News

There is always a lot of bike and ebike activity happening in Vancouver come June. Many have already taken place but here is just a short list of some other coming events to check out:

* kWhr ebike Ride, Sat June 11th: Electric bicycle riders meet up at 5:30 by the central library for this monthly ride around town. June will be a beach and barbecue event, so bring food, drinks, and charcoal if you got it.

* Central Valley Greenway, Sat June 12th: The Greenway is celebrating its one year anniversary since opening as the longest east-west bicycle path in greater Vancouver. Join the group ride in New Westminster or come for just for the lunch and entertainment near Sterling Station.

* Velopalooza, June 4-13th: The 10 days of Velopalooza 2010 is packed with activity, including street festivals, themed rides, performances, workshops, and much more.

* Car Free Day, Sun June 20t:h This year, Car Free Day on Main street extends all the way up to 33rd avenue. That includes our shop! We couldn't be happier, with the party going right past our front door. The event takes place all day on June 20th and we will have electric bikes, trikes, skateboards, and unicycles of all types for people to ride.

We've had numerous customers use our Crystalyte 400 series project motor axles to build unique and innovative vehicles. Most of the time these involved supporting the hub from one side only, so we decided to have Crystalyte make us a batch of motors explicitly for this very purpose. We now have a stock of ready to go 405 and 406 hubs with a solid 3/4" thick axle and disk brake mount for the range of homebrew electric Trike, Quad, and Trailer projects. As well, we've replenished our supply of the powerful and disk compatible 5303 and 5304 hub motors for those looking for high-power setups.

Our end of May Cycle Analyst Giveaway goes to a local guy this time, Richard Johns in Vancouver. We've seen Richard come in to our shop several times over the years with his ever evolving concept of an all around utility bike. It started initially from a Cyclone conversion with a custom battery and motor mount setup, and has grown to include a full fiberglass fairing with child seat, waterproof trunk bins, removable rain shield and even a towable trailer for the kids. Richard's blog details his experience and philosophies on the project and does a good job of highlighting the many features that electric assist makes possible.

Justin's experiments with an electric assist unicycle first shown at the Maker Faire in May have been pretty successful. For those curious about this project, you can see a build description on the endless-sphere forum and some of the ride experience on unicyclist.com. At this point, we are toying with doing a small manufacturing run of a couple dozen units if there is enough interest out there for early adopters of a hubmotor based electric uni conversion kit. If this gets you excited, then please fill out our form to sign up for the electric uni email notification list.

Coming up is the Victoria Day long weekend, and Justin and some crew will be heading down to the Maker Faire just south of San Francisco, with a few home-made gadgets for people to ride. As a result, the shop will be closed Saturday, May 22nd, but will be open again as usual the following Tuesday. Any ebike enthusiasts in or around the area should check it out, as there are lots of inspiring DIY projects being showcased and a number of characters from the endless-sphere forum will be there too.







Two years ago our side-by-side sociable tandem ebike took off all around the fairgrounds with a mind of its own. Unfortunately it's too big to take on the train down this time around, so we'll be bringing mostly single-wheeled vehicles which are more compact.

As of May 4th, we formally changed our business identity from "The Renaissance Bicycle Company" to "Grin Technologies Ltd."

This was in part because we were frequently mistaken for a bicycle shop, but mostly because we wanted a name that better reflects the increasing amount of Electric Vehicle technology development in which we are actively involved. Our goal is to spread the EVGrin far and wide through the design, manufacture, and distribution of cutting edge ebike components.

You can still refer to us as ebikes.ca too, but the things that we make (Cycle Analysts, Torque Arms, DC-DC Converters, Lighting Systems and no doubt more to come) will be sold under the Grin brand. Our Vancouver store front will be called the "Grin Cyclery", so if we ever do get a sign, that's what you'd be on the look out for.

Name changes are always a little weird, at first, but hopefully this is something you can all embrace with us. 

We have new phone numbers too in order to better manage the increasing call volume to our shop. The primary phone line has changed to (604) 569-0902, while the old number (604) 288-7316 will continue to be active for shipping & receiving. In addition, our engineering and manufacturing wing has its own line (604) 569-0903.

As hinted at last month, we are now in production with our Cycle Lumenator ebike light, taking our integrated DC-DC lighting systems to a new level. With four of the best Cree XPG-R4 LEDs driven at 750 mA, we're up in the 1000 Lumen brightness levels, shining more light on your path than most of the premium $300-600 systems sold at bike shops. The wide input voltage range is compatible with any power source from 15V to 100V, AC or DC, to run directly off your ebike battery pack with no separate voltage converter required.

The price is $185 USD for a single unit, or $299 for a Dual lamp (giving 2000 Lumens total). We also offer this as an Upgrade to the Cycle Analyst if you purchase the two together. In that case, we will attach a short DC power cable that comes out of the CA and plugs directly into your Cycle Lumenator light, so it gets powered from the CA with no additional wiring down the frame. Clean and tidy with minimal cable clutter.

The recipient of the great Cycle Analyst giveaway for May 15th goes out to Adam Mercier, an 18 year old student in Western France. Adam has been scheming to build an electric vehicle that is rain and weather proof so it can be more useful as a car alternative in the wet city of Brest. He started off with concept sketches of a somewhat futuristic trike, formalized this through 3-D computer modeling in Solidworks, and then got in touch with an communal workshop run by retired naval yard workers to learn all the welding and machining skills to build it.








Says Adam "I have a cheap watt-meter, but it miss a lot of the features of the CA, like avg watts or speedometer. It would be the perfect tool for me to gather data about my trike, and find the best set-up for my drivetrain for max efficiency. But as a student I'm not as rich as I want to be!"

Well, at the rate you are going you will be rich soon. The build thread for his project is posted here, with the frame already mostly complete. Good luck finishing this by summer time, congratulations, and we're always happy to see a CA getting put to good use. Next prize will be given away May 31st, send your submissions to ca.giveaway@ebikes.ca

This is just a simple photograph to show you that homemade ebikes don't have to be techy or weird looking in any way. Mark Stephens, our trusty electrical guy, recently put this conversion together over the span of several weeks for his girlfriend Natalie's birthday. It's a vintage Raleigh ladies bike with an original 3-speed Sturmey Archer hub in the back. Mark painted a front Nine Continent motor for a perfect colour match, rebuilt both hubs into aluminum rims, added white side-wall tires, and even installed switches inside the original brake levers to activate regen and assist the old side pull brakes for stopping. Fenders are original. The controller is tucked into the eZee battery bag and out of sight. And Natalie, "she loves it". No kidding!