Justin Lemire-Elmore

Both the Chinese New Year and the 2010 Olympics got underway on the same day this month. Justin was in Shanghai visiting Mr. Ching at the eZee Bike factory during the start of Spring Festival, and kicked off celebrations there with his two favorite hobbies in one, pyrotechnics and ebikes!









Meanwhile, here in Vancouver the winter Olympic games and festivities are well underway. We're doing our best to keep the shop open and running all the while, but keep in mind that during some events we may be quite short-staffed or have our attention elsewhere. Things will be normal again starting March 2nd.

We've just gone live with a convenient web page to facilitate the process of building hub motor wheels. Our online spoke calculator has all the pertinent details for lacing common hub motors in a single place, so that you don't have to hunt down manufacturer spec sheets or make accurate measurements and deal with overly complicated programs to figure out a spoke length. Just choose your hub, choose your rim (or enter the ERD directly), and out comes the spoke size for your wheel.

We first got involved with torque arm manufacturing a little over a year ago, pioneering a 2-piece design that causes the motor torque to further seat the axle into the dropout. The designs have evolved based on testing and failure analysis, with thicker plate metal and improved geometries. In our original Universal Hose Clamp design it got to the point that the hose clamp itself would be the weak link to give way in the event of a spinout incident, so our latest version has now been released which includes double hose clamps and an elongated slot in the thick axle plate to fit a range of fork types.

We are offering a great deal on the 36V 8Ah triangular NiCad packs if you get them as the battery option with either an eZee or Nine Continent kit. For just $180 USD (or $200 CAD) you'll get a reliable battery that mounts discretely in your frame, gives 20-30 km of range, and comes with both a charger and MEC frame bag! This special will last until the end of January.

Our store this year will be open throughout the holidays, so you can continue to count on us for parts, service, and support. However, from Dec 20th to Jan 3rd, the staffing levels will be much reduced, so we'll ask that any walk-in customers let schedule with us ahead of time before dropping by.

We're pleased to have EcoSpeed's new Mountain Drive conversion package available and in stock for riders in Vancouver and the rest of Canada. Although our specialty has been with hub motor conversions, there are strong cases to be made for mid-drive units that assist through the bicycle gearing in some applications. EcoSpeed in Portland, Oregon, makes one of the most powerful and professionally engineered packages available, and so we were excited when they recently released a model that was compatible with upright mountain bikes and not just recumbents. It may be a while yet before we have them properly explained and listed on our store site, so for now email if interested.

We've begun a series of experiments to help us fully understand the nature of bicycle fork failures where the hub motor axle spins out inside the dropouts. This can be a disconcerting failure mode with conversion ebikes that is all the more relevant with the rise of both aluminum forks and more powerful hub motors in recent years. Those interested in following these tests have a look at this thread on the endless-sphere forum, where we will be posting the methods and results.

We'll be learning the bounds of what regular bicycle forks with and without torque arms can handle, and hopefully from these tests we'll be able to engineer even better torque arm designs.

And the Testing of Hub Motors Too


Ever wanted to know how far you can push these hub motors? How accurate is the simulator when you are putting thousands rather than hundreds of watts into a hub? How long can they put out that kind of power before burning up? Well we sure did, and have recently begun posting the result of some tests to see where exactly these limits are. An interesting read for the technically inclined.

We've finally finished the complete Cycle Analyst Version 2.1 User Manual. It includes a thorough explanation of the many more advanced features that were added in this firmware update, such as serial data logging, on-the-fly current and speed limiting, using the CA as a 'current throttle', and additional details on the wiring and circuitry. 

There are two new battery options for our eZee and Nine Continent kit offerings. The first is a high capacity 14Ah lithium polymer battery that is exactly the same size and even less mass than the original 10Ah eZee pack. This should be a handy upgrade option for those needing an extended 50-60km range without any weight penalty. The second is a slick 8.5Ah lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery in a flat plastic enclosure for those wanting the iron phosphate chemistry. Both come with rapid 4A aluminum chargers which can top up a pack in short order.