Patriot

The Mongoose E-Snare.

Well, ok, it's starting off as a Mongoose Snare from Walmart. Actually not a bad bike for the money. Got it for $229.00. It has Altus ders, 8s shifters, and Promax front and rear disc brakes. The seat is also pretty comfy.





However, many things will need to be changed.

1. I will need new heavy duty street tires. Michelin City are good for all weather, especially rain.

2. I need to remove the rear brake, and install a V-brake.

3. The rims are single wall, so I'll need to add extra tape around the rim to protect the tubes. The wheel is finally rebuilt, and ready for a new freewheel.

4. I am getting differant handlebars for my lights, and they will also be riser bars. I think I may get away from the flatbars. I'm looking for a more upright position. We'll see. FB's are pretty slick though.

5. I broke my 8s freewheel, so I had to order a new one.

6. Fenders enroute.

7. Installed my own 52t triple Shimano crank.

8. I also need to build a reinforcing rack to support the existing seatpost rack I have. The battery box weighs 35lbs, and I need some panniers as well. I was looking at the nice Axiom seatpost rack, which is rated for 55lbs, but it raised the battery box up too high for me to use it effectively. The seat would get in the way of the lid when I opened it, so I opted to use my old Performance Trans-It rack, and build a very Heavy duty reinforcement rack that bolts to the double seat tubes around the suspension spring.




Here's my current progress.

My custom rack. It has two long 3/4" steel angle iron for the main supports, and uses 3/4" square aluminum for the pannier supports. The back of it uses a 2" wide piece of 1/8" aluminum stock, to mount my rear blinkie and hold it all together. It weighs about 4lbs, but is VERY strong. The seatpost rack will bolt to the top of it, making one big rack. The steel angle iron was cut and brazed to fit. The aluminum is all cut, and bolted together with JB Weld gluing all the joints together, making it a permanent one piece rack.







My bar, full of pieces/parts.

Patriot

The paint on my rack is dry and it's bolted to the bike. The extra rack not only holds my panniers, but will reinforce the existing rack by quite a bit. I would think the triangular support of the angle iron will greatly enhance the strength. Also, it has two supports, so it will prevent any possibility of the rack swaying back and forth. I am using 10-24 stainless bolts to bolt it to the double seat tubes. The holes I drilled were only 3/16", so hopefully minimizing the removal of aluminum will not greatly affect the strength of the seat tubes. The stainless bolts are double nutted, and use Ny-Loks to prevent it from coming loose.

Patriot

Some more work has gotten done this weekend. Things are progressing along much more quickly than I had initially figured. I guess it's because all of the engineering had been done over the winter, when building my first bike. So, simply moving everything over to a new bike was much easier.

Nothing is wired up yet, but I got the box mounted onto the rack, and top will go on later.







I converted one of my halogen headlights to a CREE R2 with a 35mm aluminum reflector. It runs off the same 12v from my converter that the old halogen used, excpet now it uses about 1/6 the power. From what I gather, only about 3w vs. the 20w halogen. It is also much brighter, and has alot of throw. I may look for another one that has more flood.

Patriot

To give you an idea of how much more heavy duty this thing is, the rear dropouts are steel, but they are 1/4" thick, and fit the motor axle perfectly. I just filed the inside crown with a tiny jewelers file a little, to get the motor axle to fit down inside a little further and be more of a solid fit, with no gaps. The motor fits great, and the steel dropouts feel bombproof. I also added my old 1/8" stainless torque arm, just for good measure, and I can already tell, I most likely will have no trouble with this setup, or at least very little.


Well, here she is. I got it together today. As you can see in some of the pics, I used some automotive wire conduit to keep all my wires together from the rear box to the handlebars. It sure worked out well, and keeps it all neat and tidy.

I have about 10 miles on it today of test riding. I need to adjust the derailleurs, and do a little mod to the rack for my pasnniers, but other than that, I think it's ready for the fenders, and just about ready for my commute.

The ride is extremely stable. Much more stable than my old roadie setup. The old bike had so much weight on it, that it actually would shimmy a little at high speed, and felt like it could explode right beneath me. Also, low speed handling was horrible. The old rack I had was very wobbly, and you could shake the bike, and the battery box would sway back and forth. This new setup, is much more durable, and the ride is very smoothe with the suspension, and the big 1.85" Michelin City tires. They remind of skinny motorcycle road tires.

Patriot

Just a few more comparisons to my old bike. The old one had 700x32c tires, with a top speed of 41mph.

This one has 26x1.85" tires, with a top speed of 40mph. I only lost about 1 mph top speed, but I have some serious gain. One being that it accelerates much faster than the old. Also, the acceleration is much smoother, and less stability problems. So far, a much better machine for daily riding, especially on bad roads and in bad rainy weather. The large Planet Bike fenders I will soon install, will make it quite weather capable.

The bike is complete, all I did is install a set of Planet Bike Hardcore fenders. Ready for commuting, and shopping around town. Now I can ride to work on ocassion when the knees are a bit sore from riding my regular bike.

Also, when it's hot, I prefer riding my regular commuter, because I don't like pushing the controller and motor on this thing in 80F+ weather. Gotta enjoy the weather when I can.

cerewa

Patriot, you do beautiful work there.

Helpin' move the e-bike world into the 21st century ...

Allen

Very nice work.