Begode Master 134V 2400WH Suspension

[Rawnei]

40 minutes ago, Flying W said:

The S20 sliders will wear quickly too but there will be be DIY hacks to keep a lot of debris our and if there is enough interest we may see replacement slider assemblies thay fix the open back issue using better materials. There may never be a fix for linkage leverage on the master, we will just see a new wheel from gotway that improves the bottom out.

What is "quickly"? I think this is the same type of worrying as battery charge cycle anxiety, worrying about 300 charge cycles meanwhile that's like 2-3 years of riding for most people minimum and by that time most of us thinking of getting a new wheel anyway.

I don't think some plastic/PTFE parts with lube sliding against aluminum will wear too quick for us to really worry about.

[EMA]

2 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Just watched the Jimmy Chang video and my hype is a bit deflated.

• The entire top is just cheap foam and super thin plastic. A complete, closed metal box would be much nicer (and watertight). Put the foam on top of that!
• The suspension is built so the shock has barely any leverage? No wonder you have to pump it up fully to deal with normal rider weights. I wonder if this wheel even works for heavier riders. Looks to me like the suspension geometry could be much better. Is this kind of narrow suspension geometry normal?

the top seems fine for me, maybe we can have a better foam...

it's always a trade off with the suspension, for sure is not designed for bike park and big drops, on the other side is super smooth for "normal riding" which i care most

people who like stairs and jump stuff will need a different shock (or another wheel) , that's clear, most of the others will be fine out of the box.

time will tell

 

[Freeforester]

Apropos tyre changing - Ray (of sunshine!) to the rescue:

 

[Eucner]

4 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

• The suspension is built so the shock has barely any leverage? No wonder you have to pump it up fully to deal with normal rider weights. I wonder if this wheel even works for heavier riders. Looks to me like the suspension geometry could be much better. Is this kind of narrow suspension geometry normal?

The average suspension leverage in Master is 80 mm / 50 mm = 1.6 and in S22 130 mm / 76 mm = 1.71. They are not too much apart. Master could be little better for control and precision. The real difference comes from the length of travel and how leverage progressively changes. This goes for S22.

[EMA]

are you sure about the 76mm shock travel on s22 ? 

[techyiam]

[Flying W]

@Rawnei quickly may been a poor word choice. For road use they may last many miles with dry lube. Off roading in the dusty dry desert conditions where I live will have those sliders grinding dust into the aluminum. This will accelerate wear. 

 

[Rawnei]

1 hour ago, Flying W said:

@Rawnei quickly may been a poor word choice. For road use they may last many miles with dry lube. Off roading in the dusty dry desert conditions where I live will have those sliders grinding dust into the aluminum. This will accelerate wear.

I still think they have a decent lifetime in those conditions with some maintenance now and then.

[Whalesmash]

Feels weird to be saying this but I'm more confident in the gotway design of sliders than I am the S22. My EX is a year old with over 1500 miles and the suspension is still nice and smooth. That's even with the poor design of how low those suspension rods dangle. All the trails here in socal are super dusty and rocky, I'm confident those rods have been put through their paces.

Edit: Then again, those suspension rods on the EX are steel...

Edited May 9, 2022 by Whalesmash

[Rawnei]

5 minutes ago, Whalesmash said:

Feels weird to be saying this but I'm more confident in the gotway design of sliders than I am the S22. My EX is a year old with over 1500 miles and the suspension is still nice and smooth. That's even with the poor design of how low those suspension rods dangle. All the trails here in socal are super dusty and rocky, I'm confident those rods have been put through their paces.

Edit: Then again, those suspension rods on the EX are steel...

I agree, the Master suspension rods seems to be one of the better part of the design, I also agree the S22 sliders could be a lot better but I think the worry about them is also a bit blown out of proportion, only reason I bring it up here is because it was mentioned.

[Tawpie]

I tend to agree... sometimes there's a place for sticking with a more tried and true approach as GW has done. At least we know what to expect from designs that look like the fork sliders on a mountain bike—very low maintenance. Changing to what I'll call the "Volkswagen" approach, with loose tolerances so assembly is easy and replacement parts are inexpensive, is going to require more 'work' from the owners. If nothing else, it would behove you to at least rinse out the S22 sliders on a regular basis (and reapply your dry lube!). Time will tell how much of a PIA this will become.

[Whalesmash]

2 hours ago, Rawnei said:

I agree, the Master suspension rods seems to be one of the better part of the design, I also agree the S22 sliders could be a lot better but I think the worry about them is also a bit blown out of proportion, only reason I bring it up here is because it was mentioned.

That's a fair thing to say. The S22 will probably work alright in the grand scheme of things, it just kind of irks me that they had a design that worked alright and for some reason they decided to reinvent the wheel and start back at square one. Perhaps we will see the same thing we did with the S18 and see some incremental improvements across successive batches or if the makerspace will come up with a suitable DIY upgrade. I know ecodrift got the slider mech to work super smooth...

Now to be equally critical of GW, this isn't their first try at using this "new" suspension setup, it's their third try. The first one on the Hero wasn't exactly great as some of those wheels have had bent rods since the rods were too thin/small. Don't know of much on the EX20S, but wasn't it very similar to the Hero? The master's the third try and hopefully it's the best of the bunch. Rapid iteration has its benefits I guess...

[EMA]

3 hours ago, Whalesmash said:

Feels weird to be saying this but I'm more confident in the gotway design of sliders than I am the S22. My EX is a year old with over 1500 miles and the suspension is still nice and smooth. That's even with the poor design of how low those suspension rods dangle. All the trails here in socal are super dusty and rocky, I'm confident those rods have been put through their paces.

Edit: Then again, those suspension rods on the EX are steel...

we have like 6 EX in rome, all around 10000 km, all working fine 

[Eucner]

6 hours ago, EMA said:

are you sure about the 76mm shock travel on s22 ? 

Yes, the shock is known to be DNM RCP-2S 240-76 mm.

[Freeforester]

 

[EMA]

wrongway got 97km to 105v aka 0% with a 30kmh avg speed, really good

[gon2fast]

I checked in on the ETA of my Master and received some promising news concerning the battery redundancy issue. Looks like there is a solution in the works from Litech. No other details were provided.

[The Brahan Seer]

Real-life data great on one hand but not looking so good on the other....

 

[RagingGrandpa]

5 hours ago, The Brahan Seer said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I97lAyKcoBE

 

 

"

it's a fragile wheel
if you want a powerful wheel, this is it

it is a beast but it is fragile
the headlight got messed up
the top foaming got messed up
the tail light shattered
the fenders shattered
the kickstand was so bent it was between two of the knobs and i had to bend that thing out as hard as i could just to get this wheel rideable back down the hill

i did not want to keep riding it after this there was quite a bit of damage "

[onkeldanuel]

The whole wheel Looks Off, is it really only the Kickstand which is Bent?

[Whalesmash]

3 minutes ago, onkeldanuel said:

The whole wheel Looks Off, is it really only the Kickstand which is Bent?

It looks roughly in line to me. The lighting and the fact that one side is pretty bashed in makes it look like it's off center.

As far as the durability concerns go, it looks like most of the things that broke are more along the side of non-critical components. I think it will be a good idea to look into aftermarket or DIY solutions for more protection of the wheel. Something like the Clark bumper set or additional battery pack coverings for the sides would probably be a good place to start. When my wheel gets in I'll probably print my own front and rear bumpers and then put some EVA foam over the side packs. More than likely I'll end up covering up the entire rear light assembly with a TPU printed bumper and then DIY my own tail lights. That stock tail light is a joke...

[Paul A]

Is it really reasonable to spend over $3000 USD for the Begode Master, and then:

Have to 3D print, DIY, modifications to reinforce its structural integrity,

Fit other springs, protective measures, coverings, foams, aftermarket products.........

That may or not actually be effective.

 

A low speed crash has inflicted what appears to be serious structural damage.

 

Pay $3000 + for the privilege to try and solve problems of low quality?

[Tawpie]

13 minutes ago, Paul A said:

Is it really reasonable to spend over $3000 USD for the Begode Master, and then:

It's the traditional and accepted Way of Got unbridled performance… it's been this way for a very long time now.

Seems like at this price point though, it's not unreasonable to expect to be able to drop the wheel on a rocky trail and not have to deal with quite that much repair work. On the other hand, it's a good thing their design allows for extensive personalization—you basically get to choose the design of your protective shell! I shudder a little to think about how it'll look after an overspeed cutout (we've seen one such accident, but that's a sample of one). They can definitely do better.

[MadVlad]

I mean it is a naked wheel that weighs 80 pounds. There is nothing on it to absorb the energy of the impact so, yeah, wherever it hits is going to get damaged, and if you hit it hard enough the frame is going to get bent. And because it weighs 80 pounds it does not take as much speed to do significant damage. If you are looking for more wheel protection then this is not the design for you, at least not without adding extra padding...

[Rawnei]

8 minutes ago, MadVlad said:

I mean it is a naked wheel that weighs 80 pounds. There is nothing on it to absorb the energy of the impact so, yeah, wherever it hits is going to get damaged, and if you hit it hard enough the frame is going to get bent. And because it weighs 80 pounds it does not take as much speed to do significant damage. If you are looking for more wheel protection then this is not the design for you, at least not without adding extra padding...

Considering Begode showed that it handled tumbling down a very steep hill without much damage I think that is kind of what people expect out of it.