LI-ghtcycle
10 MW
A friend of mine forgot that both suspension and aluminum front forks are a bad thing with front hub motor and learned the hard way!
He's relatively ok, scrapes and bruises after his front forks breaking at the drop-outs with out warning at full speed (about 30MPH! ) sending him and the bike flying into the air and doing a 360 before crashing to the ground.
He MIGHT have been ok with some tork arms on that fork (I did my best to drill that into him, even gave him a set of steel forks to use that I had laying around) and I know some here have been able to use both aluminum and even aluminum suspension forks with a front hub motor, but just make sure you really watch those torque arms really close.
There is a reason why Dr Bass is making them with hardened steel, I was shocked to notice that what I thought was "over kill" in a torque plate being 1/4 inch thick, and noticing that even with just pedaling my NuVinci was starting to torque into this plate enough to cut the threads of the smaller axle into the plate, so I am going to be making new ones soon, and hardening them for when I am using my new motor.
I still think you're pushing your luck with good torque arms on each side and any kind of aluminum fork, and don't think just because you're not using a high powered E-Bike that you aren't pushing those drop outs to dangerous limits! It's the smaller diameter axles that have a better chance of spinning the axle since they have a greater fulcrum or mechanical advantage and put greater stress on drop-outs.
My friend might have been hurt a lot worse!
I know it's been said many times before, but especially this time of year with so many new people to E-Biking, I wanted to mention this and hopefully save people some grief!
He's relatively ok, scrapes and bruises after his front forks breaking at the drop-outs with out warning at full speed (about 30MPH! ) sending him and the bike flying into the air and doing a 360 before crashing to the ground.
He MIGHT have been ok with some tork arms on that fork (I did my best to drill that into him, even gave him a set of steel forks to use that I had laying around) and I know some here have been able to use both aluminum and even aluminum suspension forks with a front hub motor, but just make sure you really watch those torque arms really close.
There is a reason why Dr Bass is making them with hardened steel, I was shocked to notice that what I thought was "over kill" in a torque plate being 1/4 inch thick, and noticing that even with just pedaling my NuVinci was starting to torque into this plate enough to cut the threads of the smaller axle into the plate, so I am going to be making new ones soon, and hardening them for when I am using my new motor.
I still think you're pushing your luck with good torque arms on each side and any kind of aluminum fork, and don't think just because you're not using a high powered E-Bike that you aren't pushing those drop outs to dangerous limits! It's the smaller diameter axles that have a better chance of spinning the axle since they have a greater fulcrum or mechanical advantage and put greater stress on drop-outs.
My friend might have been hurt a lot worse!
I know it's been said many times before, but especially this time of year with so many new people to E-Biking, I wanted to mention this and hopefully save people some grief!