quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
Well…uhh my car collection is pretty tame at the moment.

Almost pulled the trigger on a del sol recently. The Integra is lonely in a garage full of motos and mountain bikes.

Noticed a Del Sol in a driveway around the corner from my house. Haven't seen one in years. Next door was a house with 2 early Mercedes SLKs.

When I built my first ebike it came with two mechanical e-bike brake levers that send a signal to the controller and cuts throttle when brake is applied. I tore one of my two levers apart to see how it works as I tried to come up with the best way to incorporate a “smart” brake lever that would allow my electric bike to have regenerative braking.

Regen braking uses the speed and momentum of the bike as a way to add some juice back to the battery while also helping save your brakes pads a bit. On steep downhill sections where you can get up to speeds in excess of 30mph regenerative (regen) braking will not only slow the bike down QUICKLY but it will also add back a bit of power back to the battery.

I also found that if you are on flat land and feel like pedaling around 20mph you can activate regen and get an excessive amount of resistance while adding to your battery reserve/charge. It will make you sweat!

My knowledge of the internal workings of a mechanical e-bike brake paid dividends today when I correctly diagnosed and quickly fixed a malfunctioning electric bike at the bike shop. Its brake lever was sticking due to a frayed brake cable. The lever was not returning to a fully forward position and was basically sending a signal to the controller (brain of the ebike) to cut throttle because brakes were being applied.

A new brake cable and proper adjustment had the bike performing perfectly again.

I assembled three e-bikes and a Scott hardtail MTB today. It blows my mind how fast time flies while assembling bikes.

I REALLY like this job!

I came into work yesterday and this Rad City 5 plus bike was torn apart on one of the stands with lots of wires and components sitting on the work bench. I saw note left by my fellow e-bike wrench monkey that said “please finish this repair”.



It didn’t take long to get the bike disassembled even further to access the power controller or brains of the bike. It was hidden at the top of the down tube near the steerer tube.

I was able to swap in a new controller and even test the new part before I put everything back together by hooking up the battery. I did this by setting the battery and the controller along with their accompanying wires on a stool next to the bike and slowly pedaled the bike on the stand while I held all the loose cables and wires out of the way. It fired right up with pedal assist and was fixed! . Once I knew it was fixed I reassembled the bike and got to go for a brief but fun test ride to make sure it was good to go!

I also sold my first bike!! I sold a Marin Bobcat Trail 4 27.5er to a kid who came in with his mom. I’m not really in sales and was hired primarily to assemble bikes/e-bikes and fix bikes with an emphasis on e-bikes. Only one of the other guys likes working on the e-bikes so it’s nice to be the new guy and already have a niche in the shop carved out.

We sell about one e-bike every day on average so even though it’s been less than two weeks that I’ve been there I’ve already lost count of how many e-bikes I have assembled.

I’ve never worked a job where the shift goes by so fast!

Super cool job opportunity that allows you to embrace your inner geek!

Good for you. Like others said, working at something you're good at and enjoy doing is rare.

I’ve made a good first impression. The store owner brought in a two stroke 50cc dirt bike for me to fix because he knows I love motorcycles.

After maybe 30 minutes of work I had it billowing out beautiful blue smoke like someone lit off a smoke bomb in front of the bike shop.

One of the crew came back from lunch just as I got it kick started and smoking really good. I yelled “I love the smell of two stroke in the morning” and he smiled and began laughing along with a fellow coworker (retired Army) who had come out of the shop to see what was making all the smoke. He definitely got the reference and smiled.

It’s been fun.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
It’s been fun.

That's the best!

Working at a job that you’re good at and enjoy, surrounded by people you like? You may never retire!
I agree E-bikes are here to stay. They will keep improving and become more popular.
Vt is a lot like Seattle as either you’re going up hill, or down!
One things that sucks is having both batteries die on my 70# Bitrix 10 miles from home!
Perked my interest when you mentioned charging the batt on the downhills.

The only downside is the temptation to pull the trigger on a forged carbon frame Scott Genius 920 with the raw/clear coat finish.

The e-bikes don’t tempt me so much because even the $10,000 variants have less power than what I’m building and also lack twist/thumb throttles. I HATE pedal assist throttle (PAS).

But a nice class 4 carbon frame mountain bike with better travel than my aluminum frame (class 3) Scott Spark as well as the ability to soak up MUCH harder hits is quite tempting.

One of my colleagues built an electric bike out of a Cannondale hardtail.

He was inspired by my build as well as a customer who built a VERY expensive and eyebrow raising mid-drive ebike.

When I returned from a recent vacation I was hoping to get to help with the build but my friend had already completely assembled the bike. He was quite eager to get his own e-bike up and running! His goal was to be able to do wheelies and hit 40+ mph.

To my complete surprise his modified 52V Bafang BBSHD from Luna Cycles achieved both goals. It will power wheelie with ease.

It blows my mind how hard his bike takes off in the low gears.

We both brought our e-bike builds to work a few days ago and while it was slow we went out for a brief ride and did a few drag races to see whose bike is faster.

Talk about some neck and neck racing. It was awesome.

My hub drive motor is about equal with his in terms of voltage and watts but my motor is gearless and brushless while his mid-drive motor utilizes the existing bike drive train/ gears. We are both running the exact same 52V 20Ah battery.

He has a sensor that detects shifts and briefly cuts power during shifting to keep the bike from destroying his chain and cassette under hard acceleration. This momentary loss of power during shifts allowed my bike to smoke him off the line and get the hole shot consistently as I can shift my cassette while pedaling to assist the motor under full power without any loss of power from the electric motor.

When we got up to about 30-35 mph his gears managed to give him enough advantage to catch up and pass me up to the max speed of around 38 mph on flat land.

I’m running 29inch offroad MAXXIS tires where he is running 27.5 street tires. I believe if I had similar tires he would have even more trouble catching up.

Both of our bikes will hit 44+ on a steep downhill slope with ease.

I find it amusing to be on the clock and able to drag race e-bikes without any pushback. If anything owner of the bike shop is loving how each of us wants to have the faster electric bike.

This job is excellent beyond words.

Since my friend has a nice go pro and is into drag racing his single turbo BMW 3 series I am thinking we should have some pretty cool footage of our races soon. Living near a 1000+ acre park with closed off roads gives us the ideal location to safely film and highlight the power of a home built e-bike.

sounds like fun.. But you might want to invest in a full face helet and some pads lol

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin101:
sounds like fun.. But you might want to invest in a full face helet and some pads lol

I already have. As my trail riding progressed to faster and faster speeds and especially considering the speeds my e-bikes cruise at I scooped up a downhill racing Troy Lee Designs full face helmet. It has excellent airflow and very good protection. I love that the helmet strap connecting ends have magnets so you just have to get the two ends close to each other they snap securely into place.

My wife actually picked it out last December when I mentioned I wanted a nice full face helmet for Christmas. She also got me some riding shin guards which have saved my legs from a few brutal impacts with my cheese grater Hope platform pedals.

Last week I took advantage of my employee discount and got a nice pair of riding gloves that have more padding in the palm than my current pair of gloves.

very nice helmet!!!

Happy to hear you are liking the job! I have the same helmet for riding steep runs.

I know I'll have an ebike someday. Anything with a throttle belongs in the motorcycle category!