flik9999

Hey so shoot me down for riding an ebike but I recently added a motor to my vintage puegeot carbolite.

My problem now seams to be that my single pull callipurs dont seam to be able to stop the bike in time. Im not sure why but theyjust dont rub on the rim as well as they used to. It could be cos the wheel is now 4X the Weight it used to be.

When I brake im now having to hit both brakes very hard and it feels worst than riding steel rims tbh.

So any reccomendations on how I can make this better?

wesmamyke

Are we talking front or back wheel hub motor? If it's the back wheel maybe a new front wheel with the biggest drum brake hub you can find.

Or modern dual pivot calipers...or some craziness like they have on trikes where they stack two caliper brakes on top of each other.

Doc_Wui

I had a similar problem when I put a little motor on a Trek 800. Some people thought it was because the ebrake levers , which have a cut off switch for the motor, were shorter pull than the center pull brakes on the Trek, so I tried some better levers with dual cams. Didn't help. New shoes no help either. Both rims were new and rim brake compatible per their specs.

Maybe the o25 year old brake cables had internal corrosion. Maybe the axle in the arms was loose. Something was stealing all the force from the levers. I changed over to new cables and side pull brakes and braking was fine.

flik9999

How do they stack 2 calliper brakes on top of each other? Do they ram them both into one bolt?

wesmamyke

Not sure exactly, just seen pictures on here in the classic/vintage section. There is also a bike blog somewhere that almost entirely about vintage racing trikes. I think it's a special brake bolt that is extra long and carries both calipers. Trikes don't have brakes at all on the back wheels so they tend to have creative solutions.

The engine cutoff thing is a good point, do you have one of those? That alone is supposed to make a huge difference.

Might try the electric bike forums at: https://endless-sphere.com/forums/

Kopsis

More info on what you replaced when you did the upgrade might help. Did you lace the hub motor into your existing rim, or get a complete wheel? The rims used in the direct-from-china kits are typically pretty low quality. You may want to hit the brake track with some fine grit sandpaper and then clean everything up with denatured alcohol. Clean/scuff your pads too as they may have picked up contaminants (oil, metal shavings, etc.) from the rim.

Did you replace your brake levers with e-brake levers (that have the integrated motor cut-off switches)? Those are typically long-pull levers intended for linear-pull brakes (v-brakes). On road calipers or cantis, they won't have enough mechanical advantage and you'll lose lots of braking power. This is the most likely explanation for a dramatic change in braking power.

What does the hub motor weigh? What does the battery weight? More weight on the bike will increase braking distance. The rotating mass of the motor will count more than 1x (probably about 1.5x since it's closer to the axle than the rim). You've probably added about 15-20 lbs to the bike. That's certainly going to be noticeable, but shouldn't have a 4x impact.

flik9999

Motor is about 4kg battery about 3 kg. Total bike weight is now about 20kg including rack.

AnkleWork

You need a system with regenerative braking, regardless of cost.

3alarmer 

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