Shaving weight off my Luna X1 and other X1 mods

[EL34]

I just received my Luna X1 ebike on Holloween :)
It's an amazing bike and the price point is awesome

My Luna X1 weighs 55 pounds.
Not too bad at all for an Ebike.
My carbon fat bike with a BBSHD weighs 58.5 pounds

The first time I pulled the X1 front wheel out of the shipping box, I was taken back by how heavy the wheel was.
I am used to carbon wheel sets on all my bikes.

The X1 price point dictates that Eric Hicks had to use cheaper-heavier wheel sets to keep the price low.
The X1 is a super deal and thanks to Luna for keeping that price point low

So I began to look into how much it would cost to shave some weight off my X1.
Look at the images below.
The X1 wheel set weighs 15.58 pounds
My 1 x 11 Sram XX1 29'er carbon wheel set weighs 9.17 pounds
That's 6.41 pounds difference

That would be pretty cool to shave 6 pounds off my X1

The reasons I would want to do this is
I have to lift and carry the bike onto and off my vehicle.
I have lift the bike over downed trees in the forest
I have to carry bikes across small streams sometimes.

The X1 wheels have monster sized spokes, heavy duty rims and heavy hubs
I am sure they would stand up to the most brutal beating you could dish out on them

Looking at carbon wheel sets on Ali Express, there are lots of choices for 27.5 boost wheel sets
110 x 15 front - 148 x 12mm rear is what the X1 has

The rim width is one major choice and the hub/driver body is the other
The X1 currently has a Shimano hub driver body

A wider rim gives you a better tire footprint and I am a big fan of wide rim mountain bike wheels
I found a carbon wheel set that has a 38mm wide rim which is what I would want
You can get a Shimano driver or a SRAM XD driver hub

XD drivers allow you to use the higher end SRAM cassettes which are way lighter, but very expensive
You also get a 10 tooth smallest cogs on XD

A Shimano driver lets you use your existing X1 cassette
Shimano cassettes start with an 11 tooth smallest cog
Personally, I would stay with the Shimano driver hub because the cassettes are way cheaper
But if you wanted to shave off even more weight, go with and XD driver and a XD cassette and get out your big wallet

Even if I was only able to shave off 5 pounds on the X1, that would be great.
In order to get 5 pounds off I would have to go tubeless, which is not a big deal to do.
All my non Ebikes bikes are tubeless.

I would use the stock tires that came with the X1 until I wear them out because Maxxis Minions are great tires
I would stay with the heavy duty 1x12 cassette that came with the X1 because they take a beating on a Ebike

Ali Express has a big sale coming up on the 11th, so I have some time to decide what I am going to do.
Just some food for thought for those that may want to lighten up their Luna X1 or any ebike that has super heavy wheels

[EL34]

Here's a wheel set link on Ali Express

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000286472800.html?


Here's a cool video that explains the difference between the different SRAM groups
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ILlIzPMjQ


This is the Luna X1 in case you are not familiar with the bike
https://lunacycle.com/x-1-enduro-fs-ebike/

[EL34]

I am adding info on the mods I have done to my Luna X1 here
People ask me about the mods and it is easier to send them here to get the info
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The Luna X1's are geared extremely low
I changed out the 32 tooth chain ring on my X1 to a 40 tooth Narrow-Wide chain ring and the gearing is way more to my liking now

The stock Eagle 1x12 chain on my bike was 116 links
That chain was not long enough to go around the 40 tooth chain ring and 50 tooth rear cog
I found a 124 link Eagle chain on Amazon
I had to remove two links and the chain was perfect
So the chain is now 122 links

One thing to note on the chain ring shown below
The chain ring bolts needed to be longer because the back side of this chain ring was not recessed like the original chain ring
The Ebay merchant below offers an option to get the chain ring bolts and the chain ring

The Lina X1 uses a 104 BCD chain ring with Narrow-Wide teeth

Here's the links to the chain ring and chain
The chain says it is 126 links, but I counted the outer links and there was only 124 outer links
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DQTLDJ5

There are two sources for the Narrow-Wide chain rings
This Ebay seller has several choices
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SNAIL-7075-...l/263851643946

If you are not in a hurry, the same chain ring is cheaper on Ali Express here
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000081130734.html

[EL34]

Another mod I did was change the shifter out to a Eagle 12 speed twist shifter
I have SRAM twist shifters on all my bikes and like them much better than thumb shifters

Here is the Eagle twist shifter link on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071JWKNH5

[EL34]

Fixing the 11 tooth cassette skipping issue

Luna sends the X1 with the derailleur range set so that the 13 cog is the smallest cog you can shift into
The reason for that was that the 11 tooth cog was skipping and so Luna locked out that cog

The issue seems to be that the derailleur B screw was not set correctly
The chain was not wrapping around the 11 tooth cog enough and the chain would just jump over the cog teeth
I shot a video and uploaded it to YouTube and how to set the B screw on the X1

[Bomb Doc]

Will the 42 tooth chainring work on the X-1? Luna was saying 40 tooth was the largest you could put on it without biting into the chain stay...let us know how it goes with 42 tooth...

[EL34]

One X1 owner on Facebook has a faulty lock that will not keep the battery in place.
I had a look at my X1 lock and found a way to pull out the core and have a look at the bolt
The tiny screw next to the bolt lets the core come out when you insert the key.

[AgileMike]

Thank you for all the write ups on X-1 mods. Been really enjoying mine and was wondering about what mods to make. I also thought the X-1 was too low geared, but found it is perfect on mountain trails. Seems like it's only too low on street type riding. I didn't realize it wasn't going into 11 tooth cog, so that will help even more for street riding.

[EL34]

Thank you for all the write ups on X-1 mods. Been really enjoying mine and was wondering about what mods to make. I also thought the X-1 was too low geared, but found it is perfect on mountain trails. Seems like it's only too low on street type riding. I didn't realize it wasn't going into 11 tooth cog, so that will help even more for street riding.

On downhill forest roads, I ran out of top end gearing pedaling as fast as I could and wanting to go faster.
The 40 tooth ring I got is way better and I am now using more of the middle gears on the cassette instead of always on the smaller cogs.

I still use the 50 tooth cog on really steep stuff and so the 40 tooth chain ring works well for that stuff also.

[EL34]

More info on setting up a new chain ring

The stock X1 chain ring bolts don't have enough threads for the new chain ring I got.
The reason is that the stock chain ring has recessed round areas on the back side and the chain ring nuts sit down inside that area.
The new chain ring does not have that recessed area and so the threads do not go as deep into the nuts as they should.
I had a bunch of chain ring nuts on hand from taking apart bikes in the past.
I installed threaded bolts with longer threads on my bike.

The Ebay merchant for those chain rings has an option to buy new chain ring bolts with the chain ring.
Anyone considering changing out to a bigger chain ring should also get new longer chain ring bolts.

If you already have the chain ring, you can get longer chain ring bolts and any good bike shop.
You don't need the nuts, just the bolts.

In the picture below, the top bolts are the stock ones and the longer threaded ones are on the bottom row

[AgileMike]

Rode around a bit last night and decided I wanted the 40T chainring as well. Ordered from your linked Ebay vendor and got a chain coming from Amazon. Appreciate all the information. I'm really enjoying the bike and feel the X-1 is a much cheaper alternative to the Turbo Levo type bikes. It's 99% the bike for 60% of the price...

[EL34]

Rode around a bit last night and decided I wanted the 40T chainring as well. Ordered from your linked Ebay vendor and got a chain coming from Amazon. Appreciate all the information. I'm really enjoying the bike and feel the X-1 is a much cheaper alternative to the Turbo Levo type bikes. It's 99% the bike for 60% of the price...

I am really happy with the 40 tooth ring
Did you get the chain ring bolts also?

[EL34]

When I changed to the 40 tooth ring, I also had to get a longer chain
The stock chain was 116 links (I am counting the outside links)
The chain I bought was 124 links (They called it a 126 links chain)
I remove two links to size the chain correctly on the 40 tooth chain ring to the 50 tooth rear cog

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DQTLDJ5

Here's how much chain I remove from the 124 link chain
I ended up with a 122 link chain

[EL34]

I remove the X1 rear shock to have a look at the hardware used for the pivots
The stock shock is 200mm
There is a link you can reverse if you use a 210mm shock

Here's a shot of the hardware.

[FlyingPiggy]

Out of interest, what it the benefit to going 210mm?

[Monkey Bike]

Do you feel the 100mm dropper post is enough? All my other bikes have had at least 125mm and I could use more travel to have the seatpost bottom out on the frame. My x1 is still on order

[EL34]

Do you feel the 100mm dropper post is enough? All my other bikes have had at least 125mm and I could use more travel to have the seatpost bottom out on the frame. My x1 is still on order

I don't drop my post that far!
I hate it when I drop it too far by accident.
The most I ever drop my post may be about 2-3 inches
Just enough so the seat does not hit me in the gut on steep drops