News

Hello there, summer vacations have come to an end and kids are back in school and what a whirlwind the last week has been:

USA Shipments

Last weekend, the US fully eliminated the $800 de minimis rule which has shaken most of the world's online ecommerce businesses, and could have a large impact on our american customers. Fortunately many items from Grin are CUSMA compliant and duty free to the USA. We've summarized the details in this link. Quick nutshell though:  

• Grin no longer ships to the USA via postal service (only DHL and UPS).
• We recommend purchasing All-Axle kits and not the less expensive Chinese motors, as the price after duties will be comparable. 
• Be prepared to pay a duty on any battery shipment though, as the downtube packs are assembled in China. 
• Our latest LiGo 10X batteries ARE duty free (but naturally at a much higher base price than downtube packs) 

Our checkout page has been updated for shipments going to the USA to preview what items in your order will likely be subject to duties and allow you to edit your cart if needed. 

Fully Charged Show  

While Grin does not have a booth at the Everything Electric EV show this weekend, we do have some some tickets available to local customers who want to attend, and many of our staff will be perusing the event.  If you are a fan who would like tickets to attend then please send us an email! Include a bit of background on why you want to come and we'll award day passes accordingly. 

Gallery Prizes are Back

After some hiatus, we're back to offering prizes for our ever growing customer project gallery. Every week we'll be awarding another $100 customer credit reward to staff picks selected from the last 6 months of submissions. Upload your build today!

First recipient goes to Sam from Australia and his Yuba Mundo Big Bike build, which has a detailed writeup with some great pictures to boot. 

We're only halfway through digesting the stories of Aaron's west coast shop tour road trip earlier this year and compiling them into shareable vidos for you. Most recently released is part one of our visit with Paul Freedman and his Rock the Bike operation from Oakland California.

We've known Paul since the early days of longtail cargo ebikes and have rocked out at many pedal generated sound stages over the years. His profound interest in creating a broader appreciation of power and energy usage is something we share to a great degree, but we were simply blown away at the scale of his activities coming from his Oakland operation.

And if you missed them we've captured Mike Lee with his motorized Whisky Charriot, Paul Daniel of Revel Propulsion who fabricates a custom mid-drive system, and Brad Davis of Nomad Cycles, a ebike shop in Portland that does much more than meets the eye.  

You might only hear about big brand ebikes and cheap import ebikes, but peel back from the consumer noise and there is a thriving community of small businesses out there doing original stuff! 

Aaron has finally returned to Grin's headquarters in Vancouver after an epic 8000 km van trip to San Diego and back. We want to thank the hundreds of shops, individuals, and businesses who took time to meet up and make this tour so memorable! 

Right now we are still unpacking all the feedback and the role that Grin can continue to play in facilitating the ebike and PEV movement in the decade ahead. Much has changed since we first started in 2005, but the need for innovation in this space has not and the current state of ebikes could use a little shakeup.  

In the meantime, we've got tons of great footage of the various operations who've been touched by Grin and will be releasing at least a dozen more stories on our youtube channel, following these profiles of Bike Swift, Switch Lab, and Calfee Designs.

Well before any of the current political shenanigans we were planning a Cascadian road trip to spread awareness about our All-Axle hub motor kits among bike shops, dealers, and ebike enthusiasts. We didn't expect to take off right at the start of a trade war but so it is, and that has not deterred our enthusiasm to build business relations up and down the coast.

Our Videographer Aaron set off mid-march with some demo ebike builds to showcase these systems and has had a great time meeting folks all over Washington State and northern Oregon.  

In the coming week we'll be stopping in Corvalis, Eugene, and Ashland, before making our way though all of California. If you happen to have a business that is curious about Grin Kits and wants to a chance to see them in person, or if you are a long term customer with cool builds to show off, then please drop us an email with your coordinates!  If it works Aaron will swing by in the tour van to talk shop, go on test rides, troubleshoot issues, or just hang out. 

This time of year is the "slow and quiet" season for the bike industry, with ski gear rather than bike gear on most people's minds. Yet many determined souls continue to ride their ebike through the winter, braving the cold, dark, and wet (or snowy) morning and evening commutes on two wheels.

We want to celebrate all those people who choose to ebike year round and highlight customizations to their rig to make that safer and more comfortable. This can include wind shields, heated gloves, ear warmers, studded tires, special attire, impressive lights.

Share your all season riding story in pictures and words by uploading them to our customer project gallery and be eligible for a bunch of prizes we'll be giving away starting Feb 14th, both with staff pics and random draws.

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!

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. 

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

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!