Doug's Privateer E161 build thread

[DOU9M]

I have however been adding new mods to it, rather than riding it ...

Ergon SM E-Mountain seat. Very nice this one.

Fidlock bottle and mount. Also very cool.

 

[MOG]

Front of head tube, no. Nothing on rear triangle and nothing on seat post. Only have battery housing tube , top tube and a bit around the cable entry glands.

OK so that's the same as was provided in the kit I got. Wish mine had come pre-fitted as some of the bits were a PITA to fit

 

[DOU9M]

Ok, I seriously need to stop. I love modifying things more than I do riding or driving them, I'm the same with cars

Decided to replace the cracked XT shifter with an XTR one. For fun as I got a cracking deal on it.

Also got myself a genuine Fox Mudguard. XL size.

I'm already looking at stems , need to lift the bars a tiny bit more in spite of the 35mm rise ebar. Currently looking at either a Funn Equaliser or a DMR Defy 35+ to raise the cockpit up a bit.

 

[DOU9M]

New stem time. Funn Equaliser, 35mm. Raises the bar up 10mm and it's now a much better fit for me with my gibbon attributes.

I also got a 700mm Shimano cable and ran the wire through the inside of the bars, as the OneUp e-bar is designed for. Cleans up the front end a tiny bit.

 

[mooby77]

Nice , been out on it yet , how does it handle , especially down hill ?

 

[DOU9M]

Can't really comment as it's my first e-bike and I've not had a chance to take it down anything to remotely stretch its legs. I've taken it on some light cross country rides and it eats it up. Have also done some urban foolishness smashing down stairs and over roundabouts and again, it's an absolute monster truck just plows over everything. I have come from Enduro off-road bikes, mostly two stroke 250s, really looking forward to being able to take it more places that you can't take a smokey dirtbike. I've got Holmwood Hill not far from me, will report back when I've taken it there.

 

[MOG]

Rode mine off piste at Fod on Sunday a d just used it for a loop around Penyfan in the Beacons. It is a weapon. Just smashes through shonky rock gardens and is so stable on the steep stuff. Very happy with it so far. I did use more battery than others in the group but small price to pay..

View attachment IMG_20240716_195112.jpg

 

[mooby77]

Rode mine off piste at Fod on Sunday a d just used it for a loop around Penyfan in the Beacons. It is a weapon. Just smashes through shonky rock gardens and is so stable on the steep stuff. Very happy with it so far. I did use more battery than others in the group but small price to pay..

View attachment 143923

Nice . up at FOD weekend, , following week back home in the Dyfi , yes batteries are to be used , if you have it , use it ,

 

[DOU9M]

Finally took it out for its first proper test to Holmbury Hill, took her down Barry knows best about 5 times, smashed Yoghurt Pots a couple of times , and just generally went for a little explore around the hills. I was out for about three hours, got down to my last bar of battery, but I was already one down from full before I started.

On the rooty, rocky stuff I could literally just smash over it, one foot roots drops I could hardly feel, front end tracked really nicely, had to try to keep weight forward on it. Jumps felt a bit nosey heavy but that's probably me needing to adjust position.

Brakes are fantastic, I could one finger the rear (oo-errr) and that was enough for the steep stuff. I had to use a couple to really rein it in though at times. Need to set my suspension up though as only using half travel at front but most of the rear.

I did notice that I lost my charge port plastic cover thing which is annoying. It's very exposed without it.

Can highly recommend the Ergon saddle, absolutely no soreness at all, such a great purchase.

Very happy with the bike so far. Shimano motor is really good, quite loud on Boost when winching back to the top but can't fault the performance. Since updating the firmware I'm getting about half a second of over run. I really could have done with a bit more going up the hill as it's Rocky and rooty and stopped a few times where I think a bit more overrun would have got me over it. Looking forward to the autumn update to the App that will allow me to change the over run settings myself without having to take it to the dealer

 

[Mikerb]

My mate has the Privateer. The only thing he needed to do apart from the usual suspension set up was to retune the motor in the app. Having done that we have ridden together both on our favourite forest trails which consist gravity runs with drops, jumps ( not huge!) and berms, and a couple of cross country type rides. He is very happy with it as it seems to do everything well. It copes easily with the rough stuff ( mostly roots for us rather than rock gardens) and is super stable...yet climbs very well also. Initially on the cross country type rides it lacked acceleration and speed but he has cured that with tuning via the app. The only other obsevations he has is that he probably needs to shorten the bars a little more and the bike inevitably has somewhat slower steering through tree slalom type sections of the forest. As far as the motor is concerned , now that he has tuned it, the only other aspect he has noticed is the rather a brupt power cut off at the assisted speed limit ( compared to more smooth transition on his Brose motored Levo. He is used to a gen 2 Levo so that is understandable and just as matter of some riding adjustment. So all in all an incredible bike for the money he paid ( which included robs discount)

 

[DOU9M]

Latest update in time for the nights drawing in

Magicshine MJ-906S Front E-Bike Light​

This is hard wired into the main battery, I wired it all up and it wouldn't work, after some head scratching and Googling it turns out that Shimano factory lock the light function on the EP801 so I had to take it to local bike shop (thanks to Slam69.co.uk in Gloucester for sorting this out) They plugged it in and in 10 mins activated the light for me.

It is INSANELY bright. I will try and grab some night beam shots at some point.

 

[DOU9M]

So this is in the pitch black, no moonlight in an area with no ambient light at all. The wooden posts are about 15 metres away. The light claims 4500 lumens, it's not at that level, I'd estimate about 2500 or so. Still excellent. It's quite erie riding in absolute darkness with no helmet light. You look left or right and you can see absolutely nothing. Need to get my helmet light on so I can look left and right and not shit myself in the woods

 

[DOU9M]

Beech woodlands are stunning in autumn