AHicks
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Snow Bird - Summer S.E. Michigan, Winter Gulf Coast North Central Fl.
Makes perfect sense! I'm left wondering though, if you've considered a direct drive? I'm a BIG geared hub fan (LOVE my MAC 12t!), but direct drives are just about the ultimate in simplicity/longevity. Been there too. For use on a level commute, something like that should work really well unless there's a lot of stop and go involved. A 1500w direct drive is pretty peppy once you get it moving. They'll never be as sporty as a gear drive, but between 10 and 20 mph they're not bad. Kinda like an accelerating a diesel. The longer you stay into the throttle, the faster it goes! If considering this route, I would look for a low speed wind to maximize low speed torque. The high speed winds are about top end, like speeds over 30mph, where they eat huge amounts of power due to wind resistance. Perfect winding count wold top out at something under 30mph (to maximise low speed torque). I understand Leaf will build what you ask for as far as speed is concerned. Guessing there are others as well.For my ebike use case it’s all about total cost of ownership going forward
I commute 80km/day on my current E8000 mid drive which has done 40,000+km, and to date has been trouble free
This distance is very high for a mid drive, and I’m concerned its probably getting close to eventually failing or will start to have reliability issues
With this in mind I recently did a service on the drive unit as it is out of warranty
The inside was as clean as the day it was assembled with no signs of water ingress or rust
The bearings still felt smooth and showed no signs of wear, so all I did was apply new grease to the gearing and closed it up again
My worry is if it eventually does fail, repairing it is not an option as Shimano will not sell spare parts direct, and only want to sell you a new drive unit (currently nil stock in Australia) which retails anywhere from AUD1,600 - AUD1,800.![]()
When I bought the ebike new in 2018 for AUD3,500, I was told at that time a new drive unit was approx AUD800
Based on the info I have found online (including from the good folks here at EBR) hub motors are a simple design, cheap to buy and maintain, and have a good reputation for high speed trouble free operation on relatively flat terrain which makes up 90% of my commute route
As I have a couple of non power assisted bikes in my collection, I’ve decided to take out some insurance and use one as a host bike for a hub drive kit, of which I can readily get spares for and maintain myself
I don’t know which hub kit I will get as yet, and I’m still researching
Open to any suggestions
The Shengyi SX and the GMAC kits both from Grin look promising and have made it to my short list
My only concern with either motor is that Grin don’t sell spare gear sets and I can’t find anyone else who does
I don't know what's going on with MAC. For whatever reason, it would seem the only motors that are available are the fancy GMAC's from Grin. The conventional MAC motor sources have dried up. Makes no sense, unless Grin is buying up everything MAC can make for use on their GMAC conversions - which uses many of the same parts the regular MAC uses. I did see that Grin is opening a new bigger facility. Looking forward to further developments from those folks.