Some followup consideration on this tour - Touring on an electrified Crank Forward bike - CycleBlaze

August 16, 2021

Some followup consideration on this tour

My well used V-Rex
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JEFF BARONThanks for the very helpful picture - tsdz2 mounting looks like it will be same as my tour easy. For battery mount was planning on using a battery mount from t-cycle

https://t-cycle.com/collections/all-battery-mount-parts

I’ve not ridden a crank forward. The appeal is a fusion st would be a lot easier to get on public transportation than my te xl, for trips and recreational riding farther from home.

How comfortable do you find the fusion st for a few hours on the bike? With assist only worried about comfort and ease of getting around.

Many thanks for all the help, jeff
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2 years ago
Mark BoydTo JEFF BARONI find the Fusion quite comfortable for riding around Asheville. My rides are quite hilly - typically 800 feet of climbing in 8 miles with 90% of that climbing in the first half of the ride. The most challenging part of riding it on steep climbs is the need for pulling hard on the handlebars when using a lot of force on the pedals.

You seem to think that the e-assist will mean you don't need to pedal hard. That is only true if you don't need to climb long hills.

Another issue, which may not be a problem for you, is that, because of the seat design, I, on longer rides, needed to keep the load very well balanced. I noticed that some the battery mounts you mentioned mount the battery beside the frame. That may cause you back problems.
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2 years ago

A week or so after I got home, I decided it was time to finish up installing my newer version of the TZSD2 - the one with the open source software - on my RANS V-Rex. I'd planned to use that TSDZ2 on my CF bike for this tour, but got worried about some hardware issue with it that might have caused me problems on tour, and swapped the CF bike to  the tried and true older version which was on  the V-Rex

Since I wasn't planning to use the V-Rex until after the tour, I did the swap for the motor controller unit but didn't rewire the new unit  - different display and control buttons - on the V-Rex before I left. It only took an hour to finish that installation. The next few days I rode the V-Rex on the same routes that I recently had ridden on the CF bike. As I expected, the V-Rex was more comfortable than the CF bike and the CF bike was more fun to ride.

The V-Rex currently has only a single 34 ring on the crank and has a 11-34 cassette rather than the CF's 12-36 cassette. There is one short section of my standard daily  ride that has a  20% grade  which I can't climb on the V-Rex  with its current gearing and the new open source software. The new software limits the max motor output to a lower value that the stock software does.

The new software has a great 'walk'  function that, after I reset the output levels, makes it easy to walk up that section at 1.4 mph while that V-Rex pulls itself up the hill. If I'm riding the V-Rex up that really steep it requires roughly 10 times much battery energy - half supplied by the motor and half by me - as does walking beside it while it pulls itself up. There is one short - less than half a mile - section on my route to Bloomington - it looks like a wall - where I would love to have had that feature. 

I also rode the V-Rex out to the Parkway and back a few days after I'd done the same ride on the CF bike. Interestingly I was both faster on that ride and much less tired when I got to the Parkway on the V-Rex. 

I need to do longer rides up the Parkway on both bikes to be able to decide if my October tour  to Bloomington and back will be on the V-Rex or the CF bike. 

Added 8/20/2021:

After some more comparison riding, I am going back to the V-Rex for touring. My body seems to "interface" much more naturally with the V-Rex than than with the Fusion. I switched the 32/42 ring setup and derailleur back to the  V-Rex after my ride today.

Single 34 tooth ring on the front and the open source software motor/controller
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The rear chain pulley assembly at the right side of this image , causes the chain to hit the bolt on its top when the chain is under tension and cog has more than 34 teeth
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Kelly IniguezI discovered the 36 tooth problem right before my summer tour. I went from an 11-34 to a 12-36 and suddenly I had clacking when I was in the very bottom of the granny. I feel that where the chain is hitting is on the bracket that holds the seat in place. You think it is hitting the bolt above the idler?
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3 years ago
Mark BoydI know it is hitting the bolt above the idler on my bike. I can see the place on the underside of the bolt where the chain hits. I have changed to a smaller diameter bolt which reduces the problem. With the larger chainring it hits when under high tension even with the 34 .but the noise is barely noticable.
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3 years ago
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JEFF BARONHi Mark, love your journals and want to put a tsdz2 on a rans fusion step through -- with the sloping tube that joins the bottom bracket, is there room in the frame for the anchor piece on the tsdz2 that anchors the motor to the frame? aside from the bottom bracket itself, what holds the motor to the frame? many thanks for your kind help on this, jeff baron
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2 years ago
Mark BoydI rode my Fusion this morning on my regular route.

The tsdz2  is designed  to fit on  a regular upright bike frame. The bikes BB is the main mounting point and the rear stays that go from the BB back to the rear wheel are the secondary mounting point that keeps the tszd2 from rotating in the BB. Those parts are are both present on the Fusion frames, both regular and step through so  the mounting process is standard.
See https://ebikes.topicwise.com/doc/page/pic/?o=3d2&pic_id=3940877&size=large&v=3 is an image shoing how the Tsdz2 is mounted on my Fusion. 
There is a different problem with the step through frames. Where do you mount the battery? I don't think there is enough room to mount one like the ones I use between the frame tubes in front of the BB. When I toured on my Fusion, I ended up carrying a second battery on the Fusion's rear rack. That worked fine.  See https://ebikes.topicwise.com/doc/page/pic/?o=3d2&pic_id=3975034&size=large which shows how that battery was mounted under a pack on the rear rack.


             Mark
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2 years ago