HT 1000

[walkingman57]

Happy to say that my HT1000 arrived over the weekend. It was well packed, no damage at all was noted. It took all of 1/2 hour to fully assemble. Super easy in spite of no instructions since it was mostly assembled already. It arrived with about 60% charge on the battery, so I didn't have to wait to give it a spin. I placed the order at the end of August 2021, so all in all it took 7 months of patience to receive. Cecelia was great to work with and was always super responsive to texts through the Alibaba app. High praise is due.

Specs/ordering choices made:
Medium size frame (I'm 5'-8" with 31" inseam)
44t Chainring
Rockshox Yari
Maxis 29 x 2.20" tires (65 psf max)
Shimano M8000 11 spd 11-46 cassette
Lighting
Rear rack
48V standard battery
Magura MT5e brakes

I asked about Lyrik fork, but decided against the extra expense and that I probably wouldn't know the difference in performance, anyway.

My main use will be for commuting, so I'm optimizing it for fast cruising. Will be adding/replacing:
-spd/platform combo pedals
-shock absorbing dropper post
-shorter no-rise or negative rise bars
-fenders (going with Tom D's recommendation)
-bigger chainring, maybe
-road specific tires
-Watt Wagons Archon controller

This is my first mountain bike and suspension. I'm a 63 year old, dyed-in-the-wool weight weenie roadie who's used to 20 lbs bikes, so I was curious about how I would react to climbing into the cockpit of this 75 lbs beast. I've only been able to spend 20 minutes or so on it, but my initial reactions are nothing but smiles. The throttle made me wish I had a seatbelt at first, but now it's just cool to hit on the climbs. I have to say that the sensation of being on a heavy bike literally disappears when PAS or throttle kicks in. What is really different, though, is the sensation of being up high. It's sort of like the difference between dropping into a low slung roadster vs climbing up into a lifted rock hopping truck. I'll take a picture with my roadbike next to the HT. There must be a 3-4 inch height difference. I can't put my foot on the ground while remaining on the saddle, thus the dropper post. Fortunately, the top tube drops at such a steep angle and stand-over height is great. The pedals are a little cheesy and the seat post is too short. They're toss-aways to me, anyway. The saddle's not bad, but I'll probably pull one off of one of my road bikes to keep my backside happy. In those 20 minutes of riding, I mostly used the bottom 4-5 cogs in the cassette. My initial impression is that there is little or no feeling of motor drag with PAS turned off, especially when pedaling in the larger cassette cogs.

I'm used to riding with 100 lbs of pressure in skinny 28's so the 2.2's feel like being on the road with slippers. Just for fun, I pumped the rear up to full 65 and left the front at about 45. Huge difference. I think it's going to take some time to get the confidence to dive into turns like I do with my road bike's slicks, given the high body position on the HT. I'm planning to cut down the bar ends because the super wide hand position makes my wrists ache. I might even go to a negative rise bar to get better body position to cut down on wind drag.

All I can say is "yes", it was worth the wait. Now I'm going to have fun tinkering with it to see if I can iron out the best and most efficient performance out of it as possible. I figured that buying it direct from China really meant that I'd end up being on my own as far as support is concerned, but there are tons of resources online on how to best approach problems and I'm pretty mechanically savvy. I'd love to connect up with other HT owners to share info. I'll post more reactions as I get more time in the saddle and start changing components out.

That's it for now. Cheers folks!

Best regards,
Steve

 

[PedalUma]

Congratulations.
Look into a moustache bar. It can even be put in upside down for a try at the Café Racer look. This will bring your wrists or thumbs in and up. Much more comfortable in either position. Cut 1/2 inch from each end.

 

[walkingman57]

Congratulations.
Look into a moustache bar. It can even be put in upside down for a try at the Café Racer look. This will bring your wrists or thumbs in and up. Much more comfortable in either position. Cut 1/2 inch from each end.

Haha! That's a cool idea. I'll check it out!
~Steve

 

[PedalUma]

Haha! That's a cool idea. I'll check it out!
~Steve

The levers are in the wrong position but this is the basic idea. Your bars will be matching matte black.

 

[Gionnirocket]

Congratulations.
Look into a moustache bar. It can even be put in upside down for a try at the Café Racer look. This will bring your wrists or thumbs in and up. Much more comfortable in either position. Cut 1/2 inch from each end.

That's how I roll

 

[PedalUma]

Man, I did that with an all chrome eBike but never thought to take a photo. It was bad, in the good way. Just flipping the bars.

 

[Gionnirocket]

Man, I did that with an all chrome eBike but never thought to take a photo. It was bad, in the good way. Just flipping the bars.

I have the same bell... as well.
It always gets smiles when you ring it for people.. especially the kids.

 

[walkingman57]

I took the HT out for a nice spin today. 7 miles to continue getting a feel for the bike. It's a blast. I did a loop that included a big climb in my neighborhood, the dreaded NE 65th Street hill which is about 3/4 of a mile of 8 percent grade. It was really great to get to the top and not feel like I needed a defibrillator hit. I'm getting used to the 1 to 2 second motor cut out when I shift gears. It's not that big a deal, but I could imagine it becoming annoying after I have more time logged on it. I do wish that the motor assist was more proportional to the effort that I put into each stroke. That's probably something that I can tweak when I hook it up to the computer. It sort of feels like it "tops out" when I dig in. At that point, I'll hit the throttle to see how much more output the motor could be giving me and there's usually more. Happily, the throttle cruises right around 30-31 on the flats, so it meets my expectations on what it should be doing based on my highest chainring and cassette combination of 44 x 11. On a slight decline of 1-2 percent, it cruised at 35mph. So, is it worth spending $80 for that 46t chainring to get another 1-2 mph? Not sure. Jury's still out, but probably not. One thing I can say for sure is that a dropper post is a necessary upgrade because I don't like having to climb off the saddle to put my foot down at every stop. Anybody have recommendations for a suspension dropper?

Other observations:
-The color display is nice and bright at night, almost too bright. I like that the numbers are large enough that I don't need my readers to see them. (...getting old sucks!)
-The headlight has decent output, but only about half that of a Light and Motion Urban 900. I purchased the head and tail light mainly to ensure that the wiring and controls would be already part of the system. I'll probably change the headlight out to a more robust unit, but I'll keep the tail light.
-The Maxxis tires are pretty nice. They're not so knobby that they make a ton of road noise, but seem to grip well on pavement. I still might try a tire that has more of a center slick to smooth it out. Schwalbe Marathon or Big Apple?
-It's pretty cool to not wear dedicated cycling shoes, but I'm looking forward to installing the spd combo pedals so that I can be more efficient. It feels a little funky when my feet get out of position on the pedals.

 

[Gionnirocket]

I took the HT out for a nice spin today. 7 miles to continue getting a feel for the bike. It's a blast. I did a loop that included a big climb in my neighborhood, the dreaded NE 65th Street hill which is about 3/4 of a mile of 8 percent grade. It was really great to get to the top and not feel like I needed a defibrillator hit. I'm getting used to the 1 to 2 second motor cut out when I shift gears. It's not that big a deal, but I could imagine it becoming annoying after I have more time logged on it. I do wish that the motor assist was more proportional to the effort that I put into each stroke. That's probably something that I can tweak when I hook it up to the computer. It sort of feels like it "tops out" when I dig in. At that point, I'll hit the throttle to see how much more output the motor could be giving me and there's usually more. Happily, the throttle cruises right around 30-31 on the flats, so it meets my expectations on what it should be doing based on my highest chainring and cassette combination of 44 x 11. On a slight decline of 1-2 percent, it cruised at 35mph. So, is it worth spending $80 for that 46t chainring to get another 1-2 mph? Not sure. Jury's still out, but probably not. One thing I can say for sure is that a dropper post is a necessary upgrade because I don't like having to climb off the saddle to put my foot down at every stop. Anybody have recommendations for a suspension dropper?

Other observations:
-The color display is nice and bright at night, almost too bright. I like that the numbers are large enough that I don't need my readers to see them. (...getting old sucks!)
-The headlight has decent output, but only about half that of a Light and Motion Urban 900. I purchased the head and tail light mainly to ensure that the wiring and controls would be already part of the system. I'll probably change the headlight out to a more robust unit, but I'll keep the tail light.
-The Maxxis tires are pretty nice. They're not so knobby that they make a ton of road noise, but seem to grip well on pavement. I still might try a tire that has more of a center slick to smooth it out. Schwalbe Marathon or Big Apple?
-It's pretty cool to not wear dedicated cycling shoes, but I'm looking forward to installing the spd combo pedals so that I can be more efficient. It feels a little funky when my feet get out of position on the pedals.

Glad to hear that you like it. I'm considering the CC for next spring.
Check out the settings of the display.. Depending on the model you may be able to adjust the brightness and some have a light sensor that dim it and can turn on the headlight at night as well.
Well that's how my 860c for Bafang works

 

[walkingman57]

Glad to hear that you like it. I'm considering the CC for next spring.
Check out the settings of the display.. Depending on the model you may be able to adjust the brightness and some have a light sensor that dim it and can turn on the headlight at night as well.
Well that's how my 860c for Bafang works

Thanks, I figured that there'd be a setting for it somewhere. Discovering the hidden secrets is half the fun!

 

[walkingman57]

Nice! I just discovered that my Ortlieb panniers fit perfectly on the rear rack with those oversized tubes. I was worried that I was going to have to find new bags. I only needed to remove the adapter inserts in the hanger hooks, and presto! perfect! ...with plenty of heel clearance too. Just think of all the crap I'm going to carry!

 

[walkingman57]

So, the Ortliebs have a tendency to hang inwards due to the steep slope of the back tube members of the rack. There isn't much to support the free hanging bottom of the bags. I had them loaded with some tools for my shop along with jacket, bike tools, etc. Hitting a good sized pothole or road seam could kick them inwards towards the spokes. I heard the tips of the bags pinging the spokes right after doing just that. I'll have to figure out some sort of stiffener for the bags, or an extension bar for the racks for better support. They're set back just enough for heel clearance.

 

[walkingman57]

If you're into clipping into your pedals, I found these spd pedals on Amazon: Funn Mamba S Single Sided. I went with single sided pedals to retain the flexibility of not needing cleated cycling shoes for short errand trips.
They work pretty well. No problems clicking in or out of the cleat mechanism. No flex noted. I really like feeling securely attached to my pedals, especially during high cadence pedaling or going over rough road surfaces.

Other observations: I did a commuting run from my house in NE Seattle to downtown and back. The roundtrip included some long good sized hills. The intent was to see how much battery would be expended during the trip, as well as to see how much effort and motor assist would be most beneficial. On those hills, I'd normally be grinding in with a 39x28 or 39x 25 chainring to sprocket combination and I'd be lucky to hit 10 mph. Given that I'm really out of shape, I'm sure that I would've been sucking wind at the top of each climb. On the HT, I think that I was mostly in a 44x16 combination doing 23 mph or better, depending on the grade, with PAS 5. It was really fun to kick in the throttle, like "turbo boost", whenever I felt like I needed to catch my breath. My normal 40 minute commute took just under 20 on the HT, which included waiting for a lot of traffic lights downtown, and I didn't need to take a shower when I arrived. Pretty cool! On good days, it takes me 15 minutes door to door if I drive, so I feel really great about what I can achieve on the HT.

Regarding battery consumption, the roundtrip including 5 significant climbs at PAS 5 was about 18 miles and the battery percentage went from 80% at departure down to 10% on return. I guess that was cutting it close! Recharging back up to 100% ( I forgot to check it at 80%...) took about 2.5 hours.

I'm pretty sure that I'll be purchasing the WW Archon controller in the near future. Meanwhile, I'll plan to carry the charger with me on commuting runs from now on.

 

[walkingman57]

I hooked up the HT to my computer to adjust the output settings, following instructions on the often referred to website ElectricBike-Blog.com. It's super informative with great cautionary recommendations. Just google search the phrase "I Void Warranties: Hacking the Bafang Ultra". Go into it with eyes open because changing the factory settings invalidates any manufacturer's support according to Cecelia.
I had to do some troubleshooting of my laptop's usb serial port drivers, which were preventing connection via the communication cable. One YouTuber described the factory settings as oriented toward mtb trail riders to give the rider higher early stroke motor torque to assist with quick high effort inputs rather than to provide a more consistent and even output that commuters or longer distance gravel riders might need. My test ride showed that the tweaks really did even it out. I get much better support torque on those long uphill grinds. I'm definitely happier with the result. I need to study more about battery usage to see what can be done with range.

 

[Gee_Whiz]

This is great and your bike looks amazing! Thanks for sharing!

 

[walkingman57]

Glad to hear that you like it. I'm considering the CC for next spring.
Check out the settings of the display.. Depending on the model you may be able to adjust the brightness and some have a light sensor that dim it and can turn on the headlight at night as well.
Well that's how my 860c for Bafang works

Right on. Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve also heard/read that setting the display to show voltage rather than percentages is a better reflection of battery status. Is that your experience too?

 

[walkingman57]

Right on. Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve also heard/read that setting the display to show voltage rather than percentages is a better reflection of battery status. Is that your experience too?

For anybody else who wants to learn about how to get into the display settings, I found this helpful YTube vid:

 

[walkingman57]

This is great and your bike looks amazing! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks! I’m really enjoying it.

 

[Gionnirocket]

Right on. Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve also heard/read that setting the display to show voltage rather than percentages is a better reflection of battery status. Is that your experience too?

Yeah... I prefer a voltage reading over percentage.
Makes me feel smart.

 

[walkingman57]

Yeah... I prefer a voltage reading over percentage.
Makes me feel smart.

Haha! I need that!