Summary of the tweeks needed on the Estarli E28.9

THIS VIDEO
This ongoing Video Diary by myself John Neal, sometimes known as John Longcroft-Neal, as the whim takes me.

TODAY’S SUBJECT is a lovely ride through the countryside of South Leicestershire and a summary of the tweeks needed on the Estarli E28.9

GENERAL STUFF
I am retired from two careers of primary school teaching when I was deputy head of a Middle School and Primary School, and as a self employed Chalkboard Artist from 2002 until I reached the grand old age of 65 in 2016. Since I retired it’s like a second childhood but with more expensive toys.

I have written a book ‘Cursive Handwriting for Adults’
published by Ulysses Press and can be purchased from:

AMAZON UK

AMAZON USA

Gear that I use:
DJI Mini 3 Drone.
Iphone 15 Pro for camera, generally front facing so I can see myself in frame. Super quality especially if I keep the lens clean.
Go Pro11
Sony IC recorder

Insta x3 360 camera

Omnidirectional Lavalier Microphone

SE mini microphone to do voice over on computer
Video editing with Final Cut Pro X
Smatree Tripod / mono pod
Mono pod is a Manfrotto Compact MMC3-02 and is very useful for getting high angles that look like low flight drone shots and so easy to carry on my bike along with the mini tripod.

My bike is a e28.9 Estarli electric bike.

https://www.estarli.co.uk/

Money from ARTWORK SOLD will go to the MONA FOUNDATION
for details see https://www.monafoundation.org

I am a follower of the Bahá’i Faith and some of my philosophical ideas may show through in comments that I make, but, by and large, I’ll not make direct reference to my beliefs.

FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/131048357093583
See www.bahá’i.org

I play guitar and write songs and have written about 14 songs for the local BBC radio station. I run a weekly (weakly) evening Acoustic session at a local pub and have been doing so for 14 years now.
Much of the music I use on this channel is taken from epidemicsound.com free to use on Youtube for a reasonable monthly fee, and sometimes I suffer you with my own music.

To hear my Bahá’i INSPIRED SONGS, (and others) GO TO:
https://soundcloud.com/jrwren/sets/bahai-inspired-songs

I now have three Facebook Pages
MUSIC
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61574964972375

ART WORK
https://www.facebook.com/Johnnealartist/

Hello, it’s John Nil here. It’s Wednesday, the 23rd of July, 2025, and I got a chance to go out for a nice ride today. And yeah, it’s going to be good. Well, I hope it’s going to be good. The weather looks a bit overcast, so fingers crossed. One of the things I want to do on this trip is one to take you out into the countryside. And uh yeah, it’s overcast. We’ve had such a lot of hot weather. I think we had three official heat waves here in Britain in 2025 so far. And there’s another one expected soon. But we have had some thunderstorms of late which is very very good for the gardens and no doubt the farmers. So I hope they’ve done well. Uh but I finally I think uh made all the uh changes and alterations and additions to my bike, my E Starly E28.9. and and one of them was a bit of a puzzle. So, I’m pleased to uh have everything sorted out. So, I thought I’d just go over them all because if you’ve uh got an E28.9 or maybe any of the other uh Early bikes, there might be one or two things that you want to consider. Uh just making some little alterations with Oh, hey, get this. E Star Darling might be seeing this and think, “Yeah, we’ll make those alterations ourselves before we sell you the bike.” They’re not major things. They’re just nice little things that I wanted to get done. Right, let’s just press on now. Hope it doesn’t rain. Heat. Heat. N. Always worth stopping to see if there’s anything to look at. And I have to say there is a field of cattle. There’s cows with calves here. And here is old daddy bull. O. Say hello again. Look at the size of him. He’s a big fella. If you thought vegetarians were weedy sort of folk, this fell is a vegetarian and he’s going for it as you can see. Magnificent animal really. And uh not easy to handle I would have thought. Heat. Heat. I think the time is right to just uh give a summary of all the bits and pieces I’ve done to the brand new and we got this in March. Brand new Estali E28.9. And when you get it straight from the factory, of course, it will settle in as you ride it. I’ve done about 600 miles so far since March, where we are now, July. So March, April, May, June, July, only four months. Done quite a bit in it. But yeah, it settles down a bit. Um, one thing I did notice, I think some of the spokes with my slimline version of a heavyweight, um, yeah, they they settle in. So, it’s well worth going over the spokes just to check that they are all the right tension. You can actually hit them with um a screwdriver or something and get a sound from them to get the tone right and that works. So, one or two, there’s one in particular was almost completely loose. So, I did that. All right, come back to the top. Um the handlebars, um the grips on the end. I bought these uh they’re on the other bike and they’re very very good. um much more comfortable than what they they issued the the bike with. They do them similar but not quite as big as these. So, those were really good. Um I put the mirror on the side here which works superbly well. Very very pleased with that. Um then the iPhone fits on the stand the fitting which is on the middle of the the the stem here. And so I had to buy a new uh case for the iPhone which works extremely well. It’s solid. Lovely. That is right. Moving on. Of course, the saddle is the old Brook saddle. I had that about 10 years now. And I always put this on whatever bike I get. Uh moving down here. Um the pedals, the pedals were uh 4 in 50 mil. um which is what I want. But I think prior to that they were slightly narrow. Three three and a half I think. Anyway, I put these on and they’re fine. They’re not particularly free running. They’re not bad. So, I did those. Uh the chain wheel on the front here was 38 teeth and I found it a bit too small. the gearing even on the smallest um uh socket on the back of the cassette there uh was still a bit low. So, um I changed it to 42, which seems a bit better. So, the chain wheel is um 42 teeth now. And I’ve recently cleaned the uh chain as best I could and waxed it. I hadn’t waxed the chain before, but um I did so and um it seems to be pretty good. Um I’m pleased with that as well. And finally, the reason I think I brought all this together because after a while um I had a mysterious clicking sound uh from the bottom bracket. I thought it was certainly on the turn of the pedals and it turns out that it was the tightness of the crank, the pedal crank on the bottom bracket there. So, I tightened the these um even more with I think it was about an 8 mil uh Allen uh screw Allen key and they t it turned a couple of turns on this side. So, that was causing it to creek and make a noise. So, there you go. That’s uh all the amendments I’ve had to make. So I think it was only right to go over all the bits and pieces which would be in a way servicing the bike uh having ridden it in. So when you get it from the factory, um you know, the spokes in particular and the cranks, um they seem to bed in and they will need some attention, but mostly to tighten them up a bit cuz as you ride it that they tend to um move a little bit, even though they’ve tightened them up, I’m sure to the specification they should, but as you use it, things loosen up a bit, and it’s well worth going over them, particularly the cranks and the spokes. So otherwise the brakes are absolutely fine. Um yeah, everything’s great. So really pleased with it and um let’s press on, shall we? I’ve got a a distance to get home and for and fortunately it is not threatening to rain anymore. I tell you what though, I got stung by a wasp and me finger is it’s suddenly bigger than the others. Ah, right. Anyway, such is life. Right, let’s press on, shall we? This, of course, is the point where you would expect me to turn to you and say goodbye. Hi, thanks for watching. However, I pressed the wrong button and best I can do now is say, “Yep, you’ll see me next time.” And yeah, there’s some grass blowing in the wind and some flowers. Goodbye. You’ll see me next time. Oh, I forgot to mention I’m about 20 people short of 2,000 subscribers. So, please subscribe. You’ll make an old man very happy.