What's New?

It's fall season and not everyone is thinking about ebikes. But if you are wanting just a little boost to your ride right now, we're running a big promotion on the mini Bafang G310/G311 motor systems.  They are a great silent hub when used within their limitation, but we happen to have a lot more in inventory than necessary as it seems everyone is buying our All-Axle motors instead!  

So if a small 2.3kg (5lb) motor is the right thing for you, use the coupon code "G3FORME" during the checkout and get a 30% discount off the entire G310/G311 kit order (controller, batteries etc. all included). This applies to the superharness kits, CA3 kits, and Barebones kits.

This promotional sale will go on until our stock levels are at a more reasonable level.

We had a few setbacks in the rollout of the Superharness system earlier this year, but things are now moving smoothly with new produciton machinery cranking them out.  Here is a fresh video covering the the process to convert over a CA3 based setup to use the Superharness platform for those who have been asking about that: 

We've also been steadily adding to the list of superharness related peripherals, including new inline brake cutoffs, a lower cost bidirectional throttle, and adapter to use any throttle as a regen control. Plus there are more in active development (like dual motor superharness splitters!).

Inline Cable Brake Sensor

Add-on Magnet Brake Sensor

Bidirectional Twist Throttle

All of these parts are conveniently available in a dedicated Superharness section of the store page, or of course with any kit purchase.  

Heads up that Grin's offices and operation will be closed this coming Thursday and Friday as all our staff are on a company planning retreat to chart out the year ahead. All emails, phone calls, and shipments will resume on Monday Oct 7th. Thanks for your patience! 

PS

And if things have been seeming quiet on the Grin front lately, that is never the actual case, things are Always Busy. On our return you will see much more content related  This and This and This and This. 

Sadly a big batch of Phaserunner boards was assembled with a substituted part earlier this year, making them vulnerable to mosfet failure when used at 72V and in some cases even 52V. Unfortunately reworking the boards to fix this mistake was extremely difficult leading to a slow drip-feed supply over the summer.

Fortunately the taps have since been turned on and we now have V6 Phaserunners in great supply again, and with that comes some other pieces of good controller news!

Super Clearance Phaserunner V6

We had a large quantity of Phaserunners already fully potted which couldn't be reworked. From all our testing these still function perfectly fine with 36V batteries, and we're offering at a nearly 75% discount either by themselves or as an option with a kit. It's a great deal for those who want a high-end controller and don't plan to use more than a 36V battery.  

Phaserunner Baserunner V6 Updated User Manuals

We've also completed a much longer revision of the V6 Phaserunner user manual that covers in good detail the use of superharness systems and direct PAS / Torque sensor hookup.  This should close the documentation gap that exists with our superharness and 3rd party display kits and help those doing more advanced integrations.

   

Heatsinks Too

And at last, we've just received our first batch of a custom tooled heatsink extrusion sized perfectly to the Phaserunner motor controllers for those wanting to improve the natural cooling and increase the power at thermal rollback.  These are available now in our controller accessories page. 

Thanks to everyone who joined in last week for the release of the Freegen technology video and the follow up live Q&A session with Justin, Alon, and Michael. The response and interest levels have been amazing, and we really look forward the next development phases.

For those who want to see this concept in action, make your way over to Eurobike in Frankfurt this weekend and check out Charge's Booth, E18 in Hall 8. There are two fully running demo bikes that you can ride and test for yourself how strong and natural the braking feels, along with some bench models to help illustrate what is going on.

The judges for the eurobike innovation award clearly did not understand or appreciate what they had on their hands, so come see for youself what they missed!

If you are interested in latest tech to hit the world of electric bicycles, you'll want to check out our upcoming video about Freegen™, the best way to to have both perfect freewheeling and perfect regenerative braking on an ebike. 

 

 

This technology was first shown publicly at the Fully Charged Live show in Vancouver last fall, but until now the details were not very well explained. This video is our answers to that so that almost anyone can follow along and appreciate the brilliance of this idea.  

It's our first time doing a scheduled Youtube Premiere, which well allow us to answer chat messages and will be followed by a live Q&A session with the team. So mark it on your calendar folks, next Tuesday at 12 pm PST, 3pm Eastern Time, and 9pm in Europe! 

And we're loaded and off to Portland this weekend for our first time attending the Pacific Trike Fest celebration of all things recumbent trike. If you live in that part of Cascadia and want to field test a dual motor drive Catrike or generally talk shop with Justin at his booth, come and pay visit!

 

It's on Saturday from 9am to 4pm at the Portland Community College, Sylvania. 

Well thanks everyone, with over 16 video submissions we had a great representation of builds for our final best project video awards category. In the end, we felt that Martin from Normandy with his "Super 73 Upgrade" pulled all the elements together to just nudge out in front.

As a video it gives a compelling back story of Martin's experience with his first ebike taking him from high school to now studying electrical engineering in univeristy. It seamlessly flows into the challenges and solutions of fitting a motor into a bike with a different dropout standard, and demonstrates just how much new life you can bring into an old factory ebike. The entire production itself is top notch and a joy to watch. So congratulations Martin, $1000 of Grin buckeroos are now on your store account for whatever future endeavors suit your fancy!

We look forward to seeing more build content on your channel, you've clearly got a knack for this.

And 2nd Place

OK, so we were only planning a single prize but some of the others were so good that we needed to do more than a token thank you.  It was a very close 2nd place for Oliver in Australia with his dual motor Cyclopes build.  This fully custom fabricated sheet metal frame frontloading cargobike is an inspiring piece of art in itself, but one with demonstrated great utility for his rural lifestyle. 

The video combines build pictures, aerial photography, along with an engaging dialog and some handy ride footage. If you look at Oliver's youtube channel he's also worked on larger pickup truck EV conversions and so it's no wonder he was  "first" ebike came out so good, the man is in his element, and we're throwing a $250 runner-up prize his way.

And Many More

Finally, there are a number that didn't necessarily have the same video production chops as Martin and Ollie but that still featured great content and builds. It's a bit random but we felt that the following 3 submissions all had unique character and are also getting a $100 store credit prize

	Tim's Build showcases a Metrofiets cargo bike conversion using a locked clutch SX1 front motor for regen. It shows all the details and rationale for his component selection and shows how even a cargo bike can sip energy at just 4.6 Wh/mi on a 60 mile trip.
	This relatively short video by Vaxt shows how he got a used factory ebike and made it run even better with a 3rd party controller, battery, and control system.  He even managed to tap into the integrated torque/cadence circuit from the Shengyi mid-drive, figure out the signal ranges and then interface that to our Cycle Analyst for full torque control.  Very well done, and a perfect example of what is possible with the thousands and thousands of out of warranty factory ebikes soon to be filling up the landfills.
	We've been most impressed with all of Cain's adaptive trike and bike builds he's put on our gallery, and were delighted that he also did a video walkthrough explaining the origins of his many creations. This is a succint 5 minute summary of narrated pictures and videos that show prolific custom builder at work!

Grinvestors

So that's it for this campaign, thanks again to all who participated, and a big thanks as well to the Grinvestor who helped sponsor this. He wanted to remain anonymous, but is one of several dozen generous people who have helped finance Grin's growth and R&D by loaning funds to us in exchange for interest payments in the form of store credit.  Collectively our Grinvestor community has contributed more to enabling our success than all the traditional banking and loan finance partners combined, and they all deserve a shoutout!

The responsibility of finding our final week winners for the Grin it to Win it context fell to Justin, who had a lengthy shortlist of great builds to choose from. 

We're now in the final week of accepting submissions for the Best Video build with the $1000 grand prize, so if you're working on a video feature, be sure to put "Grin IT TO WIN IT" in the title so we can find it and you will be in consideration! 

Here's a number so far:

We're now in our final 6th week of the "Grin it to Win it" campaign that has seen over $3000 in prizes given out to people submitting details of their ebike builds to our customer project gallery. Noteable submissions in the last week include Jack Butler who managed to upload his solar bike build while actively competing in the final stages of the 2024 Suntrip race, just a few days before he came out on top in a nailbiting finish!  

We'll be extending this last random draw and staff pick to May 20th to give people a little bit more time, then after that we are giving until the end of May to select the final $1000 prize for the best project video.