Chicken... meet egg. My trike quandary

[fatty]

i dont pedal and lost 30lbs just because it gets you out the door :wink:

 

[bcsteeve]

Doctors don't care about power since the mass needed to get there is still a liability. I was assuming they preferred you get down to normal weight for medical reasons -- especially orthopedics.

Fair enough. I think the primary concern is the 30 pounds of fluff I've put on since the accident in November. I would hope (maybe not?) that if they actually felt I had 90 pounds to lose, that there'd be discussions of intervention.

 

[bcsteeve]

Agree that the stock brakes/shock are a waste. Just a question of paying highest markup for something that probably isn't quite perfect or what you would choose, or actually choosing it yourself..

Gotcha. I hadn't considered that there might be better options than what they are offering. That's my inexperience Their "max" option for brakes were BB7, which admittedly means nothing to me. If BB7 isn't that great anyway, then you're absolutely right.

 

[bcsteeve]

i dont pedal and lost 30lbs just because it gets you out the door :wink:

right on. And really, that's it, isn't it. I've gained 30 pounds pretty much solely because I'm around the house ALL THE TIME. That fridge starts to look like a solution for boredom sometimes. There's positive impact from just getting out and doing anything.

phaserunner is the controller from grin

Thanks

if you do the math in Canadian pesos youll be at or a little under $10k

That works for me, if it gives me the capabilities I'm looking for. But as Fatty wisely suggested... I should slow my roll a little bit and get some hands-on first, then decide to buy, then upgrade as required.

guy had a like new/used trike (fat tad full suspension) on the island just before xmas for $1200

Oh man, don't tell me that!

 

[LewTwo]

Ps. I remember trying so hard to buy that first model Insight (wow, that was TWENTY years ago!). Back then, the local Honda dealer made it impossible. I didn't understand the politics behind it at the time. I just remember thinking how stupid it was that they're saying things like, "you're the 100th person to ask about it, but no we can't get them". So glad those days are behind us.

The politics were simple: Cost Honda 25K to build them and they sold them for 20K

 

[amberwolf]

Well, see that's what I'm trying to figure out. That's my definition of "off road". Sure, they are true mountain bike trails, and yeah I'm expecting the trike to handle that. That's where some of my confusion comes from, because I see Utah Trikes videos of them "offroading" and they are casually going down gentle slopes of well manicured lawns. On the other hand, there are still photos suggesting some of these things can be genuine rock crawlers.

"rock crawler" and "offroad" aren't really the same thing. A rock crawler does that--it crawls over rocks, usually big ones. well-articulated suspensions and such are typical of the motor vehicles I've seen like that. Offroad bikes, atvs, etc., are typically made to perform at speed on rough ground.

The thing to remember is that a vehicle of a reasonable price tag is typically good at a small range of things, such as being able to ride slowly over rough terrain, or quickly over smooth, etc. Suspension design may have to be "tuned" for a particular application. As an example, you might have suspension perfectly good for the average gravel road and small bumps/holes, at typical bicycling speeds, that when you try to ride over rough terrain at those speeds (or slower, even) ends up bouncing you up in the air and making hard landings, etc. I don't have direct experience of that type of suspension and usage scenarios, so I'm not the one to really help select which suspension is best here--but I have seen the results of not having the right kind of suspension for the terrain. MadRhino probably could, and some ohters around here.

You can probably make one that can do "anything", but it isn't likely to be all that affordable.

Regarding promo materials...that's what they are--promoting and advertising and trying to sell you something, whether or not it's really suited for the purpose.

My brother found a youtube vid of some MB's riding a part of the trails around there, and those particular ones were far far too narrow for any trike I've ever seen, except *maybe* something as narrow as a skinny leaning trike like Hodala's here on ES and the like (though I don't know that the ones I've seen would survive being ridden like those MBs did :lol: ). The terrain looked pretty rough in places, and to keep from being bounced from side to side and rocked back and forth thrown around in the seat might require slower than walking speed on some of those places in that vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpVnaMtE7Xw
I'm sure it's not all like that there...but without being there I only have stuff like that to go on.

Exercise. The whole point is exercise. I wouldn't get electric assist, except that I know the terrain (even my driveway) is too steep for my deconditioned body. it would be pointless and discouraging. I think I'll be able to resist the throttle and only use what I need. Afterall, I'm pretty motivated to recovery and get back to where I was. My weight has ballooned because I haven't been able to do my regular activities.

I have expereinced that myself since getting sick last year (and previously for other reasons). What I would do is have some form of pedal torque control, so that pedal force can be used to "amplify" your power with the motor, giving you more assist the harder you have to push to get it.

A throttle is a good backup for when this just isn't enough, or you can't pedal for whatever reason, etc.

I've been working on setting up SB Cruiser to do this, but so far have had technical difficulties doing certain things with it (that will require extra hardware to be invented to fix), as well as life getting in the way. Eventually the idea will be to give me enough assist to let me get *some* excercise without pushing myself so hard I can't work when I get to work, or so hard that I cant' do more than collapse in bed when I get home, but to slowly build up myself to more and adjust the balance of assist to me over time.

So...for yours, you need a few things. You need a trike or bike that is geared (motor or not) such that your input will be signficant and sufficient to exercise you to the point you wish, *and* such that you can do what you ahve to without motor assistance, except on the worst-case stuff. This means a lot of low gears, for very slow climbing at high torque, while spinning your pedals at normal speed (or perhaps even faster if necessary, but never to have to really slow down and crank hard on them).

Then you need a motor system that you can control in a way that lets you get a good constant workout, so that it is really only assisting you, and not doing it for you. With just a throttle, it is very easy to make the mtoor do more work than you need (or want) it to, and not do enough yourself, if that's your goal. BBSxx systems have no way to do a pedal torque sensor directly, and just use either cadence or throttle. Cadence is great when you're riding on level roads, in traffic, etc., (works fine even for me and my stuff), but it isn't necessarily so great for the low (and variable!) speed hill climbing you want to do, unless you can keep shifting gears to keep your pedal speed constant enough to keep the motor power constant enough to let you keep your pedal force constant enough for the exercise to be constant.

Then that motor system has to be capable of handling the demands placed on it when necessary, for as long as necessary, without damaging itself.

I'm a little confused on what you're recommending.

I'm more discussing your options, and the reason for them, than recommending anything specific. Trying to give you more information to base decisions on, stuff you might not have thought of.

From my searching, I'd say that the vast majority of these tadpole trikes that are advertised as off-road use the Bafang BBSHD system and I think that's a mid-drive that's at the pedals, right?

Yes, it is. It replaces the whole crank spindle and cranks and pedals and chainrings with it's own. At a guess you would probably want to replace it's output chainring with as small a ring as you can fit on it, for the best torque you can get, rather than speed, since you won't be able to shift the front rings down to lower gears, only the back.

Then pick a back set of gears taht gives you the lowest ones you can get, even if this means losing some of the faster gearing options (limiting your speed).

That helps ensure you will have power to climb what you need to for your own legs or the motor or both, with less strain on the drivetrain and your legs and the motor.

I've never heard of the Stokemonkey you mention.

No surprise, it was never a hugely popular system becasue it doesn't fit on a standard bike frame, it requires more space and a longer frame (like on cargo bikes, trikes, etc). It's better for a number of use cases because it leaves you with your entire drivetrain intact, only changing out the left crank for a tandem crank that has a chainring on it for the SM motor to drive. That motor is typically a small hubmotor mounted in the frame instead of a wheel, but it could be any motor capable of low speed high torque that can have a bicycle chain sprocket installed on it to drive the crank chainring.

Grin Tech used to sell them, don't know if they still do. Clevercycles made it, or invented, or both, originally.

The alternative seems to be hub motors, but most say that it isn't suitable for my needs because it will burn out. Then there's the Grin hub motors that (at least say) they are a different animal and maybe give the best of both worlds?

The GAA motor is not really different in capabilities than many other similar-sized hubmotors, *except* that it is easy to mount on a tadpole trike's front wheels, which are often single-ended axles, *and* it has integrated torque arm on the stator mount itself instead of depending on axle flats to transmit the motor torque to the frame (which is how all the cheap stuff works). You can't mount a double-ended-axle hubmtoor on those because the axles are not strong enough to handle the loads that way, and will bend or break. So they are nearly the only hubmotor option for such trikes.

You can get much more powerful motors, though they weigh a lot more, and would require asking for a custom single-ended axle built into it from the manufacturer (like QSmotors' QS205-50H, if it had a single-ended axle, for instance).

I expect the GAA is high quality build, vs the average similar sized/capability hubmotor that is rather low quality.

I don't know what the actual power needs are to do what you want to do; I am too worn out to do the math.

If the trike you pick can use doulbe-ended axle motors then y ou ahve a lot more options, and even "cheap" hubmotors could be used, if the power requirements are not too high, because you could put two complete systems (not including battery) on there for $500-600 or less.

That would be nice, but almost everytime I try to price something out (for example, on Utah Trikes) it nets out closer t $10k. Then again, I don't know what options are really necessary. For example, it is like USD$1500 to upgrade to a Rohloff but I don't have any clue if that's necessary or advantageous or even detrimental. The Bafang would be around $1200 (including the battery, which they don't give specs for) and the trike itself starts at $2k so I can see how it can get expensive quickly. The Grin motor setup I think is $3-$4k for one and something like $5k for two, and that doesn't include the Trike. But maybe I'm overshooting?

A pair of those motors is only about a tenth of your worst-case budget, not including controllers (maybe moutning hardware, depends on what you need). Laced in a wheel would cost more, depending on the specific wheel (grin could tell you). If you got the highest end ready-to-roll kit listed, which includes a 52v 20Ah battery and a controller and cycle analyst and satiator cahrger and all the works, including fattire wheel build, it'd be about a quarter of your budget for each one...but it would also be ready to just plug in and go, more or less, depending on hardware needed to mount to your trike's single-ended axle. Two kits would thus be half your budget. YOu probably don't *need* two kits, but it would give you twice the battery (or a spare one; if you don't want the second it saves about $900 but you have to do some rewiring and find a place for the other controller since it would've gone in the cradle), and makes drive power and braking regen symmetrical.

The trike cost...I was estimating something simpler, I guess, when I said that. I'm used to building my own stuff out of used whatever-I-can-finds, so I don't usually know what new stuff runs for less common things like the trike you're after. (your worst-case budget is much of what I earn for a year, and until recently more than I earned *in a year*, so I can't imagine spending that on one thing )

I appreciate your battery analysis, but realistically I imagine once I settle on a system (Bafang vs. Grin vs. other) I'd likely go with whatever they recommend to pair it with. They all seem to come as kits. Or is that being lazy?

For the battery, it's much safer to figure out what you will need for watthours (wh) for your expected trips, and ensure you get one (or more) that can do that, while also providing all the power the system needs the whole time. If you don't, you may go out on a trip and get say, a quarter the way thru, and have to pedal all the way back, then order three more batteries just to be able to do that particular trip route.

Determining how many wh / mile you will probably use is the hardest part, since without knowing the final weight, and the type of system, and the speed you would end up going, along with a good estimate of all the hills/slopes along the route, it's difficult to get anywhere near enough information to calculate wh/mile out.

Route information can be gathered with apps on your phone during a ride (or even a walk if necessary), maybe from Strava if someone else already rides that route that posts there.

One way around this problem is using one of the few IGHs that also supports a freewheel or freehub with multiple gears, so you have more total gears and can shift down far enough for really slow hill stuff, etc., but also stil shift up for faster flatter stuff.

so is that where, for example, the Rohloff comes in?

No, he rohloff is just stronger. it's an igh, but only has a signle input sprocket.

one catch with ighs is the more gears they ahve inside, the easier they are to break (limited space, more gears means smaller and less engagement surface, etc).

'm good at design. So I guess worst case is to design a bracket and have it machined somewhere? I'm a hands-on, visual learner... it probably becomes clear once I have it all in my hands. I'd just hate to drop this coin and find out it isn't possible for some reason.

look at that thread I linked by ecat, it'll hlep you see what's involved.

I could find no combination that never had a burnout risk. 300lbs and 20% is just that harsh, I guess.

rememgber the trike with all the elecrtics may be 100lbs+ by itself. but yeah, it could be that harsh. depends on hwo many motors and how capable they are, hwo they're used, etc etc.

Is there some warning when things get overheated? Or it just craps out?

depends. if you have temperature sensors in the motor, youc an have either a manual montiro display, or you can have a controller or cycle analsyt start limiting power over some temp and cut off at a higher one, to prevent damage.

without that...the warning might be that funny smell just before the smoke comes out.

 

[amberwolf]

i wouldnt be going 4x4ing with a trike

I suppose that's not possible, given that it only has 3 wheels I suppose it would be.. what? 1x3 or 2x3ing depending on the setup. Well, actually I guess human power counts so that would be 2x3 or 3x3ing.

some of the "trikes" by utah or sun are 4 wheel quads

 

[fatty]

Gotcha. I hadn't considered that there might be better options than what they are offering. That's my inexperience Their "max" option for brakes were BB7, which admittedly means nothing to me. If BB7 isn't that great anyway, then you're absolutely right.

Not great at all -- not even hydraulic.

 

[fatty]

Fair enough. I think the primary concern is the 30 pounds of fluff I've put on since the accident in November. I would hope (maybe not?) that if they actually felt I had 90 pounds to lose, that there'd be discussions of intervention.

Doctors care about "not dying" and "better than you were". If you want anything beyond that, the ball's in your court.
As far as orthopedics go: the lighter, the better. Same with bikes, interestingly..

 

[LewTwo]

This is a screen capture from one of UTAH TRIKE's youtube videos

Two observations:

one: This is one of their 26 x 4 inch tired V3 fat tire trikes. They say that adds five inches to the height. It does appear to place the riders sight line significantly higher than other recumbents that I have seen ... may even at eye level with some cars drivers .

two: note the not insignificant depression in the pavement under the right wheel. In this video he was coming off the grass on the side of the road to the pavement (avoiding the tree?). The trike did not seem to have any trouble at all handling that bump.

 

[markz]

concern

No worries

No worries at all

They got a pill for that

Gotta keep ya coming back, dont you know.

 

[donn]

You'll see a Burley Limbo in Surrey

I found that listing. $600, right? It certainly doesn't appear to be anything remotely capable of mountain trails though. Am I missing something?

Not at all, it's for roads as far as I'm concerned, though there's likely some grey area between the two - as there is for tricycles. Same for the motor setup: I have a direct drive hub motor on it, of course with regen braking, which is just great - on the road, where that kind of steady light braking is useful. It's set to about the equivalent of a pretty stiff headwind. I might get 10% back on a good day. Off road, I doubt you'd get near that, and the braking doesn't seem to me very useful there, though I have no experience.

I am envious that you apparently got more years of volleyball in than I did - used to play a couple times a week decades ago. I'm sure it has occurred to you that serious trail work on even a motorized platform might turn out to be rough on your back and/or foot, and not at all like the stationary recumbent. Wonder if there's any way to try it out on a rental? That said, the exercise is bound to be better than a stationary. The lady of the house has a terrible back problem - in principle, and a couple years ago in practice. I kind of thought she was headed for some evil fusion surgery or worse. She got into an outdoor program though that had her crawling around in the bushes and that sort of thing, and the improved musculature has made a huge difference. No guarantees, just thinking there's a possibility that a certain amount of light wrestling with a heavy machine off road may develop some good. And more practical than having a swimming pool put in.

 

[goatman]

i looked at the fat tad, theyre 20x4.2 tires, that could be issue trying to lace a dd hub to a 32 hole rim

adam333 sells the hydraulic brakes for trikes
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=78893&hilit=adam333&start=200#p1512574

 

[bcsteeve]

i looked at the fat tad, theyre 20x4.2 tires, that could be issue trying to lace a dd hub to a 32 hole rim

Would you mind explaining that? Again, because I have no experience, what might seem obvious to you isn't too me. Is the point that 4.2 is too wide? Or that 20" is too small? Or???

26" seems like a common upgrade for these trikes, so I was planning on that, but still with fat tires.

 

[goatman]

grin bent my spokes at the nipple, 6500km's later, still no problems. this is a 36 hole rim, 32 hole would be steeper angle



i wanted to run a 24x3.0 back tire, it has an od of 26 inches, wont fit the rear triangle

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=104027&hilit=marin#p1556192

just make sure the rear triangle will fit a bigger tire, the fat tad with 20 inch wheels wont by the pictures ive seen
you see alot of people switching from the 4.0 to 3.0

think of a 4x4 truck with balloon tires turning tight and how the front bounces, youll get that bounce at higher speeds in turns with fat tires on a trike

 

[Chalo]

I believe most trikes have a live axle (AmberWolf please correct me if I am mistaken).

Many *delta* trikes have a live axle with both rear wheels directly connected to it, and some use a live axle with a differential between them, but I don't know that there is a "most" type, that I've seen. Chalo has probably seen more different kinds of trikes than I have, though.

Most trikes have one wheel drive. Deltas either use a solid axle with one wheel that drives and one that spins freely on the axle, or they use separate axles left and right, and drive only one side. Tadpoles almost all drive only the rear wheel.

Once in a long while, I've seen an old granny trike that drives both half axles through two freewheels. A very few older granny trikes use rear differentials, and most pedicab trikes do too. I have seen a handful of Russian made tadpoles that drive both front wheels, with overrunning clutches rather than a differential.

 

[LewTwo]

I believe most trikes have a live axle (AmberWolf please correct me if I am mistaken).

Many *delta* trikes have a live axle with both rear wheels directly connected to it, and some use a live axle with a differential between them, but I don't know that there is a "most" type, that I've seen. Chalo has probably seen more different kinds of trikes than I have, though.

Most trikes have one wheel drive. Deltas either use a solid axle with one wheel that drives and one that spins freely on the axle, or they use separate axles left and right, and drive only one side. Tadpoles almost all drive only the rear wheel.

Once in a long while, I've seen an old granny trike that drives both half axles through two freewheels. A very few older granny trikes use rear differentials, and most pedicab trikes do too. I have seen a handful of Russian made tadpoles that drive both front wheels, with overrunning clutches rather than a differential.

'Tis not the first time I have been wrong ... likely will not be the last as well.

 

[bcsteeve]

Well, today was certainly interesting!

I got to try out a Terratrike for a few minutes. Here are my takeaways:

• I do fit! Even though this one was set for a shorter rider, it was still comfortable.
• The motor is far more powerful than I thought! Whoever last parked it left it in the highest gear and I wasn't able to get it moving. She suggested twisting the throttle.
  I was under the impression that I'd be doing most of the work, but it had no problem moving me. Later on, I downshifted and still had trouble and a horrible metal-on-metal sound was emitted as I forced it through a rotation. I used the motor-only power to go around the short trail and back, which brings me to my next realization
• maintenance is an issue. To be honest, I'm poor at maintaining things. That's why I own electric everything, because my gas cars never last as long as they could, I'd be replacing lawnmowers ever year because I forget to winterize, etc. I'm not sure what was wrong with this thing, but the chain looked pretty rusty. It isn't that I'm *incapable* of maintenance, but I don't have the greatest history.
• I'm gathering that yes, they can be off-road capable! This one was a road version, and she encouraged me to go over the (little) banks and tree roots and it did just fine.
  Something more meaty should have no trouble

Something like this, for example


The picture doesn't do it justice. This thing is badass lol. They say it is used for serious downhill mountain biking by people that no longer have use of their legs.

This place is awesome with what they do! They help disabled people go on some pretty serious adventures! Most of their equipment is donated or frankensteined together by their crew. Awesome people with a terrific mission.

Anyway, I want to take a moment to give props to another fantastic group... YOU GUYS! I'm overwhelmed with how readily helpful you're being to help me to understand and think about things I haven't thought about. I'm still not there, but I feel like this thread has already helped me make some leaps and bounds in connecting the dots. THANK YOU.

 

[amberwolf]

Their "max" option for brakes were BB7, which admittedly means nothing to me. If BB7 isn't that great anyway, then you're absolutely right.

Not great at all -- not even hydraulic.

For some potentially comparable experience to the OP's trike's weight, though on-road rather than off:

FWIW, while I'm not going downhill, or fast, one Avid BB7 caliper (the real one, not one of the many clones listed as BB7 that aren't even the same design) with a 200mm rotor can easily lockup the front wheel of the heavy (around 300lbs+ on it's own, 500lbs+ with me on it, around half a ton with a good heavy cargo load in back, not counting the quarter ton+ the attachable trailer has carried at times) SB Cruiser delta trike at any speed up to the max I'm allowed here of 20MPH, on pavement. (would do it even easier on loose surfaces like soil, rock, grass, old "rotting" streets, etc).

I expect that with one on each front wheel of a tadpole, you could flip the trike (and you) on your head pretty easily, with little lever force.

It also offers good control over the whole range of lever and caliper movement, so I can feather it from nothing to full easily, even with my arthritic hands, using the Avid speeddial lever to control it, dialled in for easiest use by those hands of mine.

I have to stop (not completely most of the time) quickly in traffic (lots of ...nonclever drivers, shall we say) sometimes, and it works as long as I have enough traction (a problem on some streets due to aging asphalt); I sometimes also have to use the rear regen brakes in those situations. In my case it wouldn't matter what brakes I have; I'm limited by traction.

I used the pads that came with it until they wore out, and I'm trying out some cheapo "dymoece" pads now, which grip about the same but are wearing out several times faster (no surprise), so I'll go back to Avid pads for them at the next swapout.

Never used hydraulic bicycle brakes, so no experience of whether they are better or not. In my experience of brakes in general, regardless of type, when it has enough force to lockup the wheel and skid, that's just past the most braking you could get out of it, and a stronger brake wouldn't be useful for that situation.

The other property of a brake that my experiences show me is needed is modulation, and cheap ones sometimes don't have much between little braking and full braking; the Avid BB7 is fully controllable in my usage.

 

[dogman dan]

Here is a link to the guys I used to work for before I retired. https://www.electrictrike.com/

Jason has been doing the trike thing for longer than, and in more volume than most others in the US. Not knocking the others, just saying he's in the top of the list too.

Take a look at the stuff they offer, the prices are not cheap, but they actually have some choices, and what I used to do for them was provide the customer service, which is a pretty big budget item for the company.

At one point, they flew me out to PA to test ride everything they sold. By then it was no longer possible to send me stuff to test, as I did for about a decade when they sold only kits.

BY far,, the best thing I rode was their version of the Sun Fat Tad. I think you would be quite happy with one, even at your weight, provided you lower your expectations just a little bit as to the grade of hill you climb.

I also rode a similar trike to the EZ 3 HD, and it will climb a hill without overheating the best. I personally did the testing to destruction of that particular motor in 20" wheel, at 400 pounds of load, and completely failed to get one to overheat. This one will be slower, and less fun than the fat tad though, if you dont' try to push the fat tad on too steep, too long hills.

Lastly, if you really want to climb the steep hills and ride badass trails, you really need a gas quad, or a mid drive with low gears. With a low enough gear, your chain won't break. You can get a 50 tooth rear cassette now days. Your weight is just a bit much right now for most standard hub motors. But if you want to pedal away some weight on grades that are more like 5% max, or 7% but short hill, you will be fine with a fairly standard tadpole trike with a geared hub motor on it, and 20" wheel. Something like the fat tad. The 20" motor wheel will help a lot with overheating, and you will pedal hard up the longer hills, as long as you can. Shed about 60 pounds, and you will be then able to do the steeper hills. FWIW, any kind of diet that nearly eliminates carbs can get that weight off. Keeping it off, thats another thing.