News

Sometimes great products get a little bit buried in the list of parts on our store site. Last month a small group of us with ebikes were on a ferry from Saltspring Island when some other passengers started to inquire about all the wires and gadgets on the bikes. A short demo of Bruce's ebike with the VeloAmp Sound System soon turned into a full fledged dance party on the ferry deck that lasted the entire trip. Click below for footage:



Guys, you can do this too! Bring fine high fidelity music to public spaces with all the energy stored in your ebike battery pack. Bruce has now made a webpage for his VeloAmp project with additional information and specs, and we keep them in good stock on our store accessories page. We are still looking for handlebar mount speakers that can do justice to this amplifier, but in the meantime quality house speakers do the job well.

In spite of the non-stop rain, there was a great turnout at the annual VEVA electric vehicle show on Sunday. This included a sample "Tango" which is one electric car we can get behind (unlike those Tesla roadsters), a few well converted electric bikes and trikes, and even a vintage 1950's outboard motor converted to electric power. A reporter from CNN happened to show up and took some interest in the electric assist unicycle, which got featured in an iReport here. Looks like Justin set himself up for a bit of a ride next summer!

The electric bike show hosted in conjunction with eatART's Power the VAG event brought together a great collection of people and ebikes, including the famous Luke (liveforphysics) who came up from Washington state with his 14kW RC rocket bike. See his postings on the ES forum. Huge thanks to Melisa who showed up just in time to be our celebrity judge and event photographer. See her Flickr page for photo summary, list of prize winners, and funny commentary.

After evaluating samples in June, we received our first shipment of disk brake compatible Nine Continent hub motors earlier this summer. The rear motors now have a flat side covers with an integrated 44mm bolt pattern for a disk rotor on the left, and have their spoke flanges shifted to the right as well for a more centered wheel that requires less dishing. They've even squeezed an ISO disk mount on the front motors too, with a flat profile left side cover that leaves just enough room for a disk and a skinny (< 14mm) caliper.

More details can be seen here and we've prepared the front and rear mechanical drawings as well.

We had a large delivery of these disk motors in July, but they have mostly sold out with the exception of front 20" 2805 and 26" 2806 wheels. Next shipment is due to arrive around Sept 18th, including a fresh stock of rear hubs in the 5, 6, and 7 turn windings.

We now carry in stock two less expensive infineon controller options that use 60V transistors. These units cannot be modified for 72V, but for those sticking to 36V or 48V operation they are good value. We have a small 6 mosfet controller that has a 20A battery current limit and a larger 12 mosfet version with a 35A rating. Both are available independently and as options for the Nine Continent kits. 

On Sept 6th a small team of UBC engineering students stepped out of a converted Volkswagon bug arrived in Halifax, having just completed the first Canadian coast-to-coast treck in a pure electric car. As with Justin's ebike trip in 2008, they did this in real style with minimal funding and no support vehicle, charging up along the way with existing grid infrastructure, and proving that youthful determination can achieve feats that coorporate giants can only dream of. Congratulations to Ricky and crew. See their blog postings here.

The image on the left shows the LiFePO4 battery pack on the bug when they stopped by our shop briefly before the departure.

Many people were a bit surprised that VEVA didn't host their annual REV! electric vehicle show this summer. Well no worries, they are organizing a fall event this weekend called Electra Fest. It will be a full-on show of electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes. So come down for this free show at the Concord Pacific just north of Science World, 10am to 4pm on Sunday. We'll be there.

Not to forget, this Friday, Sept 10th, is the monthly kilowatt hour ebike ride. Meeting at the Vancouver Central Library at 6pm as usual.

We're going to wrap up the great Cycle Analyst giveaway contest with four more submissions for the last two months of summer. The winners are: Pete Chaloner in Ottawa who built a converted an EZ-3 trike for his wife who can't ride a regular bike due to with a degenerative lower back problems, but who has now happily clocked over 6000 km on the electric. Scott Bellinger, who has built a minimal assist tadpole running just an 85 watt motor through a Rholoff hub. Michael Elliott of Phoenix AZ who built his Crazybike2 submission submission entirely from Junk and recycled parts. And finally Sharangan Vithiyatharan and his engineering team at the University of Melbourne for their Urban Transporter project.


Pete Chaloner (err Cindy)


Redboy by Scott Bellinger


Crazybike by Michael Elliott


Urban Transporter

We're excited about the homemade electric bike show coming up this Sunday, including some people coming in from way out of town to show their system. Setup at the Vancouver Art Gallery happens at 11am, with the prizes awarded at 2 o'clock, and plenty of time to hang out with neat people right until the event ends at 7pm.

For those who want to bring a bike to show, don't be intimidated! Anything that you have made which you are proud of we would love to have on display, and there are lots of prizes to give out. The registration details are here.