Ebike towing a bike

Alan B

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I've joked about towing a bicycle up a steep hill with my ebike, but is there actually a safe way to do it? It seems like a tow line with some shock absorbing material and a quick release would mitigate some issues, but overall it is just dangerous.

One safe way to do it is with a tow bar/torque tube that lifts the towed bike's front wheel off the ground and turns it into a one wheel trailer and makes it part of the tow bike's balance equation. But this is not a practical solution to carry around, and an adapter that could fit various frames would be bulky and heavy.

Edit - the goal here is to have something small and light that can be carried to enable safe towing of another bike and rider. It should be easily releasable, and it should not present a risk of getting tangled in the wheels.
 
Ive towed my mate several times up a 2.5km hill with just a rope and upto speeds of 45kph without any problems but you need to be smart about it and understand what can happen if something goes wrong, Luckly we havnt had any problems at all yet.

I tie some 12mm yatching rope to my seat about 3 meters long and my mate wraps it around his handle bar as close to the middle as possible but only 1 wrap then with his left hand he holds the rope tucked under his thumb and to release the rope he just has to lift his thumb and it releases.

You can feel it very easily when he lets go of the rope and i just reach back and loop it up with my left hand and bring the loops forward and place them over the left hand side grip without any dramas YET.

You can see the rope in this photo that i use20140919_144149.jpg
 
The only time I towed anybody, it was at about 8 mph. Towing a trike, that was pulling a large trailer with a playhouse full of kids. Into a 35 mph wind, at the Christmas bike parade.

We just had a short rope, each of us hanging on. Towed him about 3 miles, and felt like it was tearing my arm right off.

Ever do it again, I want to tie the rope to my bike, and let him hang on. One has to, to keep it safe.

There are ways to do a quick release, it's common for hot air balloon tie offs at the launch. But the hardware is a bit pricy.
 
We tow our trikes quite often when they break on the trail. I use a rope about 10 feet long with and old inner tube as the bungee. You get a soft start because the rubber stretches and a good tow. Obviously a trike can tow slower than a 2 wheeler.
otherDoc
 
Funny this topic turned up--I just posted over in an E-vents thread (after this was started but before I read it) a way I've used to haul parts-bikes home before, both on pedal bikes and on DayGlo Avenger (in various incarnations).

http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=66590&p=1025958#p1025958

amberwolf said:
thewmatusmoloki said:
I can easily get down to Broadbeach, but getting the extra bike there is logistically problematic as I'll be on my ebike.
If it's not a front hubmotor, that's relatively easy, depending on your ebike's rearend design.

Take the front wheel off, and secure it to the seat/triangle of the bike. (no rider, so it's not in the way of anything).

Hook the forks around your own bike's chainstays, up at whatever point the stays are narrower than the fork dropouts, so it looks like it's "mounting" your bike. ;)

Run ties (I prefer cargo strap tiedowns, cuz they can be cranked tight, but paracord or other non-stretchy stuff works too) from the handlebars of the towed bike down around the stays or the seatpost or the seattube/toptube junction (whcihever your biek has free that doesnt' interfere with your rear wheel), to prevent the towed bike from shifting around.

If you have one you can also take an old regular bike front wheel hub (no spokes/rim) and secure it in the droputs of the fork on the *inside* of the seatstays of your bike, so that it can't possibly come off your bike. You'll still want the tie from it's bars around some part of your bike though.


If you had a narrow enough rear wheel and wide enough front fork on the other bike, you could bolt it's fork's dropouts down to your rear axle, but that doesn't usually work.



Another way I did it once I had my flat rack on DGA, and the cargo box, was to take the stem out, fork off, install fork upside down (wheel still in it) and handlebars under the headtube, then put the bars on top of the rack and secure them to it. Since I was almost always taking the bikes apart when I got home anyway, to be used for pieces for other things, it didnt' matter that I was un-adjusting things, or taking bits off, etc.
 
This thread reminded me of the "bicyclebungee" which I kinda thought was silly, maybe I'm wrong!:
http://www.bicyclebungee.com/

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[youtube]dtmT1KJQdMI[/youtube]
 

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hei guys ! I take that occasion to show you my epic ebike towing!!

I have towed JUSTIN in the Quebec famous red bull crashed ice step hill! in 2008 ! Justin ebike alone was 170 pounds according to him.

This was during his cross Canada trip! My ebike + the Justin ebike + us was about 600 pounds total !

it was with my Xlyte 5305 on a 24" and 12 fets old gen C-lyte controller 4110. 100A batt 88V nom ( about 8kW and a lot of torque !)

sorry for the damaged pictures.. these are the only I have and come from the time when the E-S server crashed..

file.php


file.php


file.php


file.php


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I will never forget that epic moment !!!

Here is the original thread https://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6776

Doc
 
Reseg said:
This thread reminded me of the "bicyclebungee" which I kinda thought was silly, maybe I'm wrong!:
http://www.bicyclebungee.com/

...

Cute, a $300 spooled spring cord. It has some good ideas in there, though it appears to be missing a couple of features that would improve it. But an interesting approach that solves some of the problems nicely.
 
Doctorbass said:
hei guys ! I take that occasion to show you my epic ebike towing!!

I have towed JUSTIN in the Quebec famous red bull crashed ice step hill! in 2008 ! Justin ebike alone was 170 pounds according to him.

This was during his cross Canada trip! My ebike + the Justin ebike + us was about 600 pounds total !

it was with my Xlyte 5305 on a 24" and 12 fets old gen C-lyte controller 4110. 100A batt 88V nom ( about 8kW and a lot of torque !)

...

I will never forget that epic moment !!!

Here is the original thread https://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6776

Doc

Nice job Doc!
 
I've towed a lot of bicycles (without rider), even two ebikes at once with a cargo ebike. You just need a rack that holds the front wheels next to the rear wheel of your leading bike. Turning is not great, but doable if not too sharp.

Rocket Electrics has done this during SXSW the past couple years because it's by far the quickest way to deliver rental ebikes. (I was the driver last year).
 
You can see me doing that a little bit at the end of this video, take some skill.. :)
http://vimeo.com/23343676

I towed 2 gasoline scooters about a mile with my ebike last fall too. Worked out surprisingly well. Both about 400 lbs a piece :)
 
I cable tied one of those extending god leads to the front of a normal bike

and then used to clip the dog end of it onto the seat of my ebike

we've towed the normal bike for 20+ miles total, never had a problem with it


the extending dog lead means it retracts itself when the rear bike catches up on the ebike in front... so there's no rope to run over or get tangled up in your wheel etc.. :)
 
When I ride with non-ebikes that want a boost up a hill, I just ride up next to them, put my hand on their back, and push them up the hill. Can't really pedal while pushing though and there's a limit to how steep of a hill I can pull it off on. Similar limit to what the power of my setup is capable of though anyways.
 
I've towed a couple of guys and been towed myself. We just grab the jacket of the towed guy with one arm and steer, brake and throttle with the other. The towed guy has full control of his bike. Obviously your towing arm will ache after a bit, so this is only suitable for emergency towing up to about 5 miles.
 
I like that rig mundo! Need that when I'm biking around to the garage sales. But really, I tend to buy half a bike a lot more than a whole one. So I just ride home carrying a frame in one hand, or carry it across a cargo deck.
 
This guy's trailer business originates in my city. I've seen his trailers sporting anything and everything, all without electric assistance.
http://www.bikesatwork.com/
bicycle-on-bike-trailer.jpg
Here's one of his customers using the trailer for his bike repair business:
craig-corson-carrying-one-bike-1.jpg
 
The goal here is a little different from where the conversation is going.

The goal is to be able to carry something (fairly small and light) to enable towing someone else, possibly a stranger, for whatever reason, and do it safely and effectively. It should minimize danger to both parties, and it can't take a lot of volume or space to enable having it along most of the time.

What would you use to help out a stranger? Is it just too dangerous to offer?
 
Ah, that changes things quite a bit.


In that case, none of my post above is relevant, and I'd say that the "best" solution is that on the cargo bike by Mundo. It's small, not in the way, foldable, (or could be made to be if it's not already), shoudl be strong enough (or could be made to be) to hold a bike with rider on it, and could be made to ride low enough to not make it impossible/unsafe for rider to stay on their bike.

It would be pretty lightweight to build, and as long as you already have a securely mounted sturdy non-wiggling rack on the bike, not much would be needed to attach this to it.

If you don't have that, you'd have to build such a rack / frame to attach this to, short of the way ti's attached to that bike in the pics.



The other methods of "tying" or cabling one bike to another with a rider on the other one would only be "safe" if the cable were autoretracting to reel up the excess whenenver distances get shorter for any reason, and if the rider of the towed bike has control of releasing the cable instantly if they (or the tower) should start to fall or crash, so as not to pull down the other, too. Or for emergency maneuvers.
 
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