IRK EBike Club
12As the February IRK reveal thread continues to pop up with EBike discussion, I thought there could be a one stop shop for resources about the various restoration efforts and parts and whatnot for the IRK bikes.
I don’t know if this is the full recipient list but calling @romellex @gr8mick1 @kalma @Kyeh @metaphore @romellex @werehatrack
- 16 comments, 23 replies
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Great idea!
I’ve emailed the friend to whom I gave my bike, and directed him to this thread. I expect he will be jumping in here as soon as he reads my email.
Wonderful idea to start this! It really was untidy and unworkable before.
This is my initial discovery of the bike in my IRK.
The box was HUGE and HEAVY! Seriously beat up packaging.
I wrestled it into the house.
Got big knife and attacked box. First view looked like some sort of bike?? Then lots of smaller items pushed down the side of the box, totally jamming it full.
I carefully pulled out the smaller items, while gradually being able to see that there was what looked like a bike down in there.
The bike gradually appeared. I can’t get it out of the box by myself so will have to wait for some help.
I’m an aged grandmother. Grew up on a farm and NEVER learned to ride a bike. However, the whole rest of my family takes their biking very seriously - bike club, bike trips across Europe, exercise via biking, etc. My retired DIL now even works at a bike store assembling them and repairing them. I’ll soon be able to learn just what I actually got.
But I can read. On the bike it says GoEagle and GoPowerBike. I’ll report back when they’ve got it out of the box, clear set up, tested and tried. My serious problem will be just exactly who gets it?? Two families. Six grandkids. ???
@romellex Whom to give it to? Why not just keep it and learn to ride, YOLO!
Get it adjusted for yourself personally and start riding. [After you put on your helmet and some good real leather gloves.]
Bicycling can be some great exercise and with an electric bike you can work your way into it. Personally, for cardio I think it beats walking, running, or skating and is certainly easier on the knees, if not overdone.
@phendrick Hah - while I’m adventurous, there is no way in … I’m going to try learning to ride a bike at this age. I did find a very good home for it though, and expect the new owner will be on here soon. Sharing his adventures with the reconstruction. I’m happy. He’s happy.
@romellex Well, then, I’m happy so we’re all happy. But I think you might be selling yourself short as far as getting into something new. You can’t be that much older than I am and I’ve been riding a Harley Sportster since Fall. YOLO. (But I do know I don’t bounce off the ground as well as I used to!)
Ahhh a club I wish I was a member of. I will be lurking though.
Mine will be a bit of a project. FedEx managed to mangle bits of it during what appears to have been its three trips rhrough their system. In addition to the broken fork arch that I assume caused its return, there was also a mangled rear derailleur, bent der hanger and der guard, and missing front wheel skewer. I found a generic der hanger that I’m hoping will fit, as GoPower is out of stock on the original. The guard will get straightened, and the derailleur will get swapped out for one from my parts piles. The lack of a key for the battery mount latch is merely a small matter of picking the lock and doing some fiddling.
@werehatrack If it’s just a wafer lock, I’m leaning towards a wave rake or jiggler key.
Any pics of the bent derailleur hanger?
@narfcake The loock is almost certainly wafer, and likely to be one that uses a reasonably common blank.
I’ve already bent the der hanger most of the way back into position, but I know that it’s going to fail; cast aluminum is even less forgiving about that than rolled. The generic replacements I found on AliExpress are machined from bar or plate stock, and should be stronger. (And at under $4 each, I grabbed a spare.)
Oh my God. There’s a Meh biker-gang now.
You should all get matching biker leather jackets and cruise the highways together.
@OnionSoup And there needs to be a t-shirt for that.
How about a Bosozoku club?
I will note that my daughter’s response when I told her of the acquisition was very, very guarded and caution-oriented. “You’re going to be at higher speeds on a thing that’s heavier and probably less maneuverable, with no more protection than usual? Let’s think long and hard about this.” She’s had her spills (with minor injury) on regular bikes, and has a very healthy respect for the inherent risks. Since the beast isn’t back together yet, I’m not sure just what its primary modes of usage will be, but I suspect they’ll be more limited than the conventional bikes I already have.
@werehatrack What no riding it on the shoulder of some of those 10 lane total highways I’ve seen around there? Even when they are giant parking lots and you can whip through the mess at 20 or so mph, make all those in cars and trucks jealous and give them all the finger as you go flying by knowing they have no way to catch you?
@Kidsandliz @werehatrack Or opening a door out of spite and anger? Drivers are a dangerous breed, don’t trust them.
@blaineg @Kidsandliz @werehatrack
I’m going to frame that and hang it above my motorcycle helmet’s shelf.
(Though the sentiment has been in my head since I got my first MC more than half a century ago.)
@blaineg @Kidsandliz @phendrick Of all the bikers I have known who were killed or injured riding, not a single one had a crash that didn’t involve a car driver doing something stupid. And I curse the assholes who weave thru 70mph traffic at 95+ on their crotch rockets for making the cagers even more hostile.
@blaineg @phendrick @werehatrack Well the bikers do stupid things too. I was on I-55 in the middle of the city (speed limit 60 where many were going closer to 70) and 6 or 8 bikers came roaring down the fast lane, weaving in and out of traffic and then, right in front of me (I was in the middle land and had slowed down hoping they’d get far enough ahead if they caused a crash I could stop in time), started doing wheelies down the road well over the speed limit. Had there been an accident it would have been on them. I’ve also had bikers abruptly cut in front of me barely missing my front bumper in one instance and do other stupid things. Considering skin and jeans protect less than car metal I would think they’d be more careful rather than what some of them do which is being less careful.
@Kidsandliz Crotch-rocket jockeys weaving through heavy traffic at 40+ mph over the flow rate are doing something multiply stupid.
@werehatrack multiply regular driver stupidity by text messages, Facebook and TikTok and you get the super stupidity of the 21st century.
I went down hard on my dream bike just a few days into owning it because some asshat in a Suburban cut me off without signaling. Got an ambulance ride, some titanium components, months of physical therapy and some permanent damage out of the deal, and I lost my favorite leather jacket too. That driver never noticed and never stopped. No longer ride because you can be doing everything right and lose your life, ability to work, or ability to take care of yourself thanks to some fool who had to respond to a text while piloting four tons of steel with one eye and half a brain cell on the job
@djslack And that’s why “shared lanes” are correctly perceived as being just as dangerous as using the whole thing.
There are old bikers.
And there are bold bikers.
But there are no old bold bikers…
(Sing to the tune of “I Love This Bar”)
@2many2no Same goes for pilots, SCUBA divers, and a bunch of other hazardous pursuits.
Honestly, if Meh wanted to get more cash out of returns of e-bikes, I’d make them an offer to buy them for more than the no-rebate price of an IRK, and I’d drive up to Carrolton to pick them up. But I strongly suspect that they prefer the publicity value of having Amazing Stuff show up in an IRK after a 'Thon, so it’s not like I think they’d take me up on it. I have refurbed police auction bikes in the past, and given them to people who needed them. (Usually those are pretty well ragged out, though one was amazingly pristine - and I still have it.)
First Ride Report
Today, I got the bike assembled to the point of being ridable. The headlight is still missing (no big deal, I have several good ones that have their own batteries) but everything else is now present and functional. The battery was over half charged when received, so I didn’t bother topping it off.
OMFG am I out of shape.
As a pedal-bike, it’s not optimal but far from being as laughable as a moped. The extra weight and the drag from the motor means that with no boost from the electrics, I was barely breaking 10mph when my more usual speed was typically 12-13mph on my other bikes. But with minimal boost in pedal-assist mode, 13mph was easy. I didn’t go far enough to test the battery capacity and range, but the drag penalty is not so severe that I would be seriously worried about not getting home on legs alone if I ran the powerpack flat. I might take a stab at riding this thing downtown to the doctor’s office on Monday if I get in some miles before that - and if I swap out the seat. The OE seat is not wonderful.
Overall, as a way of getting some exercise in a low-impact mode and working my way up to a better level of fitness, I think it’s going to be worthwhile. And I will definitely be swapping on and off of it as mid-May approaches. I expect to be not-bike-friendly from May 17th for at least 6 months.
@werehatrack " I might take a stab at riding this thing downtown to the doctor’s office on Monday"
Solid plan.
@werehatrack I got a chance to ride an e-bike for a little bit, several years ago. I felt guilty riding it with too much assist, but (if I had one) I know I’d go ahead and take full advantage of that on certain hills.
But I came here to say that my experience was basically the same as yours:
Ultimately, I didn’t feel I could justify the price tag for my situation. It would not have meaningfully impacted my commute options, and I never go biking around just for fun.
But if I’d gotten one for the price of an IRK…
@xobzoo In my case, because of the things it needed, I had to spend a bit for parts, but the total outlay was still a small fraction of the normal price. I’ll get my money’s worth from it. I might use it for the CritMass ride this month. I haven’t done one of those in years.
The Ebike pictured in the very first post here was mine. I gave it to a friend of my DIL. I’m happy to announce he has it operational! He says lots of stuff yet to do, but I relaxed as soon as I heard I hadn’t just inflicted a pile of landfill upon him.
@romellex That’s great!
Since the last post, I have finished building out the bike; the headlight was the last item I had to acquire. I have to say, this bike is better-appointed in everything but the seat than any other ready-to-ride that I’ve had. And the presence of the motor and battery has far less impact on the pedalability (on flat terrain) than I expected. This thing is no racer, but it’s not a Mall-Wart BSO either.
Now if I could just get the double-sided wafer lock on the battery mount to cooperate, I’d be in good shape…
@werehatrack Followup: The proximity of the first wafer to the lock entry makes it very difficult to apply tension to the cylinder, so picking it proved to be outside my skill range. But because so much of the battery mount is plastic, it was easy enough to defeat the lock nondestructively and dismount the battery, at which point the cylinder was accessible to remove. Dewafering the lock solved the battery dismounting problem temporarily, and a replacement generic lock cylinder was located on eBay for much less than one-third of what GoPower wants. The keys won’t match their one-fits-all cut, but I regard that as a Feature.
Tomorrow, (well, later today at this point) I plan to give it a longer shakedown run out on the bike trail, weather permitting.
/showme A bicycle with a seat designed for a real human
@mediocrebot @werehatrack What i figured. Don’t think my butt conforms to that…
And WTH is that midships?
@phendrick No clue at all on the levitating whatchamacallit. The front sprocket is seriously out of round, and given the fact that it’s close to the point at which the chain would have been pull to max tension and yet there’s loads of chain sag, there are some other serious issues, too. It doesn’t stop there. And whatever hallucinogen the builder was on when those wheels were laced, I want to be at least two states over (upwind) from where they make it.