Gravity Deadeye Monster + Nuvinci N360 + BBSHD = Great commuter bike
1. Introduction
Hello and let me introduce you my eBike build based on Gravity fat bike. This will be very long and I'm sure somewhat boring write-up but I felt the need to contribute back to the community which greatly helped me and share my rambling which hopefully will help others to make up their mind to build and ride an eBike one day. There will be little detail on how to build the bike, just a lot of rumbling around the decision making process and some observations after the build. If you just want to see pictures, here is the gallery.
I have moved over to Seattle area recently with a job and while I was looking for new home, I rented a place about 1.5 miles away from my new office. During this time, I've decided to commute to work by bicycle. It was a great way to start the day running down the trail and less so great way to end the day with the steep climb up the same hill. I really liked the first part of it and could just about tolerate the climb, also being in late 30s with an office job, additional exercise is always welcome and can be a great excuse to order a dirty burger once a week. See dear, I exercise! The bike I was using for the commute was Kona Dr Fine with a great combo of Alfine 8 integrated hub and powerful hydraulic brakes. The best part of the bike was how silent it was. I had to buy very loud bell to stop people jumping out of way in fear when I appeared from their backs on the trail. The worst part was narrow hybrid tires and lack of rear suspension which resulted in a harsh ride.
2. Considerations
When I ended up settling in my own home, I was about 9 miles away from work at the bottom of the 400 ft high hill with about 25-30% slope. 9 miles on the level ground is not a problem, however climbing that hill was somewhat less pleasant. Having tried commute to office on my hybrid bike a couple of times I didn't like the experience of arriving to work all sweaty and exhausted. Instead, I had to settle down to daily crawling traffic commute to work by car which was taking between 25 and 40 minutes depending on the time of the day. Being curious person I started researching my alternative options. Motorcycle is something I've done when I was a teenager and it is quite a bit of a hassle and just too much for the office commute. Electric motorcycles are great, green and still very expensive. Road bikes are lighter and easier to climb the hill, sadly I am too lazy to get into a proper bike riding. I needed some middle ground that will give me a good workout option without killing me. So I've arrived to the topic of eBikes. After that the fun has started. I've ended up reading most of articles on http://www.electric-fatbike.com and liked what was written there. I've spend a bit more time trying to digest http://endless-sphere.com content but my head has quickly exploded. The information overload was immense, opinion always polarized and confusing. I had a couple of months to go through all that and figure something out for myself. I even went as far as purchasing Mongoose Malus from Target when it was on sale for $129.99. I went back to store as it wasn't quite to my liking in terms of build quality and suitability for conversion. The one I've received had 110mm BB and my estimations were that the chain line would be less than optimal. One of my requirements was to keep the cost to a sensible amount of money. I wanted to get better performing bike for the half price of those I liked in the store at $4.5-5k.
Hello and let me introduce you my eBike build based on Gravity fat bike. This will be very long and I'm sure somewhat boring write-up but I felt the need to contribute back to the community which greatly helped me and share my rambling which hopefully will help others to make up their mind to build and ride an eBike one day. There will be little detail on how to build the bike, just a lot of rumbling around the decision making process and some observations after the build. If you just want to see pictures, here is the gallery.
I have moved over to Seattle area recently with a job and while I was looking for new home, I rented a place about 1.5 miles away from my new office. During this time, I've decided to commute to work by bicycle. It was a great way to start the day running down the trail and less so great way to end the day with the steep climb up the same hill. I really liked the first part of it and could just about tolerate the climb, also being in late 30s with an office job, additional exercise is always welcome and can be a great excuse to order a dirty burger once a week. See dear, I exercise! The bike I was using for the commute was Kona Dr Fine with a great combo of Alfine 8 integrated hub and powerful hydraulic brakes. The best part of the bike was how silent it was. I had to buy very loud bell to stop people jumping out of way in fear when I appeared from their backs on the trail. The worst part was narrow hybrid tires and lack of rear suspension which resulted in a harsh ride.
2. Considerations
When I ended up settling in my own home, I was about 9 miles away from work at the bottom of the 400 ft high hill with about 25-30% slope. 9 miles on the level ground is not a problem, however climbing that hill was somewhat less pleasant. Having tried commute to office on my hybrid bike a couple of times I didn't like the experience of arriving to work all sweaty and exhausted. Instead, I had to settle down to daily crawling traffic commute to work by car which was taking between 25 and 40 minutes depending on the time of the day. Being curious person I started researching my alternative options. Motorcycle is something I've done when I was a teenager and it is quite a bit of a hassle and just too much for the office commute. Electric motorcycles are great, green and still very expensive. Road bikes are lighter and easier to climb the hill, sadly I am too lazy to get into a proper bike riding. I needed some middle ground that will give me a good workout option without killing me. So I've arrived to the topic of eBikes. After that the fun has started. I've ended up reading most of articles on http://www.electric-fatbike.com and liked what was written there. I've spend a bit more time trying to digest http://endless-sphere.com content but my head has quickly exploded. The information overload was immense, opinion always polarized and confusing. I had a couple of months to go through all that and figure something out for myself. I even went as far as purchasing Mongoose Malus from Target when it was on sale for $129.99. I went back to store as it wasn't quite to my liking in terms of build quality and suitability for conversion. The one I've received had 110mm BB and my estimations were that the chain line would be less than optimal. One of my requirements was to keep the cost to a sensible amount of money. I wanted to get better performing bike for the half price of those I liked in the store at $4.5-5k.
2.1. Base bicycle
So, couple of months into the research I narrowed down my choice to one of the bikes from http://www.bikesdirect.com. I didn't need rear suspension as most of my riding would be on a tarmac and compacted gravel trails. I knew that I will be replacing rear hub with integrated hub so quality of derailleur or cassette wasn't a concern. I needed hydraulic brakes and reasonable wide (3-4 in tires). I liked the shape of Motobecane Boris X7 but it was $300 more than Gravity Deadeye Monster which also brought the nice benefit of a chain tensioner and 135mm rear dropout which allowed usage of normal integrated rear hubs. So, I've narrowed down my choice of a bike platform and moved on to the motor selection.
So, couple of months into the research I narrowed down my choice to one of the bikes from http://www.bikesdirect.com. I didn't need rear suspension as most of my riding would be on a tarmac and compacted gravel trails. I knew that I will be replacing rear hub with integrated hub so quality of derailleur or cassette wasn't a concern. I needed hydraulic brakes and reasonable wide (3-4 in tires). I liked the shape of Motobecane Boris X7 but it was $300 more than Gravity Deadeye Monster which also brought the nice benefit of a chain tensioner and 135mm rear dropout which allowed usage of normal integrated rear hubs. So, I've narrowed down my choice of a bike platform and moved on to the motor selection.
2.2 Motor
Having read all the feedback I've assumed that rear or front hub model is not going to help me to get up my hill so I've rejected it in favor of the mid-drive option. I've come back a few times to evaluate some high-power models once I've stumbled upon them but all the time returned back to the mid-drive options. Looking through mid-drives, Bafang was reasonably obvious choice for the commuter bike that should look reasonable in the office car park as well as on the trail shared with people and other bikes. So Bafang was selected, with BBSHD being the logical choice for 100mm BB. I've spend some time looking through the display options and decided to go for C963 or DC10 option whichever will be available. Main reasons for the first option was compact and integrated nature and second option was great in terms of layout and usability. Then I've moved on to the battery choice.
2.3 Battery
My key criteria for the battery was convenience of use and reliable range from home to office and back which was about 18-20 miles, depending on the route. I wanted to leave home, arrive to work, charge the battery in my office and return home (thanks goes to my employer for powering my commute ;-). I wanted something reasonably good looking, easy to pull out and plug back. This requirement ruled out great triangular energy packs as they require ugly massive bags, heavy to handle and come with a connector to plug in and out every time. I've looked at dolphin and slim rear rack mounted options, however I've selected former as I had a plan for the rear rack mounted child carrier and the bike would be too rear heavy with the battery, integrated hub and a 4-year-old on the rear rack. Having looked through the different dolphin pack styles and types and having read this article at least 10 times I've settled down with at the spec of 12-14Ah x 48v or 52v. I know that Karl actively encourages 52v option, however peak performance wasn't much of a concern for me and I'd rather go for the cost effective / value for money option that could be tiny bit slower but still fast enough for my needs. My target max speed was 30 mph and I've calculated that with the gearing option I was looking for, it will be fine to go with either 48v or 52v battery. Of course I'd prefer higher voltage option, however I also wanted convenience of the battery level on the display which at the time of my research was limited to 48v batteries only. Right now there is an option of new color display from Luna that supports 52v batteries and this consideration will no longer be an issue
.
Having read all the feedback I've assumed that rear or front hub model is not going to help me to get up my hill so I've rejected it in favor of the mid-drive option. I've come back a few times to evaluate some high-power models once I've stumbled upon them but all the time returned back to the mid-drive options. Looking through mid-drives, Bafang was reasonably obvious choice for the commuter bike that should look reasonable in the office car park as well as on the trail shared with people and other bikes. So Bafang was selected, with BBSHD being the logical choice for 100mm BB. I've spend some time looking through the display options and decided to go for C963 or DC10 option whichever will be available. Main reasons for the first option was compact and integrated nature and second option was great in terms of layout and usability. Then I've moved on to the battery choice.
2.3 Battery
My key criteria for the battery was convenience of use and reliable range from home to office and back which was about 18-20 miles, depending on the route. I wanted to leave home, arrive to work, charge the battery in my office and return home (thanks goes to my employer for powering my commute ;-). I wanted something reasonably good looking, easy to pull out and plug back. This requirement ruled out great triangular energy packs as they require ugly massive bags, heavy to handle and come with a connector to plug in and out every time. I've looked at dolphin and slim rear rack mounted options, however I've selected former as I had a plan for the rear rack mounted child carrier and the bike would be too rear heavy with the battery, integrated hub and a 4-year-old on the rear rack. Having looked through the different dolphin pack styles and types and having read this article at least 10 times I've settled down with at the spec of 12-14Ah x 48v or 52v. I know that Karl actively encourages 52v option, however peak performance wasn't much of a concern for me and I'd rather go for the cost effective / value for money option that could be tiny bit slower but still fast enough for my needs. My target max speed was 30 mph and I've calculated that with the gearing option I was looking for, it will be fine to go with either 48v or 52v battery. Of course I'd prefer higher voltage option, however I also wanted convenience of the battery level on the display which at the time of my research was limited to 48v batteries only. Right now there is an option of new color display from Luna that supports 52v batteries and this consideration will no longer be an issue
.
2.4 Accessories
Additional accessories that I needed in a bike were the following:
Additional accessories that I needed in a bike were the following:
- Integrated rear hub. I don't like the cassette and gear change experience. No gear change sensor can fix it. I love my old bike's Alfine 8 hub and having once rented Novara bike with Nuvinci hub I knew that these were only two options that I can consider for my eBike. Ultimately availability and price of Nuvinci help me with the choice.
- Hydraulic brakes with motor cut-off sensors. I needed the certainty of being able to stop from 30-35 mph and mechanical brakes need more effort and give me the feeling of less grip. There are couple of options available on the market – ridiculously expensive one (Tektro Dorado HD-E710) and knock off ones (Shima Deore M615 with sensors glued on using black silicone) at a reasonable cost (70% cheaper than Tektro). Guess which one I decided to go with.
- Fenders to prevent any dirt or water getting into my face.
- Rear rack to move stuff around and for child carrier mount.
- Decent lights on the front to run comfortably on the trail in the dark.
- Road friendly tires to make the ride better on tarmac.
- Suspension seat post to save my back from road bumps.
- I have considered carbon drive for a while but decided not to bother in the first build. May come to back to this idea when I'll be struggling for an idea for a new project. Cost was also somewhat high for the return on investment and I've read that belts are prone to slippage and loud squeaks under the load.
- Kickstand. I needed it as I park the bicycle in the office under the stairs and there is no rail to lean it towards so kickstand was a must.
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