Sneak peek of the hub drive rear wheel. This dang thing is HEAVY. The 52v Li ion battery and the hub drive rear wheel are adding considerably more weight than I was expecting. I’ll be weighing everything and taking lots of pics along the way.



I’ve spent the last two days cleaning out and organizing my garage. The rear wheel is getting the spokes tightened and a 2.4 inch tire installed at the LBS.

I do want to add a small speedometer to augment the speedo the e-bike comes with. Can you guys recommend any decent speedos?

Many more pics to come soon.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
It’s not being built as an off-road bike.

The goal is to get close to achieving 45 mph top speed and for it to do wheelies.

It will see mostly street riding with some gravel and light trails but nothing gnarly.


This bike could easily be made into a hell of a sleeper. The rear hub motor will be concealed by the cassette on one side and the disc brake on the other. If I build a battery to look like a water bottle and conceal the cables it wouldn’t even look like an e-bike.

This will be able to go places much quieter than a motorcycle and won’t raise eyebrows since it will look like a standard hard tail mountain bike.

Just my opinion but I do not think you will get 45 mph with 52-volts, but I could be wrong. Most 52-volt E-bikes are topping out at around 30 to 35 mph. However please keep us updated with your progress and what you are able to get on your top speed. God Bless !!!

Get a Garmin GPS bike computer. It will do so much more than a speedometer.

The 52v battery doesn’t matter as much as the 1500w hub drive motor with regards to top speed. From most of the reports I’ve read online 1500w hub drives should be capable of close to 45 mph or more with a light rider and decent battery.

I’m 5-9 150 lbs so it should scoot pretty good since I’m almost hobbit sized.

I should have some build pics up next week.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
The 52v battery doesn’t matter as much as the 1500w hub drive motor with regards to top speed. From most of the reports I’ve read online 1500w hub drives should be capable of close to 45 mph or more with a light rider and decent battery.

I’m 5-9 150 lbs so it should scoot pretty good since I’m almost hobbit sized.

I should have some build pics up next week.

Actually voltage is what gives you speed, the higher voltage, the higher your top speed. AMPs give you the torque and acceleration. However I can be wrong on all this and would love to keep learning. Please keep us updated !!! God Bless !!!

I came across a thread where someone was running a modified controller with 72v and 2000w in a hub drive similar to mine that was rated for 1000w. Some people in that conversation seemed to think it could even handle up to 3000w but would melt down quickly if the rider did a lot of stop and go riding and hard accelerations.

I might need to shelve the idea of doing wheelies.

Apparently these particular hub drives can handle quite a bit more than their stated rating. This motor isn’t built for crazy acceleration and is known to be decent choice at achieving surprising top speeds.

I wish I had a better base of knowledge for things electrical. I hadn’t even considered running 72V in my hub drive with a modified controller and temp gauge.


My LBS was swamped yesterday. Hopefully I’ll get the wheel back today or tomorrow and can finally get it together. The kit I got should be a good starting point. It looks like many people slowly modify components as they become more familiar with e-bikes and the various ways you can modify the individual components.

Seeing someone claim 40 mph out of a lower spec hub drive than what I have is exciting! They were running some modified parts but it is certainly motivating me to get this dang thing together as soon as possible.

Assembly starts tomorrow morning.

I weighed the rear wheel and it came in at a staggering 21.6 lbs.



More to come soon.

If anyone has seen the comedy Euro Trip they will understand why I chuckled when I saw where the torque arms I ordered for this build came from.

I was surprised that they came in early.

My motor can apparently put down 400 lbs of pressure on the drop outs so I figured even with 4130 chromoly steel construction using torque arms would be a good idea.






This is the donor bike I finally settled on. It shifts like garbage so I don’t feel bad about tearing this one apart and converting it to electric.



More to come soon.


I had hoped to be further along with the project but I’ve had a few distractions/side quests and some unusually amazing weather to enjoy one of the distractions.

I like this thread.

My E-Bike comes in at about 75 lbs.

Heavy but fun…

You big wheeled guys that can still buy good Maxxis tires. No luck in a 20x1.75.

Anyways, I’ve been following this. Pretty cool. Hoping for more pics and excited to see your finished project.

Beancooker, yeah good 20in tires are not nearly as easy to come by at my LBS. I will say that lately my LBS has been dang good about getting in inventory and has a few 20in tires in stock. I’ll be over there Monday and if they have any Maxxis tires like you’re looking for I’ll definitely let you know. I ended up going with cheap old school 20x1.75 knobbies on my full send beater build. I have all the parts to finish this but the e-bike is ahead in the cue.

The 29er behind it really makes the 20in tires on the FatBoy look tiny.



Brief Update. I’ll post up pics and progress very soon.

I was worried I’d run into brake clearance problems because of the rather large hub motor on this build and my concern was valid. It’s not really bad news. This just means I will need to source different mounts (which I might already have) but I will get to run a 180mm rear disc brake instead of the original 160mm. It’s a common issue on these types of conversions.

Some parts pics and progress updates.

This is the battery I will use until I source something more powerful which will be soon after I finish assembling the bike. If you look closely at the pics below the unique thing about Marin’s pine mountain is that I can probably mount two batteries at the same time thanks to all the threaded eyelets inside the frame. This is another reason the Pine Mountain appealed to me when selecting a donor bike.

Seiko 7002 diver for size reference.




Look at all those mounts. The newest Pine Mountain has even more now, probably 3-4x more mounts inside the triangle than this one.





A view of the culprit…that big ole 1500w hub motor.

Well I completely lost track of time tonight.

I managed to get the rear brake to fit. I am also pleased to report that the torque arms I procured from Bratislava fit brilliantly. I had to assemble and disassemble a few things before I got the correct number of shims/washers but I am happy to report that the bike project made a tremendous step forward today.

The clearance between the rear brake and the hub is damn close but it should be ok.


Here is a pic showing the torque arm. I installed one on each side so if I decide to later on I can add regenerative braking to this bike. The main reason I added them on is for extra insurance since these motors can put down a decent amount of torque and have been known to work the bolts loose over time or crack the drop outs. Hopefully I won’t have to worry about anything like that.



Here is a quick shot of the total progress I made last night and early this morning.




More to come soon.

I was scrolling through the pictures and was twice as envious as normal for a second because I thought you had a PK Ripper.

Your project is really cool. Thanks for posting your progress.

I’m curious about the torque arm. It doesn’t look like you’re taking full advantage of the leverage offered by the part that goes on the axle because the point where the curved arm is attached to the frame is between the axle and the screw hole in the part that goes on the axle. It might offer more resistance to axle twist to reverse the part that goes on the axle and attach the curved part to the far hole in the dropout forward of the axle like an old fashion coaster brake arm.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trapper189,

Trapper189, That is a very good point! I was originally planning on attaching the torque arm where the arrow is pointing in the pic below. The channel the screw fits inside of on the torque arm is slightly more narrow at the very end so rather than file it a bit I decided to just attach it at the lower mount.

It didn’t even occur to me last night to do use the other spots that I believe you are recommending and that I circled in the pic as a mounting point for the torque arm. I am thinking I am eventually going to tear it all apart when I upgrade the rear brake (I’m planning on upgrading the front brake first). When I take it apart I will probably change the mounting location to one of the spots circled.

The torque arm on the other side is installed slightly differently because of clearance issues with the derailleur. I’ll have to take a pic and post it up.

I’m thinking the axle will try to twist clockwise, so attaching the slotted piece to the hole your arrow is pointing to would be best because the torque arm will be pulling on it. I was thinking the circle hole on the left, but the torque arm will be pushing on the slotted piece and it could deflect, like pushing a rope. The part that bothers me, which I don’t think I explained well in my original post, is that the hole it is currently attached to is closer to the axle than the length of the torque arm itself. Of course, I only made it through a half semester of statics before I changed to accounting 34 years ago, so what do I know?

It’ll be a few more days until the Marin gets to go for its first electrified test ride. I had to order a connector to convert the Anderson connection the battery uses to the XT60 connection the e bike controller uses. Thankfully I found a seller in Florida so it shouldn’t take too long to get the part.

The nice thing about this kit is that the LCD display is fully programmable. The instructions it came with are not so great but the online tutorials I’ve found are fantastic.

The power levels for both the motorcycle style twist throttle and PAS (Pedal Assist Sensor) allow for a surprising level of customization. I figured out the setting that allows full power and removes any speed restrictions. There is even a port on the side of the display to charge my phone.

More to come soon.

“ I figured out the setting that allows full power and removes any speed restrictions. Big Grin “

That’s the only setting you need, right?

Some friends of mine bought one of those electric cars for their young son. There was a screw you turned for slow/fast. They had him driving around on slow and once he got the hang of it, his dad turned the screw to fast. The look on his son’s face was priceless when the son took off for the first time on fast. After about ten minutes of blasting around the yard, the kid comes back and says “Turn the screw some more, Dad!”

Some of us just can’t help it and never grow out of it. Fast is fun.

I have a ballpark weight figure for the bike based off the shipping labels and Marin’s factory specs.

E bike kit - 29.32 lbs
Battery (including mount & charger) 11.91 lbs
2016 Marin Pine Mountain 1 - 32.41 lbs

Estimated total weight- 73.64 lbs. whoa….

It will be interesting to see how close the bike comes to that number.


I could have gone with a much more off road friendly and light weight motor but the spirit of this build is : reliable, inexpensive, fast and robust. Hence the choice to use a heavy full 4130 chromoly framed bike that Marin designed and marketed as a “camping mountain bike” capable of carrying heavy loads.


I redid the wiring last night to tidy up the look and hide the wires as much as possible. Overall I am quite happy with how the project is progressing. It looks like Monday I’ll have the connector I need and then finally I’ll get to see how it performs.

I finished my bike!!!

First impression: This thing is sooooooooooo FUN! It’s torquey and fast! Even on the low power settings it climbs the hills in my neighborhood with ease.

It really feels a bit more like a motorcycle than a bicycle. I didn’t hook up the pedal assist function that adds various levels of power as you pedal. I didn’t do this because #1 the PAS (pedal assist) that came supplied with my kit looked terrible and #2 I didn’t want even more wires cluttering the bike. I decided to build it with a motorcycle style twist throttle.

Overall I am thrilled with my first build. I finished it late last night and only got to go for a brief night ride down my street.

I am still working on the advanced settings on my full color LCD/controller and making sure I have everything set up properly for my specific parts.

I am shocked at the functionality built into my kit. My LCD gives me: “throttle” indicated when throttle is applied, battery voltage, real-time watts used while under power, outside temp, motor temp (if I had a sensor in my motor), current speed, average speed, max speed, time ridden, an odometer, trip meter and 5 levels of power with 5 being full power. It even has a very low power mode that shows a person walking instead of the 0-5 power level and limits the speed to 6 kph.

It’s easy to change it from kph and Celsius to mph amd Fahrenheit.

I am still fine tuning the advanced settings and making sure I have everything set up properly. The instructions for the LCD/Controller my kit came with are incredibly simplified. The advanced set up is requiring a bit of research since the instructions only cover 6 out of the 23 advanced settings.



I am going to buy a triangle frame bag today to hold the controller and wires and give the build a much cleaner look.

This was a fun project.

I’ll post up a pic later on today and maybe a video. The color LCD screen on this bike is better than some motorcycles.