Towing a bike

OK, this may sound stupid but remember my user name. Here is my problem and my question. I love to bike ride in the forest preserves. I have a great place to ride within 3 miles of the house but lets face it it get boring going to the same place all the time. The good thing about it is I can get my bike there without using the car. But I would prefer to go to new locations now and then. I bought a new 260cc motor scooter last year and use it mostly for fun riding. I am 62 years old and have bad joints. So I use a Cyclone 360w motor on my bike to help me out. And for now I am using SLA batteries to run it. Because I like to ride for several miles and prefer to ride faster then most I use twin battery packs. So my total bike, batteries and motor weigh in at 100 lbs even. The batteries (26 lbs each) can easily be removed from the bike for transporting.

Here's my question..........I have a 26" mountain bike and was wondering how fast I could tow it behind my scooter with the front wheel lifted and the rear wheel on the ground? Yeah, I know it's not designed for high speed. But if I could design a way to tow it and it could travel short distances (10 miles) at maybe 50 MPH I could go to several new preserves without my car. I guess you could say "doubling my fun" getting out on my bike and my scooter.

Ether way can someone advise me about normal maintenance on the wheel bearings? How often should they be pulled and greased and what type of grease should be used?

i have no information other than it comes up on google images when searching for "vespa bike rack"

Toshi... Thanks for the info. I thought about something like this but I was thinking it would be hard to balance. And someone on my scooter forum said they tried this and didn't feel safe. And of course I am adding the weight of the motor and batteries (60 lbs) too.

why not build a tow dolly. the dolly could have a fairly wide wheelbase too so you could also make a trailer for hauling firewood back from the forest.

seriously, it should work, even at highway speed if you can keep it from flipping by getting the dolly wheels spread out, lock the front wheel of your bike in the tow dolly and tag along the rear wheel. 5 wheels on the ground total then.

take pictures before you try it, and sunday mornings when the traffic is down.

This is my version of towing a bike :lol:

22% grade at the worst part of the hill ( located at Quebec city in the Cote de la montagne.. where the red bull crashed ice happen during winter).. towing nothing more than Justin in his 170lbs ebike crossing Canada ! !!!

That is my most memorial picture about ebike!

Doc

That is my most memorial picture about ebike!

Click to expand...

Doctorbass, I have to agree.

Let it be known that I am not "brown-nosing" our esteemed members.

I just think that it's a snap-shot that tells a short story of what we're all about here on ES (as well as other EV websites)

J

dnmun....Thanks for the thought. I have been thinking the same thing. I though of building a dolly with a 30" to 36" stance and fasten it to the back wheel trailing arms. And actually make a mount for the front tire to attach it to the back of the scooter. That way the front tire is off the ground and the back tire is on the dolly. The big problem is; how will the local police see this creation?". Will they call it a trailer and therefore, require it to be DOT inspected, approved and licensed as a trailer? I'm guessing they will. I have also considered buying a cheap trailer I saw for $199 new. It's only 40"x48" and 130 lbs. The bike could be mounted on it with no problem. As could the scooter if I need to tow it with my car. Of course I would don't think my scooter insurance would cover me towing a trailer of any kind. That's why I was wondering if anyone else had any great ideas or experiences they could share.

I've towed several bikes with the towed bike setup like in Toshi's pic, except with the fork ends mounted on a rack on the towing bike, and the towed bike held down with alot of bungees put on real tight. This works well except you can't ride with no hands and you have to stay loose on the bike so it makes the ride a lot more tiering, also going more then ~30-35km/h starts a wobble. So it's good enough for occasionally towing a bicycle with a bicycle. But the weak link is the bungees, using one of those things to mount bikes in a pickup truck bed that you QR the fork ends into ought to increase the wobble's frequency a few fold, so that should raise top speed to something motorcycle like. Altho the massive increase in weight and damping of a motorcycle vs a bicycle may be all that's needed to make it go fast.

I like you previous idea of just using a quick release bracket for your front wheel somewhere behind your seat and just dragging the rear tire along. Maybe get some better bearings on your bike whenever they wear out. Just go buy the rack and weld some quick release brackets to that. Don't know what to do about the front tire, but you could put the batteries on the rack.

fishtailing is gonna be a problem, no matter how you do it. with a large moment of inertia so far back on the trailed bike and high off the ground, it will really create severe oscillations at relatively low speeds. a dolly usually doesn't require a trailer license, i doubt if the scooter can tow a trailer though. not many options. BOL, dm

So far I see no ideas that aren't good ways to go to the emergency room. Don't get so obsessed about not using the car. Sometimes it's just what you need to do.