coldriderwi
Active Member
Wow that FLX Blade hits almost my entire wish list... Thanks for the link! Now to figure out if their frame and wheels can support my fat rear
If only it had full suspension it would have everything on my wish list.
Luna Belt Drive BABE
- Thread starter Okpharmacy777
- Start date
If only it had full suspension it would have everything on my wish list.
HonoraryOrange
Member
No intention of very technical trails, but a ton of regular trail and street riding for me, so its all good
I just preordered it a few nights ago. Now the waiting begins..
Trevor Hayes
New Member
That's funny - I was thinking the exact opposite thing. If it didn't have any suspension it would have almost everything on my wish list. I am looking for a commuter bike and I don't want to deal with shock maintenance. I also would prefer not to have an internally mounted battery.
That sounds promising. Didn't PIM (Seattle retail bike shop?) produce a few budget ebikes then essentially give up on producing their own bikes, tho? Their web site is dead, anyway: (Link Removed - No Longer Exists)
coldriderwi
Active Member
No intention of very technical trails, but a ton of regular trail and street riding for me, so its all good
Nice! What color?
HonoraryOrange
Member
I went with dark grey - I really wanted the matte black, but I do a lot of night riding sometimes, and even though I use lots of lights I wanted a frame that's reflective even if it is dark.
TomD
Well-Known Member
Right, but I don't think EBR charges to do a tour, and I'd venture to guess it was Court's idea to show up. I think most of us e-bike fanatics would show up if in the area just for the bike porn even if their offering aren't our particular fetish.
I doubt you'll ever see Luna pay for a review, not necessarily due to the money, just out of principle. Eric strikes me as being too much of a rebel.
Here's all I have right now. The hold-up is getting the matching magnesium wheels in staggered configuration (26 rear / 27.5 front) and the right tire set (something from 3.5-4" rear and 2.4-3.0 front in robust street tire treads). For now ignore the rear rack but long term there will likely be an A-to-B battery option for a 1.3kwh or larger rack battery. This ebike is not going to try to be light .... it's going to bed configured for reliable transportation and a top assist "off-road" speed in the 36mph/55kph range but standard will be a Class 1/2 ebike limited to 20mph assist to be compliant with the silly regulations.
I like the idea of this ebike but I would like to get feedback because I'm talking with the former head engineer of PIM on this project. Should have 1st sample within a month. I'm thinking of doing at "at cost" organiccrowd funding effort to get the first 50 production units in the US faster.
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Trevor Hayes
New Member
I'm definitely interested. I have been looking for some time for a fast urban commuter bike with a belt drive and this seems to have everything I've been looking for. I've even looked into mag wheels since spoke problems and truing have been a regular issue for me on my ebikes but I didn't think they'd work with a belt drive - if you have no gearing at all and you can get pedal assist up to 30+ mph I guess the bike would be nearly unusable if you lose power, at least on hills.
Would those rims support running tubeless (for maximum indestructibility)? I'm aiming at low maintenance, no breakdowns - changing tires in the rain when it's near freezing is pretty miserable.
My feedback is that I would never buy a bike with cast wheels. They are heavy, ride like garbage and the hubs are junk. A spoked wheel flexes as it is meant to, giving a smoother ride and better traction. You can also replace the hub if it dies or upgrade it. There is a reason you normally only see cast wheels on kids bikes, it's only for looks.
These rims will be more like light versions of moped rims and die cast magnesium. Should be able to run tubeless (only wire beads will be recommended). They wheels are heavier then spoked wheels but when you have 160nm mid drive the old bike paradigm of everything having to be low weight is simply out of date and wheel weight adds to stability. The tires will more than make up for any suspension properties spokes would provide and the mag wheels will certainly improve the cosmetics of the bike (not going to be the cheesy wheels you seen in Walmart). The bearings being evaluated are ceramic hybrids that should last easily provide 60,000km of service life. The bike is intended to a true "transportation-grade" product which I believe is not the typical bike intent (99% of people in the US ride for recreation and leisure).
The mag wheels are what is delaying this project a bit because the staggered yet still wider tires were wanted.
tempestrock
New Member
Is this a joke?
This looks like a horrible photoshop job that's meant to be a meme somewhere...?????
It is a bad photoshop job but it was quickly hacked together to just illustrate the wheels. It is a belt drive, Bafang G610 Ultra fat tire model with an external battery (up to 17ah @ 48V but hoping for just to 52V when in production). Ideally the front fork, integrated bars and stem, and seat post will be carbon (not to save weight but because these carbon components add more value than cost in our opinion). The Mag wheels are the hold-up - no one had the tooling to produce a 26"R and 27.5F wide enough for the tire set that was desired.
We are hoping to have ceramic hybrid bearings in the wheels and bottom bracket so they should be maintenance free for years (bike industry bean counters typically prevent these design decisions because they want post sale revenue streams but we want a transportation-grade ebike - not sure how else to describe the goal of the model).
As soon as the sample is here I will post much better pictures. I didn't want to put that picture up but I wanted to see what those interested thought about this configuration. We just believe most ebikes are still more recreation focused (even the new Luna and FLX belt drive models but they look really nice).
We are hoping to have ceramic hybrid bearings in the wheels and bottom bracket so they should be maintenance free for years (bike industry bean counters typically prevent these design decisions because they want post sale revenue streams but we want a transportation-grade ebike - not sure how else to describe the goal of the model).
As soon as the sample is here I will post much better pictures. I didn't want to put that picture up but I wanted to see what those interested thought about this configuration. We just believe most ebikes are still more recreation focused (even the new Luna and FLX belt drive models but they look really nice).
I'd recommend you do a little research into ceramic hybrid bearings, they actually die earlier than steel in bicycle applications and like most bearings are worse the less you spend. Which is the real reason why they aren't used much in the industry outside of racing applications where longevity doesn't matter.
I've found stainless bearings to last longer than normal steel, and they're reasonably priced.
Explorer-1
Have bike, will travel
- Region
- USA
- City
- Boston North Shore
There is one vendor that will do anything.
coldriderwi
Active Member
Get one of these instead, they have no problem with them on ebikes.
kindernay.com
Kindernay The most advanced, high-speed, internal gear hub
Meet the most advanced, lightest, full-range, high-speed internal gear hub on the market, with 14 speeds and gear range of 543% with 13.9% gear intervals.
kindernay.com
tomjasz
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Minnesnowta
Evidence! Of course why else would I warn readers. Search here.
smorgasbord
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
In terms of Rohloff power handling, here's an interesting article. Scroll down to "Hot Rodding with a Rohloff":
"Some high performance race bike builders wonder exactly how much power you can put through your Rohloff. Rohloff says the maximum input torque for the hub is 100Nm (Newton Meters). They are saying that the Rohloff could handle roughly 1.5 horse-power, but it is rumoured the hub can handle much more.
I talked to Neal at Cycle Monkey in Berkeley, the USA distributor and service facility for the Rohloff.
So here is a guide for those electric mad men who are thinking of pumping a 5000+ watt rc motor through a Rohloff.
Luna says they'll rebuild the Rohloff in their Apex bike forever for $100.
"Some high performance race bike builders wonder exactly how much power you can put through your Rohloff. Rohloff says the maximum input torque for the hub is 100Nm (Newton Meters). They are saying that the Rohloff could handle roughly 1.5 horse-power, but it is rumoured the hub can handle much more.
I talked to Neal at Cycle Monkey in Berkeley, the USA distributor and service facility for the Rohloff.
So here is a guide for those electric mad men who are thinking of pumping a 5000+ watt rc motor through a Rohloff.
- Tou will indeed void your warranty running this kind of power through the Rohloff.
- The Rohloff has 6 nylon shear -pins inside the hub which is designed to sacrificially prevent damage to the gears in the case of higher torque loads. This means the worst you are risking is a $100 repair job if you do “fry” your Rohloff. You will know when these nylon shears break loose because the Rohloff will spin uselessly without spinning the tire when the nylon pins break loose.
- 11th gear is the straight through gear, in this gear you will not slip and it is the safest one to run high power through.
- The lower the gear the more likely you are to break the nylon pins loose…so when riding with a lot of power stay up high. Be careful not to apply too much torque when climbing steep hills in low gear.
Luna says they'll rebuild the Rohloff in their Apex bike forever for $100.
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