After a couple of years of reliable service the Red Baron came back to us for a complete system upgrade. This is the new look of the Luftwaffe; 1000W front hub and 48V 17.5Ah Tiger Shark battery mounted within the frame! The bike is the Red Baron from FELT.
If you want to make a high speed dual suspension electric bicycle then the GIANT ANTHEM is one of the best models to choose simply because there is room within the frame to mount a high capacity battery. This bike uses the BAFANG 1000W mid-drive conversion kit and you need a very solid battery for it to work as the motor has a 30 amp current draw and with this high power you need a high capacity battery to get a decent range. This battery is a PANASONIC 48V 17.5AH lithium ion battery and will give a range of approximately 30km with pedalling hard and lots and lots of motor power. There are very few other dual suspension bikes that have a large enough frame space to accommodate a good battery – nearly none we’ve found – so if you’re looking for something like this then for around $1000 you should be able to find a 2nd hand GIANT ANTHEM that will work well.
The next problem with this type of bike is getting a mid-drive motor to fit. The great majority of bicycles have a bottom bracket shell/crank width of 68-73mm. With dual suspension bikes it varies a little and this model has a 90mm bottom bracket shell. This is quite easily overcome by ordering an abnormal mid-drive BAFANG kit with a 100mm axle length. The problems do not finish there though because most bicycles have a cartridge style bottom bracket but lots of high quality dual suspension mountain bikes have a press fit bottom bracket. They look like this:
This means that the typical mid-drive conversion kit will be too sloppy in the shell and surely cause problems. We overcame this by doing a few measurements and getting some cups made that would fit in the press fit bearing slot and be the correct inner diameter to support the mid-drive motor. Here are our poor drawings but thankfully the machinist was high quality and produced some good parts for us.
The part for the drive side has a thinner outer diameter in an aim to keep the chain line as straight as possible in regular riding. This is what they look like when they are put in:
This is how it looks with the motor in place:
The bike rides beautifully. It’s near impossible to get a high power dual suspension bike for under a few thousand dollars but this is a great solution. The bike can hit up to 60km/h with good pedaling and a range of around 30km should be expected with a 48V 17.5Ah battery. Rough prices are bike: $1000, motor kit: $1000 and battery: $1000.
