eBike conversion for an Alfine bike

[dodgy]

Been reading this sub-forum a bit of late, suddenly occurred to me that my currently unused Genesis Day One Alfine might make for a great conversion project.

Anyone done similar?

 

[raleighnut]

The first bike I converted was Maz's Dawes Geneva with a Nexus hub, it does have a CrMo steel fork though to mount the electric front wheel though.

 

[dodgy]

Yeah, front wheel sounds best. I'm only just into the first few minutes of research so far, overwhelmed with options!
I want easy to fit, easy to revert back to the original bike but am happy to do pedal assist sensors etc if it dramatically improves things.

Any recommendations?

PS The Day One has a steel fork.

 

[numbnuts]

I used these people, not the cheapest, but very good gear and easy to put together.
http://www.electric-bike-conversions.co.uk/

 

[welsh dragon]

@Pale Rider may be able to point you in the right direction. There is also an ebike forum called pedalecs. They may be able to help as well.

 

[Pale Rider]

Options are a front hub motor or a crank/bottom bracket kit.

The latter can be slightly more complicated to fit, but can give a purer cycling experience.

Nor are you losing any gears, because the bike only has a single ring at the front to start with.

There are a handful of reliable UK-based retailers which make it hardly worthwhile going direct to China, unless you have very particular requirements.

Electric Bike Conversions, as mentioned by @numbnuts, or Panda Ebikes: https://www.pandaebikes.com/

If you want to spend hours looking at batteries, controllers, and motors, then Chinese retailer BMS (Blue My Sky) is the place to be: https://bmsbattery.com/

 

[Deleted member 23692]

Here you go.... My homemade Alfine, crank drive conversion. Dead simple to make, great fun to ride.

It's based on my old Cube Hyde, but due to the excentric bottom bracket not letting me use a crank drive, I had to re-frame all the bits on a more traditional bottom bracketed frame.

Any Q's, ask away

 

[raleighnut]

I used these people, not the cheapest, but very good gear and easy to put together.
http://www.electric-bike-conversions.co.uk/

I'd use the Cyclotricity front 250w kit from them, in fact I did.

 

[dodgy]

Here you go.... My homemade Alfine, crank drive conversion. Dead simple to make, great fun to ride.

It's based on my old Cube Hyde, but due to the excentric bottom bracket not letting me use a crank drive, I had to re-frame all the bits on a more traditional bottom bracketed frame.

View attachment 362854

Any Q's, ask away

That looks great! My bike has drop bars, though. How long did it take to fit all that?

 

[keithmac]

Alfine is a good basis for a convesion.

I bought a full TSDZ2 crank drive kit with battery to convert my Carrera, its on the bike but never turned a wheel as I just use the Gtech.

Could be for sale at some point..

 

[Deleted member 23692]

That looks great! My bike has drop bars, though. How long did it take to fit all that?

Mine was done in two stages.

Firstly, I had to transfer all the gubbins from the old Cube frame to the new London Road one to check that it all worked OK before 'going electric'. That took a leisurely day stripping, cleaning and fitting etc. Obviously you won't need to do that bit as your Alfine already work with that frame.

The electric conversion is so simple it can be done in a couple of hours... assuming you have all the bits to hand .

I went for the TSDZ2 as per @keithmac mac Unlike the vast majority of kits out there it's got a torque sensor as opposed to a cadence sensor. This means I don't need to run brake lever cutouts which greatly simplifies the set up . It's essentially 3 plug and play wires going to the motor - one for the battery, one for the speed sensor and one for the head unit.

Mounting the battery on my frame required installing another bottle cage threaded insert, to move the batter up the down tube a bit so it didn't foul the chain ring. It's easy enough to do if you have the tools, but not too expensive to get sorted professionally if you don't. You might be lucky and not need to, but then again you might.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wThQH5Iy9uQ


After that is just continual tweaking. The original 42/20 chain ring/sprocket setup was a bit under-geared for a pedelec. So I've now gone for 42/18, which means I now only really need to use gears 4,5,6,7, and 8, but I still have decent low gear should the battery ever die. The motor is set on number 2 of 4 and this gives me around 40-50 miles of normal assisted riding . Hills and crosswinds are no longer a problem. I think I could get to 60 miles range but haven't personally tried it yet.

The drop bar question is interesting. The motor has a choice of two head units - I've went for the twist grip XH18-LCD which is perfect for a flat bar, and looks 'factory' when coupled to a Newux 8 twist grip changer t'other side...

I doubt that would be any use on drops!

The other head unit is a more standard center mount with a remote controller (VLCD5). I've had no experience of this particular one, but looking at the buttons on the display it looks like you don't need the remote controller. I all honesty I don't use mine whilst riding - switch it on, set to '2' and away I go, so I don't see the lack of a close to hand set of buttons that much of a problem. Perhaps @keithmac could shed some light on that aspect

Total weight is just under 20Kg as configured in the photo above

So the bottom line... Price!

£275 (delivered) for the 36v 14.6Ah battery from Eclipse bikes
£315 (delivered) for the motor via the PSW Power shop on Aliexpress. They ship the motors from Germany so there's no import duty or VAT to pay and it arrives via DHL/Parcelforce in around a week .

Spares are readily available too via PSW Power but there's oblivious a wait due to the distance

After that it's just various sundries that's needed to get the bike done how you want it... like my Shinamo e-bike cranks that have confused loads of folk.

Go on, you know you want to

 

[Djoze]

Here you go.... My homemade Alfine, crank drive conversion. Dead simple to make, great fun to ride.

It's based on my old Cube Hyde, but due to the excentric bottom bracket not letting me use a crank drive, I had to re-frame all the bits on a more traditional bottom bracketed frame.

View attachment 362854

Any Q's, ask away

I have one question! How did you manage the chain alignement? I am about to buy a TSDZ2 for my Alfine bike but this alignment is critical for a smoother and more durable use.

Thank you Ffoeg!

 

[Djoze]

Here you go.... My homemade Alfine, crank drive conversion. Dead simple to make, great fun to ride.

It's based on my old Cube Hyde, but due to the excentric bottom bracket not letting me use a crank drive, I had to re-frame all the bits on a more traditional bottom bracketed frame.

View attachment 362854

Any Q's, ask away

Ffoeg, I have one question: how did you manage the chain aligment? Is it perfectly aligned? Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 23692]

Ffoeg, I have one question: how did you manage the chain aligment? Is it perfectly aligned? Thanks!

Sorry. I only just got the notifications for your above two posts.

It's pretty much spot on straight out of the box.

The Alfine 8 (SG-S 501) has a 47.7mm chainline with the rear sprocket flipped outward and the TSDZ2 has a chainline of 50.2mm according to Tong Sheng's specs. So that's only 2.5mm (1/16") misalignment, which is close enough for me.

 

[Deleted member 23692]

@Djoze - I just noticed you're in France,

I found this very useful when I was thinking about buying mine - http://cyclurba.fr/forum/460442/pro...8968&messageID=460442&rubriqueID=91&pageprec=

It'll probably make more sense to you!