Hub drive or mid drive.

[PedalUma]

Nice build.

Is that the Surly big fat dummy?

I just know it as a Big Dummy. What distinguishes a BFD? I just purchased another cargo bike today. It is a Kona. It will be my fourth cargo conversion in about a month. I am still working on my second Yuba Mundo. Almost done. It had rim brakes! I could only fit a 160mm rotor on the front because of the fender stay but the back now has a 203, which after getting a motor will make it meet the current SF market demand. The gap in demand for a Used acoustic cargo with rim brakes and a Restored cargo bike with a mid-drive and disc brakes is huge in the SF Bay Area. Without a motor these bikes are anemic monsters. Kind of useless given the hills. With a motor you can sell your second car.

 

[john peck]

yep its at least 20% grade or a bit more. my garmin wont get the cal;umation in time before you run out of hill. its a bear one of the steepest I have found.

I couldn´t get up the upper of the 2 hills on Egg & I road in walk mode. No point anyway cuz I´d have to
come back down the way I went up. I hit 38 mph goin´ down the lower hill. I´m not really prepared to do
80 mph comin´ down the upper one. In a car ya need a 60 mph run at it. My van would never make it.
Thereś a hill south of Sequim looks just like your picture.

 

[m@Robertson]

What distinguishes a BFD?

The Surly went back to the drawing board and did a ground-up redo of the concept, and made it a fat tire bike. Its kind of the big daddy of longtails. Its as much a bikepacker as it is a cargo bike. Similarity to the BD is really only superficial. They are very different animals.

Introducing Big Fat Dummy

surlybikes.com

 

[fooferdoggie]

I couldn´t get up the upper of the 2 hills on Egg & I road in walk mode. No point anyway cuz I´d have to
come back down the way I went up. I hit 38 mph goin´ down the lower hill. I´m not really prepared to do
80 mph comin´ down the upper one. In a car ya need a 60 mph run at it. My van would never make it.
Thereś a hill south of Sequim looks just like your picture.

ya I dont know how fast it would be going down. there is another one by my daughters house thats a hair less then this guy. on the tandem I don't want to know how fast just coasting would be. before upgrading the brakes we could not even stop on it. but it was great for breaking in brake pads.

 

[PedalUma]

And I thought we had hills!

Climbing Fort Ross Road West, CA by bike - cycling data and info

Cyclling Fort Ross Road - one of Sonoma County's greatest bike climbs. View route map, weather, streetviews, images, slideshows, videos and more for this cycling route to the top of Fort Ross Road West, CA, USA. All the info (difficulty, distance, altitude gained, elevation, average grade)...

pjammcycling.com

 

[Johnny]

so this hill is no problem?
View attachment 84259

What is the location of this road? you can compute the grade from google earth.

It will depend on the rider whether it is a problem or not but it looks doable.

Several climbs that I do regularly with my regular bike, mid drive and direct drive hub. first and last are %20 when measured from google earth. The middle one depends on how you traverse the curve. I can do all of them at the lowest setting on my direct drive(which should be a worse climber than geared hubs if gearing is right).

 

[john peck]

And I thought we had hills!

Climbing Fort Ross Road West, CA by bike - cycling data and info

Cyclling Fort Ross Road - one of Sonoma County's greatest bike climbs. View route map, weather, streetviews, images, slideshows, videos and more for this cycling route to the top of Fort Ross Road West, CA, USA. All the info (difficulty, distance, altitude gained, elevation, average grade)...

pjammcycling.com

Ah to be 50 again! (who do I think I´m foolin´?)

 

[Akrotiri]

I just know it as a Big Dummy. What distinguishes a BFD? I just purchased another cargo bike today. It is a Kona. It will be my fourth cargo conversion in about a month. I am still working on my second Yuba Mundo. Almost done. It had rim brakes! I could only fit a 160mm rotor on the front because of the fender stay but the back now has a 203, which after getting a motor will make it meet the current SF market demand. The gap in demand for a Used acoustic cargo with rim brakes and a Restored cargo bike with a mid-drive and disc brakes is huge in the SF Bay Area. Without a motor these bikes are anemic monsters. Kind of useless given the hills. With a motor you can sell your second car.

Ah ok thought surly named that model that way. Between surly ice cream truck and surly big dummy I got lost lol.

Anyway your cargo builds are very well thought out and quite nice. They look more sturdy than the urban arrow cargo ebikes I see all over the place. Seems like a great hobby and also one you can make some nice scratch$€ on the side.

 

[fooferdoggie]

it is in portland oregon. I tired measuring with google it but its pretty short but it feels a little over 20% grade.

 

[Johnny]

Looks like the one on Egg & I Road; reminds me of an olympic ski jump comin down. Why? Have you
climbed it? Looks to gain 120 ft in 200 yds or less. Egg & I isn´t ´that´ steep but it´s 3 times as long.
Thereś one like that leaving Virginia City on the way to Carson City.

do you mind telling what portion of egg and 1 road that hill is? trying to calculate the exact grade on earth.

 

[PedalUma]

I did a nice climb today. Still showing four-out-of-four bars. I had to take it easy because of who I was riding with. A few weeks ago I had one of those cargo bikes with the jump seat at a café and told a woman to jump on the back. Hey, Jump on! She did. When I saw her yesterday she asked me to ride with her today. Her bike ran out of juice after one big climb. The trails and roads back were all down hill. Now she has me working on her eBike and she took the Princess Bike back to her place. She is bringing two more acoustic bikes for me to work on later today.
First where we rode today. Second the bike she rode home.

 

[FlatSix911]

it is in portland oregon. I tired measuring with google it but its pretty short but it feels a little over 20% grade.

What is the location of this road? you can compute the grade from google earth.
It will depend on the rider whether it is a problem or not but it looks doable.

Several climbs that I do regularly with my regular bike, mid drive and direct drive hub. first and last are %20 when measured from google earth.
The middle one depends on how you traverse the curve. I can do all of them at the lowest setting on my direct drive(which should be a worse climber than geared hubs if gearing is right).

View attachment 84358View attachment 84359View attachment 84360

Try using Stava to calculate the actual grade on any segment of your ride... here is a good example of a 19.8% grade.

 

[FlatSix911]

I sometimes ride with a friend who has a RadRover 5 with a 750W geared hub motor and a 48V, 14 Ah (672 Wh) Battery.
Unfortunately, we now have to avoid steep hills as he is unable to climb these 20% grades and has to dismount and walk.

He was told by Rad that the geared hub would be able to climb hills but is this is not the case and he is now shopping for a mid-drive.
I believe hub drives are excellent motors for specific use cases but not a one size fits all solution. Hope this helps other EBR members.

 

[john peck]

do you mind telling what portion of egg and 1 road that hill is? trying to calculate the exact grade on earth.

I tried in terrain mode but didn´t get sufficient resolution to see any topo lines. The steepest part runs west
just b4 turning south to dead end.

 

[fooferdoggie]

my garmin has a altimeter so I can get the elevation bottom to top next time I go that way. the grade would take 2 or 3 blocks to get the angle right.

 

[Catalyzt]

I did a nice climb today. Still showing four-out-of-four bars. I had to take it easy because of who I was riding with. A few weeks ago I had one of those cargo bikes with the jump seat at a café and told a woman to jump on the back. Hey, Jump on! She did. When I saw her yesterday she asked me to ride with her today. Her bike ran out of juice after one big climb. The trails and roads back were all down hill. Now she has me working on her eBike and she took the Princess Bike back to her place. She is bringing two more acoustic bikes for me to work on later today.
First where we rode today. Second the bike she rode home.
View attachment 84391

Pedaluma, you dog!

Flat Six, the front hub drive on my kit bike can definitely do a hair steeper than 15%, I don't know if it could do 20%.

I do have a Shimano MegaRange cluster on that bike, and it's FWD, so that may give me a bit of an edge.

The Moto mid drive 40 Nm is slow, but it feels like it could go up the side of a building.

I think I better download Stava. I am really hating on Google Maps. It avoids trails that are OPEN for bikes and pedestrians, would be good to stay out of the Google dystopaverse if possible.

 

[m@Robertson]

I spent the morning changing the brake pads on the BFD ... and then giving myself a leg up for my next run up that chute tomorrow. Was 48T with almost no offset. Dug my Eclipse out of the spare parts bin and used the 42T ring. So less teeth and enormous offset now, so it will be happy on the inner cogs. Ascent should be no problem now but we'll see.

I'd make the run today but today's ride is to the grocery store lugging back a full load o' supplies.

 

[PedalUma]

I spent the morning changing the brake pads on the BFD ... and then giving myself a leg up for my next run up that chute tomorrow. Was 48T with almost no offset. Dug my Eclipse out of the spare parts bin and used the 42T ring. So less teeth and enormous offset now, so it will be happy on the inner cogs. Ascent should be no problem now but we'll see.

View attachment 84397View attachment 84396

I'd make the run today but today's ride is to the grocery store lugging back a full load o' supplies.

Looking good M@Robertson!
They have new a special box for shipping bikes.
I have been going gangbusters today. Working on these bikes is so much fun. I came directly to my office from the morning ride and diched the sweaty shammy. As I was in the process a guy walked in. I work by appointment only and someone left the front door unlocked. He wanted to do a surprise inspection. Surprise! The good news is that I passed and he is getting his gravel bike converted.

 

[Johnny]

I tried in terrain mode but didn´t get sufficient resolution to see any topo lines. The steepest part runs west
just b4 turning south to dead end.

You don't need to see it, in google earth just measure the distance between two points that you like to find the average grade, find the difference in height in between end points and divide it to the distance. The desktop version of earth actually have this as a feature built in but the web version does not.



I don't know if this is the part you mentioned. This section that I draw is 250m long and the elevation changes from 92m to 117m, 25m delta, hence the grade is around %10.

 

[Ken M]

Here's my two cents....

If you plan to use the bike a lot on hilly commutes you probably do want to lean towards a mid-drive. But if you have a commute that you know you can spend much of the riding time above say 10mph a hub drive could actually be the wiser choice

Mid drives can take advantage of gear ratios when climbing but at higher speeds the gear ratio actually has a negative impact via reducing mechanical advantage of the higher gears. Hub drives apply their torque direct to the rear wheel so at higher speeds they can actually be more efficient and even easlier to sustain the higher speeds with. Typically cosmetically the mid-drive models tend to win out but with a hub you could long term just convert back to a conventional bike.

If you do go with a hub drive be sure to get one with regen braking - saves break wear and provides maybe 5% energy recapture.