THE EBIKE PROJECT

PART ONE

 

Note to self

Days slip into weeks, soon those days become months... Open the window, open the door, open your mind and open your heart ... you body needs you now, more than ever..... the clock is tricking...stand strong, feel the fresh air rush in.... let its cold warm you to your core... the next step is all up to you, where you go, what you do, the way you do it, just remember your body loves you, try to be a good friend to yourself .... if it does not feel right, look right or add up, then its not fucking right.

I know the UKs Managing Director Boris Johnson said "go out but stay in" and the police are giving out slave parking tickets, the MD also said if you have to "go out but stay in" I know lots of you agree with the advice "go out but say in" you think a mask can help you, you think washing your hands will save you. That`s all well and good but it does not make it lawful, its just advice. If you are going to a party this weekend or going out but saying in.... you all need to know your rights ... right???

So i have focusing on things I CAN do, doing a few little jobs, sorting out a way to get about. I still can not walk too far, so back in June Nyrees, DCCC Manchester and myself with help from the children started building a ebike that would get me to the garage and the boat . This means I can get some work done and go to the town without pain.

We got a really nice push bike from Darryl it, based on a GT Karakoram 2015 aluminium frame, with Rockshox X28 front suspension, cost £1800 and we got it for just £250. We ordered everything else off the internet, via Spain from China, in doing this we don't pay import tax. Almost all the worlds push bikes and ebikes now start their life in China, killing the local manufacturing in the UK, Germany and right across the USA, at best they are put together from Chinese parts.

We need to replace the bottom bracket chain ring and then make two battery rack arms, all the parts are ordered and we should have them next week.

The same day that we placed the order Matt turned up and told us he knew of 2 unwanted ebikes selling for £200, so we got both. The black one is from Halfords, its a really good bike, the original sale price was £600 and  it comes with 250w motor battery. We could do with it being a little bigger its only 7.2Ah 24v, you can get 12Ah for about £135. It was £35 upgrade but I would not get one with the bigger battery. The silver one is older, it is also 250w 24v but goes a little quicker and its got 10Ah battery.

 

 

You get about 4 years from a battery based on charging it onces a day, you can see the voltage start to drop. A new one costs about £200, this is why most people don't sell secondhand. You need to replace the battery to be sure, but they are great fun on and off road, they top out at about 12 to 14mph. At the same time we will make new batteries for the other 2... it will cost a lot less if we make them, they will never do more that 14mph but could do 100+ miles before they need a charge.

 

 

We also have handle bar extensions coming as we can not get the mobile phone on the bars, we now have the lights fitted.

 

Everything you don't need to see is now tucked away in here.

 

Rear lights fitted with indicators and brake lights.		Rear lights fitted with indicators and break lights.

 

We are changing the battery bag for a black one... just for looks!

 

Specifications and parts

1993 GT Karakoram 29" aluminium frame, with Rockshox X28 front suspension, upgraded from RockShox Recon Silver TK front suspension

 

48V 1500W Electric Bicycle Conversion Kit

with 29" Wheel (190mm Hub Motor)

 

48v Electric Wheel Motor Rear Hub Wheel Size : 29in 1500w Brushless Gearless Motor Ebike Motor Wheel Diameter: 135mm Max Speed: 600 RPM Max Torque: 35 N.M

KT45A 1500W 18 Mosfet 45A Speed controller (18 IRFB4110PbF 100v 370w mosfets) KT LCD3 Display Twist throttle with key Brake levers - Left and right Pedal assist sensor (PAS)

 

The original kit included brake levers for cable disc breaks which we replaced.

 

Extra parts

E-Bike LED Light kit		5mm Torque Arm

Shimano 355 Hydraulic Brakes		Brake Discs

50A fuse holder (40a Fuse)		5A Fuse holder (charging)

Magnetic Brake Switches		68x107-124mm Bottom Bracket

We had to buy another bottom bracket to enable us to fit the PAS sensor

The rear gears we changed from 8 gears to 7 gears.

 

The one we are building starts with 20ah, it has 1500w motor and should do over 60mph. The 29" bike frame was £1800 new but we paid £250, the battery was £230 and the 1500w motor kit was £290. The 2nd battery will be made to fit the frame to give it another 20ah costing another £230, that will give a total of 40amp hours. We need 30ah to give the motor 1500w, it needs to get to full speed unloaded at 100 mph plus lights. We will add a GPS tracker, a rack to take 1st battery costing £30, new gears for £35, lights for £22, a new front tyre costing  £24 and finely a helmet sticker for £2! The total cost will be around £1300 but will have £2500+ worth of ebike.

 

If you ever think you don't need a helmet on a pushbike you're a dick!..Just like this daft fooker

I came off the bike and picked up some pretty bad injuries

 

Since our return from the Rescue Mission to Spain, the government have announced the push bike fund scheme, £50 to fix a push bike is ok if you have everything you need. But £50 in parts goes nowhere and the tools to do the job will cost more than £50, go to any pushbike shop and get a price for services it will be more than £50 plus parts. It just shows how disconnected from reality the government are, they have spent millions in the past on bike lanes and for the most part did it very little to improve cycling in Tameside, they have got the maddest cycle lanes I have ever seen, sure they put in some lines on a few roads but it no better than it was.

Meanwhile in the real world we have been continuing on with the project and our next job is to help our friend Taz convert his snow bike into an ebike.

Then we hit a major problem, Taz had his snow bike stolen  from outside wilko in Ashton under lyne Market ground. He literally just paid £800 in parts alone to have it converted in to ebike, the bike is worth about £400 new and he paid £200 second-hand. we started a whip round to get another frame it will cost £400 from china, skull fookers left him with £800 worth of parts and no bike...it would be funny, if it was not.

After more investigation on Tazs' bike theft, it looks like they dropped one off and picked up another, there is no way this was not picked up on CCTV.
I will be fitting trackers on e-bikes within the next few weeks and also building batteries with trackers built in. Even if they chop shop the bike we can still find them. The prototype secretary seat with the 9" bared steel spike can only be fitted to bikes being shipped to south Africa!

I am shocked to find out nothing is being done about bike theft, I am told one push bike is taken from Ashton centre every 20 hours, that over 20 have been taken from the market ground in the last 30 days. The cheapest bike new from China will cost £500 once you have paid tax and shipping, my home made e-bike cost over £3'000 in parts alone. So in the last 12 months over 1/2 million pounds in bikes have been taken from Ashton Under Lyne alone.. I have no info as yet about Tameside as a whole but I bet if Ashton is anything to go by, then Tameside has over £1 million pounds in missing push bikes!

On the point of all doing our bit in the community I am also setting up a free mobile 1000w Ebike charging station can charged 10 Ebikes at the same time you can all so keep your bike safe at the same time the beta version is now running 4 bikes will be adding another 6 bikes charging point. Hook up ebike and support your local markets, as soon as I plug 2 more 4 ways in to the generator.... we will be good to go, dont forget to bring your charger!

A new bike for Taz!

We managed to find Taz another bike secondhand, which our friend Kush kindly picked up for us. We are waiting on the delivery of the converstion kit and are cleaning up and upgrading what else we can while we wait. We are now also looking into building our own batteries, more infomation on that in the next blog.