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This is also the time of year when we start dealing with a lot of troubleshooting issues related to the cold and wet weather, so here are a few tips:

• Lithium battery performance degrades a lot near freezing temperatures, resulting in 20-25% less capacity, and the battery BMS circuit can trip prematurely from additional voltage sag at these lower temperatures. If you can keep batteries indoor and warm until just prior to the ride, they'll deliver closer to full capacity.
• If you are parking the ebike for winter, be sure that the lithium battery is stored in an initially charged state and is unplugged from the controller. A lithium battery that is flat and then stored for several months is liable to self-discharge to the point that the cells are irrecoverably damaged.
• Water has a way of getting into even totally sealed hub motors and causing them to rust out on the inside. Usually the hub will run for weeks or even months with water in it before the corrosion builds up enough to have an effect, so we recommend opening up the motor on occasion to have a peak and let it dry out if necessary. We suspect that the primary avenue for water entry is through the inside of the wires, and so it's advisable to cover up the connector area.

The store will be closed for the Christmas break from Saturday 24th December until Monday 1st January 2012. We will however be open on Wednesday 28th December from 11am to 6pm for anyone that wants to stop by the shop to see us! We will still be responding to emails and processing online orders during this time so if you want to get in touch email is the best way to do it. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we'll see you all in 2012 for what should be an exciting year for Grin Tech and ebikes in general!

Justin will be a guest speaker for the December meeting of the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association (VEVA). The topic this year is going to be a tell-all tale about everything related to hub motors. Issues will range from the many lessons learned from 7 years of dealing with imported hubs, to technical optimization and modeling details, to glimpses of what may be on the horizon. This should be an exciting talk for those interested to know more about the little engine that makes ebikes move. Location details are here.

We've extended our store open hours to include Saturdays as well for the past couple weeks and during the rest of December as well. If you're into Christmas shopping for ebike conversion parts or unicycles, we'll be around to make scheduling a trip a little easier. 

 
Margot, who has done an amazing job being on the front lines of all of our sales and orders for the past 2 years, is leaving in January for a 6 months volunteer position with a non-profit in Uganda. We would like to collectively thank her for the tireless dedication of making ebikes.ca a friendly place to order from, and to wish her all the best in this next chapter. We'd also like to spread the word that we are looking to hire someone for these difficult to fill shoes.

So if you can vouch for someone in the Vancouver area who has a top notch commitment to customer service, who could learn most of the complexities of ebike parts, and who thrives in the challenging and multi-tasking environment of a startup, then let us know. Job posting on craigslist is here.

We've had lots of wonderful feedback about the 1000 lumen Lumenatorlight since releasing it last year. But some occasional complaints arethat it is too bright to use in areas dense with people, and also thatthe button could sometimes be hard to push. We've addressed both ofthese with the new multimode Lumenator, which uses a remote button thatlets you turn the the light on and off without taking your hand of thegrip, and also lets you cycle through multiple brightness modes.

The first production batch is in final assembly stages and should be available on Nov 21st. They are available to buy on the store site and we've reduced the price of the standard Lumenator too!

It's November, and we're all hoping that you've all recovered from Hallowe'en shenanigans and are starting to plan your over-winter electric bicycle build projects. There's nothing quite like rainy days to huddle in the garage and start building a rocking bike for next year. And for us, it's a time to buckle down a bit and focus on original R&D projects for next season too.

It's rare that we get involved with anything political, but then again it's rare that a city is blessed to have a visionary mayor who knows how to deliver on a cycling promise and is willing to shake up the infrastructure to accomodate it. Since starting off with the Burrard Bridge experiment in 2009 to the Hornby and Dunsmuir separated bike lanes, bicycle ridership has increased significantly in the city due to the decisive leadership of Gregor Robertson. And this with the planners still largely unaware of how big of a role electric bicycles will play in the near future to take cycling to even greater masses.

We give Gregor Robertson and the Vision slate a big endorsement in the upcoming Nov 19th municipal election, and we hope that those similarly affected will take the time out to vote. The stakes are rather high with the main challenger threatening to undo much of the progress recently made.

Those following business and economics will be aware that China has restricted export quotas on the materials used to make rare-earth magnets, which has caused price increases of 6 fold on Neodymium since the start of this year. That is great news in that rare earth mines all over the world can now open and produce these materials with much better environmental and health standards. However, it does mean that the magnets used in ebike motors are about 3 times as expensive as they used to be, which causes a 50-70% rise in the cost of direct drive hub motors and a somewhat lower rise in the cost of geared motors.

We still have the old prices listed for our remaining 9C motor stock, but as soon as the next shipment arrives in 2 weeks then expect the price on these and the associated 9C based direct drive kits to go up accordingly. 

We've still been quite busy setting up all of the lab and shop space at our new building, sourcing and laying out the tools and equipment necessary to make this place into a powerhouse for ebike product development. Check the images below to see some of the progress to date.

Power Electronics Lab	Complete Machine Shop