why this bike?
I lost interest in trail riding, that’s riding green lanes (Byways, Rupp’s and Un Classified Roads) with an off road motor bike a few years ago thanks to the NERC act of 2006. This effectively closed about half the ‘old roads’ to motorised vehicles. Apparently, because these old roads were wrongly marked up as bridleways and not byways, they never were roads! Yeah right. A bit like saying a tin of red paint was labelled ‘blue’ for 50 years therefore it’s not red!
The electric bike seemed like the only legal alternative. It has totally rejuvenated my interest in lanes. In fact I would say this is better than trail riding days! I can now ride all the old lanes I always rode on my motor bike plus all the bridleways. See ‘bikes log’.
“it takes out the pain”.
I have spent hundreds of hours staring at mountain bikes on and off eBay. There has to be clean open space round both wheels to avoid mud building up. OK, downhill and cross country bikes are all good but they tend to be ridden on manmade tracks. If you want to ride all the bridleways then there is often no choice but to plough through some real mud, particularly with winter riding.
Orange (that’s a company) make very strong, clean, simple design bikes that win world championships. They use a very simple two bearing pivot for the rear suspension which means less moving parts for dirt to get into. You will need rear suspension, doing 15 mph over horse ‘lifts’ without, would be no fun. Orange have a good reputation. They are also expensive!
OK, you can buy a nice cheapie Chinese electric ‘mountain bike' that will be just fine if all you want to do is old railway lines and pop down to the shops. But for riding all day on bridleways you are going to need something a little more serious.
'My knees don't hurt anymore'.
why the cole-box battery?
I didn’t ride many motor bike enduros but when I did I noticed how much easier it was to handle the bike round corners when the fuel tank was nearly empty. The centre of gravity moves lower and this makes the bike so much more stable. The cole-box battery is ‘hung’ as low as possible to keep the weight and therefore centre of gravity low. We have packed in as many battery cells as we dare without becoming bulky or hugely over weight. I was hoping to get at least 3½ hours use out of one battery and change at lunch time. In reality; with sensible use of the economy switch, the battery will last between 3½ to 5 hours depending on ground conditions. Soft ground in winter tends to cause a fair bit of drag. Our best ride so far is 50 miles on bridleways in about 5½ hours in the summer. So far we have never bothered to change a battery at midway because if you add in map reading time, opening gates, nattering etc. the day has soon gone. You do have to be careful mind; we have had to pedal the last mile home twice! See ‘bikes log’.
"I never knew all this existed".
how it all goes together.
Because Orange are expensive we look for used frames, but we build the frame up with new parts, all the running gear is new. The forks are a problem; manufacturers don’t seem to like making forks anymore without a bridge just above the wheel. Guess this makes for a strong but lighter fork. However, in serious mud this can be a problem as it wipes the mud over to the fork seals and causes drag, in some cases even stops the bike. At present we like to use Mazocchi Shivers; an upside down fork with no bridge and therefore clean and clear. We put in new seals and thinner oil for a softer ride.
We build the wheels and put a Heinzmann motor in the rear hub. We form the battery box (cole-box, remember?) and sump plate. We make a water proof cover for the management unit and battery plug, for some reason they don’t make them 100% weather proof. We make a mudguard just above the ’cole-box' battery, otherwise you will have an annoying spray in front of your face with the super-fast 15mph capabilities!
We fit a Brooks seat for comfort and can install a watt meter to indicate accurate battery usage.
“It’s like swimming with flippers”.