Chapter Eight: New Bars and Cables

The bars and recabling weren't finished until Saturday. As usual what appears a minor change causes more things to deal with. In this case both mechanical and ebike kit related. First the mechanical, the Shimano pod Rapid fire shifters I took off the straight riser bars were not compatible with the Albatross bars. Problem being the cable fitting angle coming out pointed away from the bars meaning the cables would not route properly, would have shot out wider than the bars before making the turn, unacceptable. A quick trip to the used parts bin at the LBS and we came up with a pair of Shimano Acera integrated shifter and brake levers. This will do for now, but looks like I have a couple of fishing reels mounted as shifters and these are for v brakes so a pretty long throw before my disc brakes start to really grab. Usable but somewhat less than wonderful. Thinking a set of Pauls thumbies are in my future. The Minoura space grip works well and mounts the headlamp / controller front and center, clearing the stem clamp quite nicely. A nice problem solver that I recommend highly for a myriad of applications, this baby is solid and quite adjustable.

The electrical issue is a time sink to be sure. When Allan specced the wire lengths he obviously had straight bars with limited rise in mind as all but the battery to controller wires are waaay too short for my application. Having to use the Minoura space grip added to the extra length of these pull back bars and my Delta 4 inch riser made hook up marginal at best. No stress relief or even enough to route them properly. Time to break out the soldering iron, shrink tubing and stretch these to a length that will allow proper routing. Of course I took it for another test spin and those bars are worth any extra work, comfy to have the wrists and hands opposite each other. Reminded me of my old Sears 3 speed which I rode into the ground from '64 to '72.

This week I'll remove all the mechanicals, locktite and washer them properly as all seems to be in adjustment. I also ditched the V saddle clamp in favor of the resin mounting blocks as the motor mount torqued under load moving almost a quarter inch. ( You were right Allan but the Polish part of me just had to give the V saddle a go ). The resin blocks hold the motor mount nice and solid.

Then its time to get brave and start cutting, routing, lengthening wires and soldering. As you can see the brake levers are just wrapped around the bars currently with some blue tape holding them from flopping in the breeze. I still need to come up with a way to mount the cut outs though. My original plan was scuttled when I swapped out the Avid single digit brake levers. Time for another innovation I guess, or wait until I upgrade the shifters and put the single digits back on.

I think Trask was happy to see me pick it up. The Blast with the BB drive caused quite a stir, raised many questions and cut deeply into his work time at the LBS while parked waiting for the bar and cable job. Seems there is more than a bit of interest in this quite hilly part of Seattle. Probably a lot of talkers but just maybe I can turn some folks on to elationebiking.

Till next time ........... keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down.