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we are taking a look at our BBS HD comfort commuter the Bang BBS HD mid-drive motor has
a maximum output rating of 1000 watts it has a built-in 30 amp controller and it can handle a
24 volt 36 volt or 48 volt battery I believe you may be able to / volt it but you run the risk of
burning out the controller and potentially the motor one of the key highlights that we really
like about this motor is that the controller is built into the motor unit whereas most hub kits
like this one will have a separate controller that you need to mount and wire elsewhere it's a fairly
easy install it may seem daunting but in most cases you just need to unbolt the cranks you'll
need a crank puller and then unbolt the bottom bracket with a usually it'll be a Shimano type
depends on what type of bottom bracket you're working with and you'll just need to remove the
bottom bracket and then the BB shd has just a cylinder that slides right through the bottom
bracket shell and it includes all the mounting hardware and brackets and you use your original
bottom bracket lock ring the only difficulty with this installation is getting a perfect
alignment with this bracket here because the way that this bracket works is that there are
grooves inside on the inside of it and they have to compress into the side of the bottom
bracket frame so we had actually messed up this install we didn't have it perfectly aligned the
first time and what happened was those from the torque of the throttle those grooves
basically just wore right into the aluminum part of the frame so that now you'll notice
it can swivel which probably isn't really a problem but it's just not a good thing to see
probably off-roading it could be an issue but commuting on the roads light throttle use not
a big deal for us it's just something you want to look out for another thing that's important
to pay attention to on this build is your chain line you need to make sure that you can have a
pretty straight chain line otherwise you will get chain skipping the higher gears the smaller cogs
are more inclined to skipping at high torque especially if you're at us at a light or some
kind of stop and you want to slam the throttle to enter the intersection it could potentially
skip over the smaller cogs and it may damage the chain the frame and the cogs and the cassette so
that's something to keep an eye out for we had a different chain ring on here it came out further
so we had to change it back to the original bang-won so that we could get closer chain line
another thing we like about the bbs HD is that it is easy to hide the wiring most of it you can just
keep right underneath there and you can't see it the only wires that show are is battery pack
wire a red and a black and then the accessory cable that runs up to the display we're using
it with a 48 volt 14 amp hour high long battery pack and it's been great I believe it's about 670
watt hours which gives us about 35 we haven't done any tests for the exact range but we get about 35
to 40 miles depending on a number of factors the weight that we're carrying the wind the elevation
if we're going hilly if we're using the throttle or mostly pedal assist for commuting this thing
is so powerful we mostly just keep it in pedal assist 1 or 2 which I believe it puts out maybe
250 or 350 watts but what we like about the BB shd having so many watts is the maximum potential
output is that it feels much more reliable you don't have to worry about it breaking down unless
you're hitting it really hard on the trails and you're just constantly slamming on the throttle
you could just tell this thing has no problem even just climbing up hills it's it's rarely struggling
and I think that's something that people would complain about with the BBS o - which just wasn't
as heavy duty and as powerful as this motor the BB shd does not include a torque sensor it actually
uses a speed sensor using magnetic strips that attached to your spokes so I can sense how fast
your wheel is spinning and it instead of using a torque sensor some mid-drive kits I believe Bosch
and Burroughs will use a torque sensor built into the motor to decide when to give you power and
this one will use pedal assist and sense that as soon as the wheel starts to spin from you
pedaling it it'll give you whatever pedal assist level you have it set to so that was two hundred
and fifty watts pedal assist level one let's go straight up to five to see the maximum output
another nice thing about the BBS HD is it's relatively quiet from the drive motor some
of the mid drive motors can be loud and whiny and with this one often times you'll hear the
cassette and the road noise over the motor you won't notice it while you're riding we really
like the controller on this kit it gives a good smooth power transition and it allows you to take
over if you want to give full power if let's say you're on pedal assist one and you're cruising
along and suddenly you need to take a lane or you need to climb a hill you can just slam that
throttle down and it'll give you full power we chose the kit with the DPC 14 full-color display
it's LCD which we really prefer much better than the LED LEDs are the little simple ones that are
that just have the you know three or four lights to show you where your battery level is this one
you can choose to show you either the voltage or a percentage of how much battery like you
have left that is great it has a clock it has a trip meter it'll show you total miles we've
commuted on this bike and picked up groceries and did trail rides for about five hundred miles so
far it includes this display control which we really like because it gives some good feedback
you can hear the click you can feel the click as you're changing the assist levels and we've had
others that really sensitive to where you'll skip from one to five and that's just not fun
could potentially be dangerous as far as the full color display I don't think it's really
that important to have any color this one shows you the average speed maximum speed we've gotten
this kit up to 40 miles per hour we do an average about 12 I'd say on pedal assist level one you're
probably doing between 12 and 15 miles per hour we also have the thumb throttle what I like about
this thumb throttle included with the kit is it has a nice wide double sided leaver that you can
use on left or right hand and it's fairly small maybe about an inch wide and it'll also give a
certain amount of power based on how hard you press it so you can just kind of tap it or you
can go all the way from full power kit also includes brake levers with the motor cut off
so soon as you tap the lever it'll cut off the motor extra safety issue if you have hydraulic
brakes you won't be able to use those just keep that in mind our front hub build we do not have
the cutoff switches they're really not that important it's just I would say for beginners
it's good to have but once you get the hang of riding you won't need them so this display does
give up to 9 we have it set to 5 pedal assist levels and obviously depending on you can either
do three levels five levels or nine levels and depending on how you have it set up that will
divide the power output another nice feature of the DPC 14 display is the USB slot right
there on the bottom if you need to charge your bike lights phone camera other devices you can
charge directly from your battery pack the rally Terkel one came with a 7-speed twist shifter I
would prefer to have a quick shift there just one less thing to have - the reason we chose the rally
Terkel one on this build is because this build really is for comfort leisure I had injured my
lower back playing flag football and I was using this guy was a single-speed at the time with this
350 watt 36 volt setup and I had to stand up and pedal up hills so with an injured lower back it's
just not fun and I didn't want to have to take the car or walk to work so I decided I'd built
something that was a little more pedal forward it's not quite as pedal forward as the town II
and that type but it does give a more upright laid back seat position it's got a nice back sweep on
the handlebars spring saddle 27.5 inch wheels with nice balloon tires I believe these are Kenda 1.95
and they're great for gravel end road which is nice because I have the option of either a
gravel path on my commute or I can take the roads so these are really perfect and I usually keep
them inflate it around 55 60 psi very comfortable ride I have some plastic SKS fenders just to keep
gravel from flying up at the battery and the motor sunlight rear rack pannier racks really are clutch
if you're commuting I've seen so many people lately with backpacks and water bottle attachments
and everything's clunking around and it's just it's so uncomfortable to ride with a backpack so
if you're if you're seriously commuting then you should consider a patio racking and a trunk bag
latest trunk bag we've been using as roz wheel this is the sunlight fold-out basket and it
just pops right out it's really nice to have that option whenever you're out somewhere or you know
if you're at work and pick up groceries on the way home another thing for commuting a must-have is a
nice chain cover if you can find a bike that has a chain guide of some sort that would be nice too to
keep the chain on the ring we also added the lumen trail a heavy duty center stand just in case you
have to do some rear tire or tube repair on the road just makes it that much easier another thing
that's nice about mid drives over hub motors is that you don't have to touch the wheels it can be
a bit of a hassle having to change the tire on a hub motor you'll notice that rear wheels are
more common to get puncture flats or pinch flats and it's much more of a hassle if you have a rear
hub motor to have to do that maintenance on the fly definitely recommend for commuting a nice
bar and mirror just one of the basic simple ones really only need one on your left side because
bike lane you should be on the right side of the road and you want to make sure you look over your
shoulder of course a mirror should never replace looking over your shoulder if you have to take
the lane or make a left turn another thing I'd like to point out on this build is the V brakes
you probably have heard by now someone saying you absolutely must have disc brakes on an e bike we
disagree we have 160 millimeter David's on the front hub build and yes they're nice yes great
stopping power are they an absolute must-have not necessarily unless you're doing hardcore downhill
riding v rates can be just fine and cool stop if you can see them we only have them on the front
cool stuff makes ebike specific rim brake pads and we've noticed that they are a little bit
better as far as stopping power then these are the regular ones that came with the rally the stopping
power is a little bit better but more notably they seem to last longer and that's something with rim
brakes is that you on any bike you will be going through brake pads faster as well as with a mid
Drive you will see your chain wear out faster and your cassette will wear out faster and that's one
of the reasons why on our latest build we went with a belt drive and an IgH unfortunately there
is no chain ring designed to fit a gates carbon belt drive with the BB s HD so we were not able
to do that and that's why we went with the front hub motor disc brake compatible on this build