Canadian
$20 Thrift Store Mountain Bike Conversion
Bowen Island, BC, Canada
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100
Published: 2024-04-02
After drooling over Grin's e-bike components and reading up on hub motors I wanted to try a test conversion on an inexpensive bike. Soon my wife bought me this $20 mountain bike at our local thrift store (Knick Knack Nook.) We have very steep hills here on Bowen Island, and our own driveway is especially bad, so I went with a large RH212 motor kit.
I thought I'd test it out on this cheapo then get a proper bike, but as soon as I got it working I had so much fun riding it I couldn't stop.
Actually I literally couldn't stop and had a crash and broke my wrist when a car turned into my path right at the bottom of a very steep hill. The pinch brakes are just not up to the task of emergency braking with a heavy motor, battery and 200lb rider. I had been so enamoured with the regen braking that I didn't even test how effective the pinch brakes were and rode for months before needing to use them.
Lesson learned. Next conversion will be to a bike with proper disk brakes!
Wheel Build
Never tried this before. Little to no mechanical experience and only followed Robert's Grin wheel build video. It worked!!!
