Finally sold the Evasion today. It was bittersweet but oh well. I ended up having a few extra hours to kill to I went by a couple shops to test ride ebikes to settle my curiosities. I tried out a Turbo Levo 4 for fun and holy shit what a fucking rocket.
I mean GOT DAYUM
1: 
2: glad to see e-bikes are using sensible units for battery capacity, unlike power tools
Any of yall got Upway discount codes?
Looks like I can send a referral to you that will get you $150 off for your first purchase of $1k or more, and me a $150 gift card 15 days after you buy.
DM me your email address if you want the referral.
This dude smashed past me on my commute the other day. I met him on a run today. I thought it looked pretty nice. PROJECT BMX. Both times i didnāt even notice the tiny battery under the seat. Apparently from a e-skate board company.
Ouch. 20 kg/44 lb is kinda hard to get rad on.
Depends on what you are used to I guess. I am not a very rad person so I wouldnāt know, never ridden a BMX in my life, but you dont get many e-things at 20.5 kgs.
I want to e my xtracycle free radical, its become the only bike I ride over the last year.
BBSHD mid drive kit seems like the default answer, I donāt have the $$ for a grin kit, but would love any advice, experience, whatever, I do 20-25 miles for fun on this thing now, and Iād love to double that range if possible, but I know very little about ebike conversions or battery capacity/rating/etc.
Treat me like Iām mig and help me build this thing.
First question is if you want torque sensing or if you want to ride it more like a noped
Iām still having good luck with my TSDZ2, which is torque sensing and affordable. There are newer/nicer motors but I donāt have any experience with them.
No advice on vendors since the one I used closed down.
Range is going to mostly depend on how much boost you use but I think something around 15ah would probably give you 50 miles with some assistance. Iāve 19ah and itās super heavy and probably too much but itās nice not charging it often
I would much prefer torque sensing/pedal assist, I do not want pure throttle, I want it to ride like a bike but just be easier. Iāll need those things that go in the brake levers to cut power to the motor too right? Do those work with hydro or just cable? Iāve got cable V in back and hydro disc up front.
You can do a brake cutoff for either wire or hose
Torque sensing seems like the thing where the more you spend the better it gets. I had an initial bike snob aversion to the hub motors but was swayed by grinās info base. Your big costs are the motor and the battery then you get the bits and pieces and connectors that match the motor and battery.
I had written off front hub motor until I saw grin makes a 135mm qr front hub and now Iām thinking about that too.
If you do get torque sensing, you donāt need the cutoffs. Iāve never used them and never had a problem
Bootus will jump in w front hub experience. If you do buy from grin the deminimus exemption is still in effect. So pay extra shipping to place multiple orders to avoid tariffs
Torque sensing is great if itās done well and I wouldnāt recommend anyone do a conversion without that.
As someone that has a Grin All Axle front motor, which I mostly like a lot, consider whether you want to add that much weight to the front of the bike (on top of how much weight the battery will add if mounted on the DT). If I were to re-do that, Iād buy a rear motor version. Those didnāt exist when I bought my kit.
If youāre thinking about going down the Grin All Axle path, I have a spare Cycle Analyst and a Phaserunner motor controller sitting around that need a new home. Theyāre older parts (mid-2020) but work just great and theyād be cheap.
About brake switches/cutoffs, if you do an all axle motor, the brake switches can be used to trigger brake regen. According to my Cycle Analyst over the years, itās shown a 7-10% increase in range just due to regen. That will vary depending on how much you use your brakes and how much current the motor controller is set to send to the battery during regen.
If this goes grin rear I have the long main cable you need for the extracycle because Iām dumb an I also have a magura hydro switch in a drawer
I picked up this sweet Bullitt and a cheap Rohloff. I want to convert it to e bike but am conflicted about a few things.
Iād love to run a belt and have a normal Q factor which pretty much obligates me towards a front hub drive.
Looks like I could get a torque sensing square taper and then run a 130bcd crank with a gates belt ring.
This feels like the best of all worlds but a chain with a mid drive would be much easier and more powerful (but no regen).
Regen is cool but unless you are riding it down a mountain on the daily I dunno if it adds enough juice to make it worth building a bike around.
