A few more people and perhaps we should have an Alien section in the FAQs.

Absolutely

 

I think this is a bike that is going to have many different guises depending on personal taste and use.

I looked in the bike shed and found that the Aurora had taken itself off to the seaside:D Out for a day at the seaside photo - david chilvers photos at pbase.com

 

Seriously, it`s around 11 miles each way to that location, on the way the wind was behind me and I sailed along in med power just like sitting on my indoor cycle trainer. Had a walk around and had my sandwiches on the pier before heading home against quite a brisk headwind, climbing away from Cromer up a steep hill saw my left knee starting to act up so I engaged high power and again sailed along with no effort.

 

Just before home the supplied default battery started to slow ( that`s 11 miles on medium and 11 miles on high power) which to be honest if you witnessed the speed with which I was eating up the miles I think that most people would be quite happy (so I suppose that on medium power somewhere around 25 miles might be in order) Anyway, no problems as I reached down and switched in the spare.

 

I own 3 MTB E bikes and a E folder and since getting the Aurora sorted (as you do) That is the bike I tend to reach for most times.

 

I must look into the clicking that I get from the rear wheel( maybe a loose spoke)

I`m certainly glad I put my tools in the front panniers and the spare battery midway because even like that, climbing away from the lifeboat ramp from the beach( maybe a 1 in 3) I could feel the front becoming light and might do as others on here and maybe try to lower and bring the rear rack forward. Other than that I find the bike a treat to ride.

Quick update.

 

On the very first run I decide just to take the bike around the block to get a feel for it, had so much fun I ended up doing almost the full commute to work on the weekend:eek: .

 

This thing really ate up the hills but It did have one big problem, the noise from the battery rack sounded as if it was going to fall apart over any small bump.

 

When I got back I strapped the battery down with a bungie cord and that seemed to help things.

 

On Monday I took it to work and it performed brilliantly with only some light pedal work needed to clear the largest hill.

 

Fortunately I work for an engineering firm so I took the opportunity to do some tweaking at lunch time. It was at this point I notice the rear derailer cable had come loose and that I had done the whole journey including the hill climbs in the highest gear set!

 

After fixing the cable, I lowered the rack and applied some tape and foam strips to various points and that seems to have fixed nearly all the noise from the rack.

 

The journey home proved to be a much quieter affair with only a small squeak from the front to track down.

 

On thing I did notice is that the battery locking pin does rattle when extended, not sure if this is normal or just a problem on my battery, I found putting a thin foam strip over the locating hole on the rack provided enough upward pressure to stop the rattle whilst still allowing the battery to lock in place easily.

 

So far I mainly using the pedalec function but I do swop to free mode when I want some fine control as even in the highest gear (on medium) this thing accelerates almost to fast:D

Glad you like the bike Pieman.

 

I found wrapping a bungie at the rear of the battery to pull the battery UP really tight got rid of most rattles.

 

I went around my rear spokes with a spoke key and couldn`t believe how many were loose:eek: now all you can hear is the motor whine and no clicking:D

 

You might remember that I removed the suspension seat post and have been riding with a solid post, well my old back has taken a few knocks from pot holes so I dug out a good quality suspension post, adjusted the tension as far as it would go( making it firmer) and on todays ride it has done the job, the original was too weak and more or less dropped right down when I sat on the bike whereas the new one doesn`t actually move with my weight but nicely absorbs the serious pot holes:D sorted.

Now all I`m waiting for are my Marathon Plus Tour tyres.

 

What did surprise me from new was just how sweet the gear change is being probably due to the close ratio.

 

I`ll be fitting a mudflap to the bottom of the original flap to aim the crud well away from the crank and chainwheel.

On the gear-change. With a 3 speed front sprocket, it really doesn't need the megarange rear cassette. I'm also finding the 7th gear 13 tooth sprocket a bit notchy and not as smooth running as I'd like. It's not the adjustment on the mech that's doing this so I think it must be the 13 tooth sprocket not being a perfect match for the chain. My other bike has the same megarange cassette but 7th is 14t.

 

Alien say that the Hub, Controller, EBus wiring concentrator, throttle, brakes, display, etc all come from SB. So does anyone know anything about the controller? I can't see any makers mark on the label. It says 36v, 18A max, 9A rated, LVC and a few other parameters but not who it's made by. Could this be a Shengzen and so could it amenable to tweaking? I can see that at some stage I'm going to have to get in there and have a look at the circuit board.

 

I've been looking on ES for information about tweaking the BPM motor, over-driving it or using alternate controllers but there's precious little info that I can find. I really don't need it, but I'm still curious to know if there's more than 22mph in there either with the stock 36v battery or by going up to a 48v battery.

On the gear-change. With a 3 speed front sprocket, it really doesn't need the megarange rear cassette. I'm also finding the 7th gear 13 tooth sprocket a bit notchy and not as smooth running as I'd like. It's not the adjustment on the mech that's doing this so I think it must be the 13 tooth sprocket not being a perfect match for the chain. My other bike has the same megarange cassette but 7th is 14t.

 

Alien say that the Hub, Controller, EBus wiring concentrator, throttle, brakes, display, etc all come from SB. So does anyone know anything about the controller? I can't see any makers mark on the label. It says 36v, 18A max, 9A rated, LVC and a few other parameters but not who it's made by. Could this be a Shengzen and so could it amenable to tweaking? I can see that at some stage I'm going to have to get in there and have a look at the circuit board.

 

I've been looking on ES for information about tweaking the BPM motor, over-driving it or using alternate controllers but there's precious little info that I can find. I really don't need it, but I'm still curious to know if there's more than 22mph in there either with the stock 36v battery or by going up to a 48v battery.

 

 

You are saying you are getting 22mph on throttle on the flat?

 

I`ll test mine out again to see what it does now it`s run in and I know it will do at least that and I do sit bolt upright. Out of interest my 2009 Alien front hub conversion does something similar on the flat on throttle but this Evans coverted bike is much lighter and is slower to get to the max.

 

Re 7th gear. There is a slight rumble in 7th being a 13T but to be quite honest I`ve always found anything below about 14T always seems to be a bit rumbly on any bike. That`s one of the benefits of running a 55T front ring in as much as in general 7th is just held in reserve (mind you I got caught in front of a car in a very narrow section of country lane yesterday without anywhere for me to pull over so I just selected 7th and high power and took off at town limit speed:D

You are saying you are getting 22mph on throttle on the flat?

Hard to say exactly as it depends so much on the exact gradient or lack of it and wind or lack of it. On a fresh battery, top speed is somewhere between 19.5 and 21.5. I'm sure I've seen 22 once.

 

Curiously it seems to be just slightly faster in pedelec mode (but no real pressure on the pedals) than on full throttle. I guess this because the throttle is just slightly out of adjustment. Whatever. Ride on full throttle with the cranks turning, switch to pedelec and you can just feel a slight acceleration. So really on pedelec, putting a bit of effort into the pedals, you can hold it just on the point of freewheeling past the motor and that seems to be 21.5 to 22mph.

 

Couple of days ago, I was holding up a bus. Luckily there was a downhill and twiddling like mad I got 30mph out of it. All my own work as the motor had long since gone into freewheel. I guess with more gear, I could probably have got more out of it.

Edited October 7, 201015 yr by jbond

I'm getting similar speeds on each setting as jbond on mine. About 20-21mph seems the norm with throttle only on the flat. Mind you, I'm only going on the wireless speedo I have and I dont know how accurate it is.

 

On the way to work there is hardly anything on the roads and flat out in high is no problem, but on the way home there is so much traffic that I tend to leave it on medium as it feels too dangerous in high mode.

Mind you, I'm only going on the wireless speedo I have and I dont know how accurate it is.

 

I'm only using a cheap Halfords speedo. But I did calibrate it against a GPS. The actual apparent circumference was very close to the one in the manual.

Original Tyres

 

Just out of interest to others, I removed the Aurora wheels today and removed the original tyres in readiness for the Marathon Plus Tour tyres that should arrive on Monday.

 

I thought I read somewhere that they were puncture resistent but they appear to be pretty standard Chinese made run of the mill jobs which surprises me as I have been pushing them over some pretty dodgy roads and they haven`t punctured but of course punctures with standard tyres around here are always on my mind so the change is well worth while.

Time to resurrect an old thread!

 

I've got the Marathon Tour Plus tyres on mine. On Fri night I had a rear puncture. I thought to start with it was some broken glass outside a high street Spa that I saw too late but when I had a good look, the rip in the tube was on the inside not the outside. I eventually found the cause which was a bit of swarf on the edge of one of the spoke holes. This had eventually worn through the rim tape and then ripped the tube.

 

So now I've gone over the whole rim with a tiny file and cleaned up all the machining, laid a strip of electrical tape, and then the rim tape on top of that. Should be an end to it. I found half a dozen places where there were burrs that had been painted over and might have caused a problem later.

 

I fitted an Avid BB7 front brake which is *lovely*. And put a drop of oil down the forks and behind the fork seals which has feed them up a bit. The only tweak I'm still working on is trying to get rid of the last rattles. There's a "ting" coming from somewhere that I can't trace. I've half an idea it's the cables inside the top tube that are rattling against the inside!

 

Love this bike. I'd like a touch less weight and a touch more range but it suits me so well.

Thanks for the heads up JB. I found on the GSII the 'tape' was just a large rubber band which had a tendency to move about when the tyre was refitted so I replaced it with some sticky fabric based tape that stayed put....

Time to resurrect an old thread!

 

I've got the Marathon Tour Plus tyres on mine. On Fri night I had a rear puncture. I thought to start with it was some broken glass outside a high street Spa that I saw too late but when I had a good look, the rip in the tube was on the inside not the outside. I eventually found the cause which was a bit of swarf on the edge of one of the spoke holes. This had eventually worn through the rim tape and then ripped the tube.

 

So now I've gone over the whole rim with a tiny file and cleaned up all the machining, laid a strip of electrical tape, and then the rim tape on top of that. Should be an end to it. I found half a dozen places where there were burrs that had been painted over and might have caused a problem later.

 

I fitted an Avid BB7 front brake which is *lovely*. And put a drop of oil down the forks and behind the fork seals which has feed them up a bit. The only tweak I'm still working on is trying to get rid of the last rattles. There's a "ting" coming from somewhere that I can't trace. I've half an idea it's the cables inside the top tube that are rattling against the inside!

 

Love this bike. I'd like a touch less weight and a touch more range but it suits me so well.

 

Yeh! I love mine as well. I think the weight makes it very stable when off road, I find it tends to just plough on:) As for range! well I`m getting enough range out of the supplied battery for my general run outs for a breath of fresh air that normally don`t go above 20 mile but I sling that Li-Polymer 13Amp battery under the cross bar for journeys like today where I plan a run to the coast with the guvna:D

I did have a ping kinda noise but pinned it down to a loose spoke:eek: