Frames

[RevDon]

Conventional, BMX, Mountain Bike, Suspended/Rigid, Recumbent/Trike.
I have to confess, due to my advancing years, and after reading Knoxie's post on the KMX, I'm starting to lean toward a recumbent trike I've logged thousands of miles in my day on conventional tourers and mountain bikes, and a more laid back approach looks really inviting. Then I started shopping them It looks like I might start thinking of trading my old boat for a welder and building my own
Which brings me back to the subject: In your opinion, for your chosen style of bike, what would comprise the perfect frame for you I know that I've already broached this subject, and I'll repost what's been suggested, minus TD's Uma Thurman comment , and we'll take it from there.

[Drunkskunk]

I prefer the hybrid style. a cross over between the mountian bike, and the road bike. Generaly anything with a MTN bike or a beach cruiser style frame, but bilt for the road works for me. Front suspension and seatpost suspension are a must for me. rear suspension would be nice, but it an expensive optionon for frames that run 700c rims that I prefer.

[RevDon]

I'm including these links purely for thought provocation:

http://www.streetsurfer.com.au/home/

http://www.gizmag.com/go/5541/

http://www.triker.com/index.htm

[RevDon]

From what I gathered from my previous post on the subject, here's what you would like to see in a pupose-built E-Bike frame:

Dual suspension with both disc and v brake options and rear shock mounted to rear of seat tube.

Triangulated frame with oversized tubing to hide cables and batteries.

Low center of gravity.

Battery, motor and touque arm mounts.

Long wheelbase and slightly increased rake.

Heavy-duty dropouts wide enough for hubmotors.

Forward mounted crank / recumbent style.

Please feel free to add your own.

Don

[recumbent]

If we are talking trikes, http://lightfootcycles.com Have an electric trike that meet most criteria.
LWB recumbent bikes made by many different companies have all the comfort and meet most criteria but the price is $2000 higher than most want to pay, (and i can't blame them) even though frames last for many decades. Recumbents are not mass produced so consequently they are higher priced. The extended wheel base also make them a natural spring and glide through turns, ride one and you will never look at another bike, unless your trail riding then a suspended MTB is best.
Maybe one frame cannot meet all criteria is the correct answer.

[Drunkskunk]

Personaly I think for the perfect frame, we should stay away from recumbant, trikes, and any of the non traditional designs. The bike should look to be as accessable as possable to as many people as possable.

This might be trading some preformance for asthetics, but Most people aren't obsessed with preformance. They want biking to be about the experiance. And most of the uneducated masses look at recumbants and trikes as something strange, forign, and to be feared. Never underestimate the average person obsession with conformity.

So you make the bike look something like the bike they rode when they were 10. Something like every other bike being riden in the park. Something like the ideal bike that is in the back of their mind when they think the word "Bike" Don't scare them with strange layouts or styles, or overwhelm them by chalanging there definition of what a bike is, and you'll have a product accessable to the general masses.


Think AMC Pacer here. Technilogicly surpassed everything else at the time in its class, and should have redefined automobiles. The size of a mid sized sedan on the inside, but with the outside demintions of an econo car. Great visability, good gas milage, a V8, and features like a longer door on the passanger's side to ease back seat access, but short on the driver side to reduce the risk opening it into trafic.
And it was a total flop. it challanged people's definition of what a car is just too much, and people stayed away in droves.

[Ypedal]

Hey.. how about a Modular-In-A-Box type frame !

Ebikes are not going to be mass produced, and shipping a bike frame is an issue ( Large.. = Cubing = Weight Adjustment because the box is larger than heavy )

With a modular, assemble at home ( Either thread into each other or various ways of assembly )

Personally i would like the frame to lock the battery pack in place.

Have the whole bike adjustable, for wheel size from 20" to 700C ..

The frame could be made in such a way that the basic crank/headtube/body can be adapted to a trike from the pivot point of the suspension onward.

Headset : Use the standard Threadless sizes so that a front suspension fork with disk brakes can be bolted on if a rear motor is used..

Nutserts : Have re-inforced threaded mounts ( Like the water bottle mounts.. ) for Cyclone or battery brackets to stay attached safely. )

This might be the point i get into MS-Paint and make a fool of myself.

[TylerDurden]

Great idea

I use speedrail for all sorts of temporary and permanent structures (much larger pipe), but a similar connector system would be neat.



Skip MSPain and get GIMP: free, and kicksass:
http://www.gimp.org
(downloads avail. for win/mac/nix/lix)

[RevDon]

I recently found this very simple, well-designed 'bent that has features like through-the-frame cable routing. Very clean and clever
http://www.maxarya.com/phpcode/index.php

[recumbent]

So you make the bike look something like the bike they rode when they were 10.

You mean a three speed mustag frame with banana seat? I kid.

"Optibike" has a full suspension, monocoque "Y" frame, the batteries are inside the main down tube. Cheap, use standard front forks, mass producable, and easy to ship.

please don't compare recumbent bikes to a pacer It's a proven super comfortable designed bike with 40% less wind resistance.

[mvadventure]

IMHO Drunkskunk has hit it on the head. Take the rocket science out of the appearance, use Ypedals design idea of frame enclosed (but accessible) batteries and make it reliable with a BIG seat.

Unfortunately, again IMHO, I don't think there is enough demand out there today to justify the creation and distribution of such a beast. A brief visit to http://largoscooters.com/electricbikes.html will show you a few excellent designs that accomplish most goals of price, comfort, stealth and dependability. These are bikes that are already created, ready to ship and are probably selling in limited quantities over the internet.

Were the demand there I believe we would be seeing these in LBS's, Big Box Stores and on our local streets and bike paths. As it is, in my community which is a city of over 50,000, I have seen ONE electric bike besides my own in 13 years. Plus I live in Florida, land of flat streets, excellent bike paths, sidewalks, bike lanes on roadways, six weeks of a mild winter and a hill is a bridge.

My bike will, on occasion, generate a question or two but only one person has asked me where to get one and when I told them how much it cost the light was going out of their eyes. That person however has a personal grudge against paying bridge tolls and may buy one just to beat paying a two dollar toll every day. (no tolls for bikes)

Sorry, didn't mean to be negative. Plus I do believe great marketing, a great reasonably priced dependable product with a 20 mile, 20 MPH range, would succeed if it were backed up by local service. Until then I also believe most EBikes will be sold over the internet to folks like us who seek them out and want to learn as well as ride.

Do your own man on the street interviews and ask your friends what the difference is between a volt and an amp. Ask them how much gas would have to go up in order for them to give up their cars or motorcycles to ride a ebike. I don't think you'll like the answers.

Mike

[recumbent]

As it is, in my community which is a city of over 50,000, I have seen ONE electric bike besides my own in 13 years.

Those are surprisingly low figures for ebikes in your warm cycling enviroment. Compared to our 30,000 pop. city, we have about 12 ebikes here (two are mine ) and more every year. But I live in a dry climate, perhaps the humidity is scaring the people away. I've had folks frown on the idea of my electric bikes though, mostly young people. It's not very popular that's for sure. Those cheap $399 premade electric bikes get used only one year and turn into landfill What a bad reputation that instills on peoples minds.

[RevDon]

Here's a link to a site where engineering student Bob Dold built an electric trike as his Master's thesis at Western New England College. As you'll see, it's a very well built trike, with all the details.
http://zeept.wordpress.com/

[mvadventure]

We just came back at the beginning of the month from a five week long boat trip where we used our E-Scooters as ground transportation everywhere we went. The scooters were well received everywhere, generated lots of questions and performed admirably. We visited: Fernandina Beach, FL, Savannah, GA, Hilton Head, SC, Beaufort, SC and Jekyll Island, GA and saw no other electric vehicles.

We had a wonderful experience at a mall in Hilton Head where the security officers saw us entering the mall, flagged us down and asked if we would like a secure place to park. One of the officers commented he had two almost identical scooters in his garage but had never used them. He bought them as a lark, drove them a time or two around the neighborhood and there they sat. The security office also had a new unused Segway in it. They didn't like it.

There is a huge flea market, absolutely huge, in Daytona, FL. A couple of vendors there sell e-scooters and a few bikes but despite being in Daytona frequently I have never seen one. About ten days ago my wife and I, while in the car, spotted eight or ten brightly colored e-scooters, apparently for sale in Flagler Beach, FL, just down the road from us. We didn't have time to stop but I rode my bike down there the next day (got plenty of range with the new LiPO4's) and the area they were in was empty and I haven't seen them return.

Scooters, at least the kind we have that look like a mini Vespa, lack the range to make them very practical, at least with stock batteries. Being very careful we got one 9 mile run while at Hilton Head and my wife's was dead by the time we got back to the boat. With stock batteries I believe 8 miles is the maximum safe distance for an average weight individual. I get a little more as know how to conserve power but my wife doesn't and really doesn't want to learn. Plus, and this is a big plus, they fail to meet the definition of an ebike and would be hazardous on most roadways. We try hard to stay on sidewalks whenever possible.

What I do see are lots of regular bicycles with "beach bikes" outnumbering the rest by 90%. All ages, both sexes, all over the place but no ebikes and certainly no e-scooters. In my neighborhood there are a couple of electric Schwinn scooters that children ride, one gas stand up scooter and lots of bicycles but I live on an island, in a gated community and we have a small population percentage of children. No adults on anything resembling a scooter. Harley's, cars and bicycles but no ebikes or scooters.

Perhaps they're out there and I just keep missing them. That is certainly possible but my daughter rides her bike with all three of her children quite a bit and she's never seen any but mine.

However marketing would undoubtedly make a difference. Resort areas are allegedly blessed with ebike/e-scooter rentals but these are areas where they can be serviced and don't require much range. If I invested 100K in stock, rented a storefront, got licensing and insurance, hired a mechanic/helper, I would plan at least 50K more in advertising and not be too surprised if I lost the whole thing. A storefront with demo rides however may be just what our local market needs instead of either internet sales or someone selling out of a flea market or garage. Problem is that folks who want exercise will ride their regular bike and those that don't tend to climb into their car. Getting them to enjoy and want to keep the EVGrin is the real challenge.

I would love to be proven wrong.

Mike

[Jay64]

I agree with some of the points made earlier. Most people don't really care about the technical side of the bike. They don't care what it can do. I think most people with this mentality get a beach cruiser style bike. Those seem to be the most popular designs with the general population.

[RevDon]

So.... lately I've become intrigued with the concept of carving frames, and I'm obviously not the only one. Even Yamaha has recently intro'd a 4-wheel carving concept with a narrow configuration. Will include pics when I get the chance.
Don

[flip_normal]

If we want ebikes and light evs to become a popular form of transport then we've got to come up with a design which is tailored towards commuters. Short trips to and from work account for a very large proportion of all journeys and many of these take place in urban areas where pollution from gas vehicles is an unpleasant and unhealthy aspect of city life.

I think that the tadpole tilting three wheeler design is the way to go. Two wheels up front mean it's harder to skid the front wheels when cornering which is a lot worse than letting the back slide out a bit and also allows for quicker breaking. Four wheels adds weight and rolling resistance which for a bike needs to be minimised and if you want more than 750W (200-250W in the UK ) then that adds a load of red tape as it would be classed as a car rather than a motorcycle or moped which are subject to a lot less rules and regulations in order to get them registered. Although if the vehicles speed was restricted it could probably be classed as a neighbourhood vehicle.

Here's an example of a tadpole TTW. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNAipmCKj2M&feature=user

Then there's the Piaggio mp3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjPEu0n2Kbc

I'd like to know the exact stipulations of their patent to see if there's room for us to create an open source design for a narrow tilting tadpole three wheeler.

---------------------------------------------

Then again if you just want a kick ass ebike then you could probably do a lot worse than this frame on ebay, if you can afford the price tag. Lots of room for batteries in the frame triangle there.

[RevDon]

New Suspension Trend: Reverse Shocks. They work opposite of a regular shock absorber; pulling rather than pushing, which makes for some interesting suspension possibilities as seen here: http://www.gizmag.com/hillbilly-motors- ... onos/8520/ This particular bike also uses the wheel drive sprocket as a disc brake Now that's clever

[RevDon]

Here's a great video showing a tilting/carving trike: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjbIAVla ... re=related

[diode]

If I'm understanding this thread, it's about what your personal preference is in a e-bike frame and setup. I tried making an e-bike out of a Bike-E for a couple of years. It was hell mainly because the bike is not standardized in its design.

I ended up with a Sun EZ-1 bike. While not perfect, I love riding this bike and hope to improve it in the future with a new design. The good parts: it accepts a standard rack for the back, and a pannier rack that mounts under the seat. While I have my battery on the rack at the moment, I plan on having two batteries mounted in ammo cans on the underseat pannier racks, leaving the rear rack free for cargo.

I also plan to put the controller and other electronics there under the seat between the pannier racks.

One aspect of bikes is their cargo usefulness. Without being capable of carrying big amounts of groceries and other items, they are just toys really. The Xtracycle fits the bill for me. Unfortunately, an Xtracycle won't fit on recumbents with slanted rear tubes and 20" wheels. There is a larger version of the Sun which has a 26" rear wheel. I think the Xtracycle would work on that.

This would be the perfect bike for me. 72V of LifePO4 in secure ammo cans under the seat on the panniers, controller and other electronics in waterproof container under the seat. 12DC converter so I can run lights and LED's. Xtracycle in rear can hold cargo with hub motor mounted in rear 26" wheel.

Add a double-kick stand, some kind wind screen/shield, bell and you've got a heck of a ride. Multipurpose, fast as heck. Carry the chargers on board and you can charge anywhere. Plus get several sacks of groceries home no problem.

Building a frame to do this would be superior to adding an Xtraycle due to weight and straight considerations, but I think it would probably hold up. Disc brakes in the front would be a nice touch.