zog blog mk II

I’m a bit of a homebody nowadays but I will venture out a bit for Earthcore at the end of this month. Should be good for a bit of fun.

Well had an attempt at doing home handyman stuff today and installed a 250L watertank (purchased from Bluetank6 on ebay and hooked it up to the downpipe using some cheap garden hose and a raintap water diverter from Bunnings. Still need to get a bracket mounted above the diverter to make it more stable, but I’m hoping using normal garden hose should make it easy to add more ebay water tanks as needed.

Well I have finally (after a bit of time off the bike due to illness) clocked up 1000KM on the bike. Probably notable for not being notable.. the bike is still working fine and doing its thing, just how I want it. Might get some slick road tires -probably Schwalbe marathon plus as they evidently are the best at not getting holes in them. I notice the newer greenewheels bikes also have road tires fitted now.

Just got alerted by Dazzassj6 that greenewheels have additional types of bikes for sale up on their site. Inlcuding a step-through bike, a folder (similar to the folders a few other places are selling on ebay) and a slightly different mountain bike style on with LiFeP04 batteries.
Also interesting the current range don’t appear to have disc brakes, just V brakes. As the disc brakes on the older Greenewheels were always a bit fiddly to work with this could be a plus for long term usability, though the extra stopping power of disc brakes are useful on an electric bike.

disclaimer: I don’t have any business relationship with greenewheels other than as a satisfied customer and ebike fan

Well it was a sunny day, with quite full on wind but I managed to do a range test at last.
Rode along portions of the Eastlink bike trail:

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Endless Sphere poster mickk recently also got a greenewheels bike - this thread on the Endless Sphere forums documents his experiences starting out with the bike, and his ideas of some upgrades to get more performance from it.

Well not really electric bicycles, but good to see this article on the 4am expat blog about electric scooters getting traction in Thailand.

I haven’t actually used any of these vendors myself, it’s just information I have been gathering for future reference, but it’s good to see there is a range of approaches - from full service to complete DIY, and pricepoints catered for in Australia for Electric Bicycle stuff.

Australian All Electric Vehicles:
These guys have an ebay store selling assorted bits, as well as a web site.
Of interest to me as the 48v controller they sell looks like just the ticket if I ever decide to increase the power on my bike by adding an additional battery to it. Melbourne locations.

Brett / Solar BBQ:
I know two guys very happy with this guys products, DIY hub motor ebike central: http://www.users.bigpond.com/solarbbq/bikesale/bsale.htm. Newcastle (NSW) Location.

E-MTB:
Expensive but amazing looking bikes and kits.. the videos on the site look like a lot of fun of pushing the power limits:
http://www.e-mtb.com.au/

Zbike:
I just founds this site while googling the subject, and these bikes look cool going just from the web page, but you pay extra for Li-ION batteries. http://www.zbike.com.au/ - Sydney.

E-lation:
I know 2 owners of this kit, different approach to the hub motor style that I went for: http://www.elationebikes.com.au/

E-deals:
Also sell kits driving the chain through the gears, in a similar vein to E-lation kits, but different products - some very high wattage kits there. Sold via an ebay store that also sells assorted parts, and their own web site.

Electric Vehicles Pty Ltd
Melbourne business with a shopfront with some very nice looking bikes, who appear to offer the full level of service and support for those who don’t care to DIY. Located in Melbourne, with a web site..

Well, thanks to the tireless efforts of dazzassj6 from the Endless Sphere forums, who has dismantled parts of his Greenewheels bike to see what makes it tick, here are some pictures of the insides of the various components - the forum article where I got these pics from also has some excellent discussion on what would be needed to increase the speed of the greenewheels bike, and how to go about it.
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This was found after more web searching by dazzassj6 from the endless sphere forums:

Looks like the bike is sold in chine from the “Made in China” site as the Electric Aluminium Bike (RA-EB0802).

Further searching on the model number RA-EB0802 finds it appears to be of brand Zhejiang Race Motos.

It’s interesting that the other ebike products from this company seem to include bikes that resemble a lot of the ready made electric bikes available in Australia.