Funny I don't have more pictures of this.
Also funny I'm so bad at it.
I decided wife and I need electric bicycles. I usually make this kind of decision when I find something I think is cool. I admit I am pretty compulsive. We don't ride bikes, we don't need more bikes (I think we have 5 or 6 already). None are electric....
I justified them by calling them RV/Camping transportation... we'll see how that goes.
Anyways, I wound up purchasing a pair of these el-cheapo chinesium bikes (I think their all chinesium these days)...
amazon linky
They arrived and I put them together. I knew nothing about e-bikes before we bought these. I started learning what I didn't know....
While I still don't know what I don't know, the first thing I noticed was that the gear ratio is tailored towards slower speeds. It's a 1/7 drivetrain and the high gear (1-7, or seventh gear in the only range) is I think 42-14.
That gear ratio is pretty decent without electric assist.
With Electric assist, 42-14 runs out pretty fast. You wind up 'ghost peddling' alot. Thats when your feet can't keep up with the wheels.
Without electric assist, on this bike, 15-17 mph is about as fast as you will go. The gears fit that speed pretty well.
With Electric assist, on this bike, you can pretty easily go 24 mph. Listed max speed is 28 mph, but I haven't left my yard yet and haven't seen that speed yet.
Above 15 mph your windmilling (ghost pedaling). I decided I needed better gears on my rock bottom chinesium bike.
I decided to order a different rear gearset to help with the ghost peddling.
I spent a billion hours trying to figure out if I had a freewheel or a freehub.
Long story short, I ordered the wrong part.
The socket I got in the tool kit didn't fit, so I turned it down and it worked fine. I know now that it was the wrong tool, but coincidentaly the inside diameter was large enough to clear the e-hub.
After I modified the tool, I was able to remove the hub and realized the replacement I ordered wouldn't work.
I ordered a different part.
Eventually I got the right stuff and installed it.
Once I confirmed it would work, I ordered another set for the wifes bike.
As I was installing the gears on the wifes bike, I reflected that I was getting pretty good at it. I figured I could do a freehub swap in about 20 minutes.
All went well, and I was adjusting the shifter mechanism to the new gearset.
I had it all lined up and working perfect, upside down in my makeshift workstand.
As I was 'tuning' the shifter, I noticed it still had the original gearset installed. I had managed to remove one gearset and reinstall the gearset from my other bike, instead of the new gearset. I'm an idiot.