyone else finding its really hard work not getting too hot or too cold (or both at the same time!) as the temperature drops? Regards, Elephants

I'd suggest theres an obvious reason why you got 2 punctures one after the other, you just haven't spotted what it is yet. When my tyre blew out, I initially couldn't find the cause because the problem wasn't where I expected it to be, so I wasn't looking in the right place. In my case the problem was that the tyre wall had frayed right where it diappears into the rim, which wasn't at all what I was expecting. Before getting new tyres I'd try taking the tyre right off and feeling all around all of it. For the record, I went for the thoroughly recommended Marathon Plus's, and I'm very happy with them. I replaced both tyres, so now I have a spare Kenda in case of emergency. No harm replacing the rim tape, the rubbery thing thats fitted as standard is a bit flimsy and moves around a lot when mucking around with the inner tube. At least with sticky backed fabric rim tape you know its going to stay where its supposed to be. Regards, Elephants

I agree about wireless being troublesome. I have a Cateye EL600 front light with a flashing mode which causes my wireless speedo to go nuts, reporting averages speeds of 80mph or so. It does the same thing when I get my mobile phone too close. WIRES ARE GOOD Regards, Elephants

Dear all, The motor Cut-Off has stopped working on the left hand (rear) brake lever of my Wisper 905SE. I'm in the habit of squeezing both brake levers at the same time, so its taken me a while to notice the problem. I don't recall the wire getting pulled at any time, although I did come off the bike a couple of weeks ago when I hit a patch of spilt diesel (the brunt of the impact being taken up by the saddle bags and by my backside). Whats noticeable is that the cut-off doesn't work, the outer sheath of the wire has pulled back about 2mm from the brake lever housing, and the blue and red inner wires are visible (although no actual copper is exposed). Being a bit of an electro-mechanical duffer I was wondering if anyone had any advice or suggestions as to how I might go about investigating and fixing the problem? Regards, Elephants

Hi Mussels, I've not had any trouble with the Continental MTB Inner Tubes I'm running; the car style valve stem seems plenty long enough and I've had no problem attaching a pump. Regards, Elephants

Since we're at it, heres a picture of my trailer along with the creature I like to tow in it. Regards, Elephants

I have a 905SE. I got these Continental MTB Inner Tubes, which are fine. The size you need is the 26 x 1.3-1.75 with a car type valve. My rear tyre exploded the other week, so I replaced it with these Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres (as recommended by many many people on the forum), again in a size of 26 x 1.75. Getting the back wheel off is possible, but potentially quite hard work: Loosen the nut on the non-freewheel side of the axle. If you're lucky, you'll be able to push this side of the axle down and out of the drop-out to create a gap big enough to slip the inner tube or tyre through. If you're unlucky (or possibly just stupid in my case!), then you'll need to loosen the nut on the freewheel side of the axle. I couldn't get a spanner to this nut as there was too much stuff in the way, so I had to remove the rear rack, the derailleur, and the metal tubey cage thing (which I assume is there to protect the motor wire) - grr!!! If you do undo the nut on the freewheel side, be careful not to tug the motor wire when you slip the axle out of the drop-out. When you put the axle back into the drop-outs, do NOT run the motor without doing up the nuts good and tight again (another mistake I made) as the axle will leap about in the drop-outs, potentially damaging them and/or the axle, screw threads or nuts Regards, Elephants

I got some from Lidl for £15. They seem to work pretty well, easy to fit with a detachable rucksack. The main reason I like them at the moment is that they saved my bike from a nasty scraping when I hit a load of spilt diesel and the wheels slid straight out from under me last week. I held the front of the bike up by the handlebars while the panniers held up the back, and we all skidded smoothy along the diesel spill supported mainly by my arse!! The panniers are a bit scuffed, but the bike is entirely undamaged (unlike my confidence ). Good job I wasn't going very fast at the time... I'm never going to ride without panniers again Regards, Elephants

The rumour I heard is that WEVCO keep meaning to submit a model for review, but keep selling all their bikes too fast to actually hand one over to A2B Regards, Elephants

Definitely interested in this! Please tell us more. Regards, Elephants

My bike came without a battery lock. Doug and Dave @ Wisper send me one in the post as soon as I told them about this, but the key that came with the lock doesn't fit my battery (and vice versa). Regards, Elephants

I thought I'd try and move the debate on this Wisper specific thread into a more public space in case non-Wisper interested folk have missed it. The situation as I understand it is as follows: Rear hub motors require an spindle of large diameter to allow motor wiring pass through the hollow centre whilst retaining strength. The large spindle means that modern cassette type sprockets can't be fitted to rear hub motors, and old tech multi sprocket freewheels are used instead. The problem is that freewheels seem to be rapidly becoming extinct; several suppliers (e.g. Wiggle) no longer stock these items and some members have reported problems obtaining specific freewheels that were widely available until recently, but are apparently out of production now (e.g. Shimano Megarange 11-34T). Here are a few questions that spring to mind: Is there any way to modify rear hub motors to use cassette sprockets? How often do sprockets sets need replacing (after how many miles)? Is my lovely new (and quite expensive!) bike going to be hard to maintain because parts will become increasingly hard to obtain? Should I buy up all the available freewheels I can find in case they're impossible to get hold of in future? Do WEVCO know about this problem and have they got a solution for it? Should manufacturers be selling bikes which use obsolete technology? Regards, Elephants

Not without messing about with the wiring inside the controller. Is she twisting the throttle unintentionally then? Regards, Elephants

Hi Mussels, Heres my fumbling attempt at an answer, although you'll probably need to wait for a definitive answer from flecc :o I'm pretty sure theres a fundamental difference between the MegaRange freewheels and cassette freewheels; something to do with the thread on the hub I believe. I think you'll find the MegaRange freewheels don't come apart at all in the way a cassette would. This has been discussed before on the forum, although the only posting I can dig out right now is this one: Freewheels, Cassettes & Chains Theres an article here by Sheldon Brown that explains the difference. Regards, Elephants

Hi Phil, How did you deal with the motor wire coming out of the axle when you fitted the new 11-34T freewheel? Did you cut the cable, or did you undo all the connections at the controller? Regards, Elephants

I can also confirm that the BB7 Road Front Disk is easy to fit, works a treat and is very very simple to set up and adjust. The only niggle is the travel distance of the existing brake lever isn't really big enough to get the best results from the brake, but I know that Dave/Doug are sourcing some different brake levers soon which should improve things. So a big thumbs up to the AVID BB7, and a bit of a boo hiss to the Promax DSK400. Dave/Doug, I reckon you should seriously consider ditching the DSK400 and fitting the BB7 as standard . Regards, Elephants

Seems pretty expensive for what it is. I reckon the biggest problem touring/camping with an electric bike is going to be re-charging. I guess you could stop at camp sites with electric hook-ups, in which case it'd be useful to have a caravan style electric hookup on the trailer wired up to a waterproof box inside the trailer with a couple of standard 3-pin mains sockets where you could store your battery chargers. I don't think I'll be buying one though - there are 9 of us when all my children and step-children are camping - it'd be a bit of tight squeeze Regards, Elephants

I ended up getting a Halfords Trailer Buggy, which my daughter is delighted to be pulled about in . Its pretty good, apart from the gap where the fabric wraps around the frame at the front, which let in quite a bit of water when it rained on us. The only other problem was the bracket that fits onto the bike axle - the dimensions of the hole were just too small to fit onto the fat axle on the Wisper 905; I had to attack the bracket with a metal file to get it to fit. Regards, Elephants