Surprising to hear so many anti-grip-shifters.

I gave the trigger-shifters that came on my Giant Revel a chance, but ultimately just couldn't tolerate them. On the street, anyway, I vastly prefer the way that a twist shifter allows me to blast all the way through the gearstack down to 1 when coming to a stop, and to skip a few gears at a time when the terrain changes rapidly. Sitting there having to go click-click-click-click-click-click just annoyed the hell out of me.

Not to mention that thumb-throttles are somewhat easier to use in terms of holding a steady position. Yes, I know that motorcycles use twist throttles and I have no problem operating one, but on a motorcycle you're not pumping the pedals and holding onto the grips for support.

 

Meh. Its what I grew up with. As a kid, my first real bike with gears was a Huffy with thumb shifters. That bike was tough as a soviet era tank and just as heavy. I actually got into and then out of cycling because of that bike. All my friends replaced their cheapy mountain bikes with lightweight chromoly tube or aluminum frame bikes and I was still dragging the cast iron beast around with me. Every later bike had thumb shifters so its just what I'm used to. I may post some pics of the current 4rd hand costco bike so you can laugh at it, its seriously hilarious. Nobody likes it so it keeps getting passed around.

 

Different strokes, Joe.

You have a good point about being able to wrench down from a high gear down to the lowest in one motion. I guess to me they just feel imprecise. Plus, most of my biking as a kid and teenager was MTB stuff, and grip shifters were way too easy to accidentally shift with. The rapid fires give a good ker-chunk and require a bit more effort, which I prefer.

They were a little difficult to package on the e-bike though. Right now my handlebars consist of the usual grips, brake levers, and shifters plus:

ignition switch
3-way rocker "power selector" switch
thumb throttle
bottle carrier (can't put it in the triangle, might lose it altogether)

So now the shifters are at a weird angle, which is fine because with the motor I don't need to touch them much. But still, I'd like to clean this up. Maybe I can move/replace the ignition and 3-way into the extra space in the battery bag?

 

If you dont shift much, why not suicide shifters?

 

On a bicycle, I'm not sure what that would be.

 

Shift levers by the head tube on the frame rather than the bars. Like this.

 

Looks practical.

 

As long as you dont shift constantly its no big deal. At least on the bike I used it on the geometry didnt try to kill you the instant you took one hand off the bars. Would never work on my bike, I'd kill myself in 2 shifts.

 

not sure if srs

 

Yeah, even on the big e-bike I use the shifter quite frequently. Thing is, I'm normally just going direct from 1 to 3-4 to 7, skipping all the gears in between. Another reason why I prefer the twister, at least on the rear. I left the trigger on the front, mostly because I only use 2 and 3 on the crank, and the trigger isn't so much of an inconvenience there.

 

srs. If my bike was a car I would say it needs significantly more caster and much less toe out.

 

that's cute. I think you mean like this:

 

That looks a lot cleaner, y8s. I wonder though, is there any reason for it other than to be different?

 

I guess if you're down on the drop bars its easier to reach the low shifter then the ones I posted.

 

Not feasible for the mt.netters who have e-bikes though, since all two of us have batteries that go there.

lol

 

Joe - Since I'm thinking about how to clean up the handlebars, I had an idea I wanted to run past you.

I don't like the levers that come with the kit, you know the ones that are supposed to cut the motor when you hit the brakes. They're huge and their quality is very... China. They seem unnecessary since I let go of the thumb throttle to brake anyway. Maybe there's a chance of a "runaway" motor to worry about?

 

This does not look like a fresh debate, apparently this whole bike selection thing is a real bastard re: the eBike "community." The Endless-Sphere people seem to be stuck in an endless loop about it.

I need to go jam a couple bikes in my crotch and see what fits before I order something. Of course, Amazon Prime might make this interesting

 

I've never actually heard of such a thing happening. Polyphase BLDC motors, unlike their brushed cousins, are pretty much incapable of "running away." In a shorted-FET situation, the worst thing that can happen is that the stator locks up and then the coils burn out.

About the only failure which can cause runaway acceleration is a short circuit within the throttle or its wiring (or that portion of the controller which reads the throttle) such that Vref is applied directly to T, causing the controller to believe that a full-throttle signal is being applied. And there are several different safties against this.

First, you have the power switch on the handlebars. Hit that and the system turns off.

Next, you have the brakes themselves. Even with my 52v 25A motor running at full-tilt-boogie, I was able to stop the rear wheel using just the rear disc alone. On the ground, you have both brakes available to stop the bike. In most cases, the bike's brakes (assuming they're in good shape, and dry if rim brakes) should have more than enough power to control a runaway motor.

Last, in some setups, you can also program the controller to recognize a faulty throttle input. With the CycleAnalyst, for instance, I told it that the highest "normal" input it should ever see on the throttle line was around 4.2v (or whatever I actually measured it as) and that if it sees anything higher than this, that means a short circuit has occurred and, again, it should shut down.

 

Thanks Joe.

I have about two inches in the bag above the battery to play with. I might chuck some of the controls I don't need to interact with much in there. Hmm.

Kinda wish my e-bike wasn't down in Florida so I could tinker with it.

 

I'm not familiar with the debate. Are you just trying to pick out a bike? Should be fairly straightforward.