-WAYNE'S TADPOLE TRIKE-

Made some mods to the aluminum seat mast for support to fit the contour of the seat and back rest. The cedar seat will get a coating of resin and fiberglass cloth and a thin layer of foam. This will be a tempory arrangment to see how it all feels before making the final seat. I need some kind of a seat in place to see where the chain idlers will need to go.

Steering and brakes are now in place. These Avid Mechanical calipers are old friends. I have bought these I think the first year they came out back in 1999 and they have worked flawless for 15 years. I have moved them from bike to bike over the years and they just refuse to die or let me down. The thick aluminum plate came in handy for making up some adaptors to install the brakes. The plate was think enough I could tap for a M6 machine screw and then I just went with 1/4" stainless nuts and M screws for the attachment to the steering arms. The seat will get some foam on it so I can take it for a test ride down the drive way and check out the steering and braking.

Thank the Lord for washers and sand paper, there was a lot of tweaking to do for the steering and braking bits and pieces. After the seat instal comes the layout for chain issues as I will need to order some idlers for keeping the chain line looking and sounding good. While the idlers are being shipped I can chip away at the electric part of the bike and in theory ride it once its powed up and then complete the chain issues last of all.

Seat is now riveted in place. Feels fairly comfortable. The last photo is of the battery box.

I will get the electrics working before the pedal assist as I am buying some nice store bought chain idlers from Terracycle and I need these idlers before putting the chain on the trike. Its getting very tempting now to take it out for a spin even if I have to push it up a hill somewhere to see how the steering and braking work but I may as well wait until its at least got electric power to the rear wheel.

View attachment 1Frist test ride today. Works well under electric power. 26mph on the flat with no pedal assist which is pretty much what I expected. Just a little bit of tweeking so the brake lever handles dont rub on the tires when in full turn and I then I will put it up on blocks till the chain idlers arrive. The attached photo here shows the power idlers I have ordered from Terracycle.

Who needs a chain? 8)

Nice. A milestone day!

The trike is now done. Power idlers and tube return is now in place for the pedal assist. The idlers have around 5/8" of float which is nice. Everything seems to be in order running things throught the gears on the bench so I will be looking forward to test driving the bike when the weather gets a little better. We have had huge rain falls over the last few days and I actually found 10" of water in the crawl space under the shop yesterday.

Not exactly a thriller but a short video of the trike in action here ....... http://youtu.be/i3Li8I684YI

Wow, its almost a year now since I started the build on this project. The trike has worked really well with only a few little bugs to work out. I don't ride it that much as I am I guess more of a two wheeler than a three wheeler type. 30mph on the flats is doable with a pedal assist from the 50 tooth ring up front giving a nice cadence that is not too fast at these speeds. The little mac works real nice on this bike and the two discs brakes up front is all you need.

I am posting here to give a quick update on how the bike is doing and also to get a feel from forum members what it may be worth should I decide to sell it. Like I say I dont ride it enough to have it sitting around when I could maybe fund an new hill climbing two wheeler project that I would use more than the tadpole.

I have sold a few bikes over the years to members on the forum and shipping was a super pain with our Canadian Postal rates, so with the size of this bike and all, I figure it would be best for a local sale if I sell it at all. So I am wondering what to ask for it before I decide weather to sell. I figure if I got $3000 canadian I would most likely do that and start planning a mountain bike hill climber of some sort. If its only worth $2000 I would just save it for the future grand kids to ride around on (supervised of course).

The electric stuff on the bike that would be included in the bike sale of course is......
Mac 10t from cell man complete with controller and version 3 CA. The battery pack is the 14.3ah 14s 18650 with the pre charge etc in place. Everything is in awesome shape ready to roll.

Any feed back on the price is what I am looking for right now. If I decide to sell it I will post it in the for sale section.
......wayne

Just doing a quick look through Utah Trikes...
A basic frame kit is $900
A cheap trike is $1000
A decent trike is $1500-$2000 (and prices go up steeply from there.)
Their KMX + Falco motorized trike is ~$3000

None of those have suspension.

waynebergman said:

I figure if I got $3000 canadian I would most likely do that and start planning a mountain bike hill climber of some sort.

Click to expand...

You are likely right on target, IMO.
Good Luck, and I'll look forward to your next build.

What a nice build, completely missed this until now.
What was the reasoning behind going the alu-route over alternatives for this build?

Thanks Wheazel. The reason behind the aluminum was partly for welding the rear swing arm assembly to the frame as this swing arm is aluminum and also I just like the ease of cutting 6061 and the welding process with it. I prefer to work with aluminum when I can over steel.

Trike is now for sale, details shown here https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=72685

FOR SALE - $3000.00 BOB TRAILER INCLUDED......I would prefer to sell in the greater Vancouver area but I would consider shipping if needed.

Went for a nice ride today as the sun was out. Trike is working well. I wanted to post a current picture as the look has changed slightly with the leather storage bag at the back of the seat and also the trailer. You can easily put 20 or 30 pounds of stuff in this trailer and the BOB tote bag is waterproof for holding your groceries or camping gear.

you have all my admiration, great craftsmanship.

Its a lot of work for 3000$ and 1 year of your time imo.

Trike is sold pending some shipping details. ..........wayne

Very nice! Any thoughts of building another one? front suspension?

G.

Thanks gman, no nothing in the works for me but they are super fun. For me there was not a great place to ride it as our local roads up my way are getting full of pot holes. Yes the front suspension would be cool and I really like the Steintrikes with the tilting front suspension but very pricey. I read in one of your posts you are building a trike as well? Good luck with yours and I hope you keep a build thread for everyone to see. It will be interesting if you go with the high rev mid drive with all the long chain drive train and how that will respond to the high revs. It was interesting reading your thread the other night how you and motomoto have the super hi revs and how this can actually help the life of sprockets etc. I learned something there I did not know. .........wayne

waynebergman said:

Thanks gman, no nothing in the works for me but they are super fun. For me there was not a great place to ride it as our local roads up my way are getting full of pot holes. Yes the front suspension would be cool and I really like the Steintrikes with the tilting front suspension but very pricey. I read in one of your posts you are building a trike as well? Good luck with yours and I hope you keep a build thread for everyone to see. It will be interesting if you go with the high rev mid drive with all the long chain drive train and how that will respond to the high revs. It was interesting reading your thread the other night how you and motomoto have the super hi revs and how this can actually help the life of sprockets etc. I learned something there I did not know. .........wayne

Click to expand...

Ahh, pot holes, speak of which today I flat a tire b/c one of those... they are everywhere! and now that spring is almost back the roads are going to warm up and crack to shreds...

Yes, I am building a trike, well, or more like I got a bunch of parts ATM, and the frame should arrive by Friday so hopefully I get to put it together this weekend. I really think they are super fun, and super comfortable too, which my left hand will appreciate

Speaking of front suspension, another member here has built a front suspension for the KMXs trikes so I'll probably end up getting that so the potholes aren't as much of a problem as they could be Have you tried a KMX trike? I was set on that one due to the steel frame for ebike application.

G.

NO I only have tried one other trike and that was a catrike and it was nice. My home built was just as nice IMO however. It worked pretty good.

waynebergman said:

NO I only have tried one other trike and that was a catrike and it was nice. My home built was just as nice IMO however. It worked pretty good.

Click to expand...

Those welding skills came in handy ... I'll be posting some pics of the trike build this weekend... I really can't wait!

G.