Bafang E-bike cable brake sensors convert to hydraulic HACK

[@6ettinold]

Just an aside to your video, I ordered a Bafang kit last week from PSWPower, only to realise I'd ordered levers instead of sensors. I have mechanical disc brakes, but, like most, my brakes and shifters are Shimano integrated jobbies. I've worked out though, that I only need to have the rear brake as a cut-off, as I'll always apply that brake first anyway. I don't need the front shifter, so I'm going to swap my left hand brake lever & shifter for the Bafang cut-off lever, keeping my front brake / rear shifter as is. Just an idea for anyone else that might find themselves in my situation - I can't see any issue fitting just the rear as a cut-off myself.

[@TheDestroyerNow]

Hi Jake, I'm curious to know where you eventually fitted the battery on the bike in your video please? I have two bikes that are similar in style to your one in the video.

[@jaaaake777]

It only fitted with the motor tilted down towards the ground too far. The ground clearance would have been very poor. I stripped the components and sold the frame then built up on a 2006 Kona lava dome. It's a hard tail frame, but it's got skinny tubes so the Bafang motor can tilt up nicely at the bottom bracket. The whole lava dome cost £79 on eBay, so it was just a temporary thing while I looked for a full suspension frame that the motor will work well with. But I'm quite happy with it at the moment. It's a very strong old school cromolly frame. Lots of modern full suspension frames seem to have a downtube that comes out of the bottom bracket horizontal for an inch or two then kinks upward. These frames would work even worse than the yellow one here did. As well as measuring all the chainstay clearance etc. For the Bafang mid drive motors to fit properly they have to swing up tight against the downtube or you lose too much ground clearance.

[@jaaaake777]

Sorry Gregory, I misread your question. Concerning battery fit, I had a great idea for that. On the seatpin. I'm 6 ft 3 so I have a lot of seatpin out on a 18 inch bike. I was going to use two CNc frame bottle mounts, on the seatpin one above the other. The mounts are only cheap (Chinese) on eBay etc. They are for mounting bottles on bikes without bottle lugs. I'd definitely use 2 of them. I was also going to run a 2mm dyneema line from the battery carrier to the seat rails above, to stop the battery ending up in the back wheel after a big jump if the CNC mounts were to fail.

[@TheDestroyerNow]

Thank you Jake, that was very insightful. I've been building regular bicycles for around 30 years and I'm just about to build my very first ebike 😀. Thank you once again for your video and also for replying to me. Greg