The Bike:
I wrote about the bike
in this build thread. On High sun I was charging at a max of about 400W. Under Normal daytime conditions, I was charging about 275 - 350 W. I tried to keep the voltages close to 50V; but in the Rockies that wasn't possible.
The only time It shut off was on a cloudy climb to Gruffey CO. I had to find a sunny spot and park and read for about a half hour (I was almost to my stop for the night).
this really was the ACA recommended Bike Hostel. It turned out to be a great place.
Obviously, I did a lot of climbing. The electrics did fine. I would have liked more solar collection. As far as the core trike, a Performer Trike-e (the "e" does not signify electric, it is just a name), it was not up to the trip.
I was never able to get the alignment worked out. That is partly on me; but they should have written some instructions for getting it right (yes, I researched it and tried the many differing methods online).
On day one I hit a horrid road cut in a construction detour. I thought the trike was just reacting to a steep crown; but it was pulling strongly to the right.
I then realized that I had shredded the right tyre and I could see the core. That was where I realized the the road bump had resulted in a bent tie-rod.
I did an eyeball adjustment and continued to Garden City KS. There I went to Dicks and they happended to have four tyres of the size I needed, but a larger width; I bought all four and tossed the spares in the trailer(a much improved ride). While changing the tyres I also found a piece of wood that fit perfectly for propping the trike up while changing tyres. I also threw that in the trailer for the duration.
The next breakage was a seat support. All I was able to do was apply epoxy and duct tape, tighten everything up real tight and continue on.
The next breakage was out if Pueblo CO. It was the first real grade.
According to ride with GPS, it maxed at 12.9%. The chain broke. I patched it and it broke again. I patched it and it broke again.
At that point I returned to Pueblo. I went to a bike shop that I had visited the previous day. On that day I wanted a larger rear gear for my NuVinci; but they didn't have one. This time I asked for a heavy duty chain.
They had one where the pins extend slightly past the side plates. It would have been unusable in a multi-gear system; but with the NuVinci It worked fine. I did spend about the next hour making adjustments so the trike could run that type of chain (the adjustments primarily consisted of removing various guides).
Other than those changes, my next real gripe was just that the brakes were barely up to the task on the long descents.
If I were to start with the same idea I would have used a KMX trike. The square tubing would have worked better for attaching the solar panels. I also think the direct steering would have been better for keeping the alignment true.
The NuVinci transmission, bafang drive, and solar bits worked fine.
