Blog

Our booth is setup at Fully Charged and we're looking forwards to discussing all the things that a DIY builder can do, along with the great technologies that we offer.  

We're also happy to be showcasing for the first time a rather brilliant project by two inventor/entrepreneurs we met at Eurobike this summer, a hub motor system that both freewheels and does regen braking! The technology behind it is ingenious, and we can't wait to show this off to all who visit our booth. 

And finally, the group Our Greenway is hosting a Cargo Bike conference on Saturday, Sept 9th, that is open to everyone either wanting to learn more about how these utility vehicles can impact their lives. You can get free tickets here. 

This September 8th-10th Vancouver is going to be hosting the Fully Charged LIVE show, a traveling exhibit from the UK that covers everything from micromobility to electric cars and alternative power. Fortunately, ebikes, cargo bikes, and personal EV's are a huge part of the floor space and Grin is excited to participate.

Ebike History

One of our contributions to the show will be an exhibit dedicated to the recent history of the ebike movement in Canada, and for that we're hoping to solicit your help. Do you by chance have an old ebike, escooter, or eskateboard from the 1990's or early 2000's still around in your garage, which you'd be willing to donate to the cause? We're interested in both DIY builds and turn-key bikes from that era to shed light on the timeline of this movement.

If so, please email us some pictures and details and we will see if it's a good fit. Ebikes are relatively new to many people but the seeds have been around for a few decades, and we'd love to tell the story of how they've evolved to the current state. 

The results our in for our 2nd round of prizes on the project gallery. The three winners of our weekly draw are:

Tim Yzerman from Vancouver, who built up an ebike as part of the UBC electric bike club over 18 years ago and has been riding and upgrading ever since.	Adam from Quebec who built a GMAC powered touring catrike with an Bob trailer on the back, sporting both a solar roof and solar trailer.	And Finally, Gary from Orgeon with who built a side-by-side tandem Date Trike, powered with an FH212 motor and stunning wooden framework.

Congratulations each of you.

We planned to have our first staff pick prize, but found it impossible to settle on just one with so many stunning submissions. The following 3 projects were all at the top of the list after a few rounds of voting, and we decided what the heck, let's give all three of them a prize too. 

First was the the local scavanger coffee trailer that has been serving beverages all around Vancouver from their delighfully crafted mobile brew machine.  We promise that their winning ticket has nothing to do with showing up at Grin several years ago and treating our whole staff to drinks.	Next was a lovely study in custom frame design from Adrien in France. This curves on this front loading cargo bike are stunning, and the electric integration is a clean as can be. Powered by a front FH212 motor with cable actuated steering and a gas sprung centerstand. Beauty.	And finally for something way out of left field, we've got loads of Solar bikes but these WindWheeler quads from the Netherlands are harvesting wind power isntead. The CA3 + Baserunner allows them to auto regen above a given speed limit to recoup sailing energy to use later.

If you submitted a project and didn't win yet, fret not. We'll be keeping all projects in the running both for the weekly draws and the montly staff pick awards and your chance may come yet. 

Short notice but this Saturday we are participating in an event organized by the bike kitchen and hosted by UBC Connects all about the Right to Repair.

We will have a small booth discussing and demonstrating our vision on open standard ebike systems, and will participate in various breakout discussions related to this topic and the unfortunate trend towards fully proprietary ebike systems.

If it's a topic that is of interest to you, please feel free to RSVP and attend! The event is at the Robsons Square downtown.

That's right, our long awaited Customer Project Gallery is now live on the website and we're opening it up to all our customers who want to showcase an ebike that they've made. Whether it's a run-of-the-mill mountain bike, a super minimal commuter, or a wacky frankenmobile, we've got a place where you can post pictures and descriptions for the world to see. 

Every Friday until the end of summer we'll be doing a random draw from the previous week's submissions and awarding them a nice prize, your choice of either:

• A Free Satiator Universal charger
• A Free Phaserunner motor controller
• A Big Discount ($150 or 15%, whichever is greater) on your next order

We'll let our summer Co-op students Max and Lena demonstrate how it works! 

There's been a great buzz in the province since the announcement of the electric bike rebate program which just launched today, to such popularity that it kept crashing the official website. Things have come a long way from 20 years ago when we used to shout from the rooftops to anyone who would listen (few did) that ebikes were the future.  

Anyways the rebate program sadly does not apply to conversion kits. But due to some opportune frame sourcing, we happen to have several models of complete cargo and sport ebikes we can offer fully decked out with the best-in-class Grin hardware. The first are electric cargo bikes based around the original Edgerunner framesets. These bikes with a 20" rear wheel and low cargo deck were such a great platform for hub motor hauling machines. We managed to source 15 of these frames in various colours, and have been building them up both with our new Rear All-Axle motors and also the lower cost geared SX2 hubs. The deck can easily fit one or two child seats for convenient family transport, and comes with footrests included for adult passengers too.

The other batch are sporty mountain bikes that were originally designed for the now long-discontinued BionX D system. These have thru-axle dropouts which pair perfectly with our new Rear All-Axle hubs, and fit a 1kWhr downtube battery neatly on the frame. We've got several of them in 16.5" and 20.5" frame sizing and a few colour choices as well. 

So if you found yourself with a rebate but aren't entirely thrilled with all the closed proprietary systems available from typical vendors, then comes talk to us! 

The wait is over for those wanting a rear version of our famous All-Axle hub motor. After 6 months of successful pilot testing, we're opening up sales to everyone!

This motor is just what you would expect. Lightweight, silent, powerful, and universally compatible with both slotted and 12mm thru-axle dropout. Just select the right adapter and you are good to go.

The integrated torque arm on the left side ensures a totally secure installation and nicely protects the cable exit to reduce the chance of cable damage. We've got a Shimano HG compatible mountain freehub on the right side which features an integrated PAS encoder. This eliminates the need for a separate crank sensor to have pedal assist modes and back-pedal regen control; it's already built into the hub.

This motor is available now both as a custom wheelbuild or as part of a full ready-to-roll kit package, just in time for your summer ebike build.

EDIT June 14th: And we just finished therelease video too

We've spent a busy winter doing lots of tests and experiments with torque arms, axles, and regen, and it's been most revealing. You can count on us making a video soon that dives into all these gory details.

But first, time to talk about the fruits we have to show for it! There are now 3 new torque arm models in production here at Grin, taking advantage of both our improved knowledge from all the testing and enhanced manufacturing facilities.

Torque Arm V5 takes the convenient eyelet mounting of our V2 arm, but adapts it to work on both front and rear hubs with any dropout angle using a splined insert. It also has a stronger linkage arm less liable to slip. This is the perfect choice for bikes with fender or rack eyelets.

Torque Arm V6 is an ideal option for frames that don't have eyelets near the dropouts. This attaches to any frame tubing using our machined frame clamp assembly that can swivel and slide to line up with any arm position.

Both the V5 and V6 arms include tight-fitting inserts for M12 and M14 axles made of especially tough 17-4 stainless steel alloys. This material is hard as rock and provides over 80% more spinout strength than the more common 304 stainless. It survives all testing unscathed even while axles shear right in half.

Finally, our Torque Arm V7 addresses hub motors with regenerative braking. Particularly geared motors with M12 axles which are notoriously difficult to keep in place. An entire clamping block assembly machined from 17-4 stainless can compress the axle with several thousand pounds of preload force.

These arms are available to purchase by themselves or included in conversion kits. We've even got fully detailed installation guides hot off the presses. 

We released a video last month showing how to modify standard geared hub motors to disable the clutch and make them regen capable.  

This can bring the benefits of regen to geared motors outside of just the GMAC system, including smaller and lighter hubs like the Shengyi SX1/ SX2 motors.

Excited but don't have access to a TIG welder? Fear not, we're now offering these motors pre-modded for regen here at Grin! That includes

• Bafang G60 and G62 Fabike Kits.  Now you have excellent options for powerful regen capable hub geared motors on fatbikes with 170-190mm rear dropouts.  
• Shengyi SX1 and SX2 Kits. These lightweight front and rear geared motor kits are the perfect option for commuter setups that don't need the power and weight class of a GMAC motor. And the benefit of a helical cut gear makes them extra quiet too. 
• Front eZee kits.  And finally we've got a good supply of eZee motors without clutches for those wanting a hub that is in the GMAC motor power class, but for a front installation rather than the rear. 

All of these hub motor options at their base are using threaded M12 axles with axle flats. Our ability to offering these systems was also contingent on our release of the new V7 Clamping Torque Arm.  (More information on our new torque arm series coming next!)

With the help of eevee's PEV shop we've now added four XLR charging adaptors to our lineup, allowing a host of electric unicycles, skateboards, and scooters to take advantage of the Satiator charger with a ready-made cable.  These GX12 and GX16 plugs have become quite common in this industry, and while not quite converging to one 'standard' there are at least enough models using 3, 4, and 5 pin plugs to justify us making a cable for each!

Our resident technician and UEC aficionado Gordon partnered up with Cole at eevee's to film a little video on the Satiator which you can view here.

You can get the 72V Satiators with GX12/GX16 adaptors directly from our store page, or at eevee's shop where they can preload profile settings to match your PEV.

This project took longer than anticipated as field testing showed some strange charge behaviors with certain EUC models, and that required some algorithm changes and new firmware to fully iron out. So if you get one of these cables for an existing Satiator, be sure to update to the latest 1.039 firmware as well.