MikeFairbanks
100 kW
This is a story worth telling (Note to riders: Always wear a helmet and watch your speed).
As many of you know, I started coming on this website a year or so ago (I don't know when I signed up...probably in my profile) looking to learn about electric bikes and trikes.
I applied for a grant with our local utility company to build an electric bicycle with my students. Suprisingly, we won the grant.
Then came a lot of research, mostly through this website. In the end, after considerable help and advice from you fine folks, I decided to use the 1500-dollar grant to purchase a high-quality, American-made tricycle from Worksman Industrial Bicycles and an e-bike kit from Ebikekit.com.
All was well.
Through much learning and work, my fourth (and a couple fifth) grade students assembled the tricycle, the ebike kit, and put it all together. The end result was a very smooth and fun-riding electric tricycle.
I rode it around town, around the neighborhood, to the store and back, and even to work and back several times. It was a lot of fun. At slow speeds it was very stable and had literally a zero turning radius (it could turn in circles in its own footprint).
It could haul three hundred pounds on the back platform, and cruised at a steady 20mph with the 9-Continent front-mounted motor and 36-volt SLA battery pack run through a 22amp controller.
Cool basket on the back.
Ebikekit.com bike kit
So things were going well. Lots of rides with friends, neighbors, the kids. I let anyone try it who wanted, and everyone digs it (er, dug it). Even yesterday there was a teenager laughing at me as I rode by, so I turned around and said, "hey, you won't be laughing once you ride it." He said he wasn't laughing at me, and I replied in a friendly manner, "yes, you were, and now you have to try it."
Sure enough, after riding it he had a huge grin on his face, and then his girlfriend tried it and liked it.
What a great tricycle.
But a tricycle is not a bike (in so many ways). Some of those ways are good (trikes can ride slowly, can stay upright when parked, can haul heavy loads, and are really easy to learn on. The disadvantage, however is a major one: TRIKES DON'T LIKE HIGH SPEED TURNS.
I learned this today the hard way (when I say hard, I mean hard...a 60-year old pinetree isn't very soft, even though pine is called a soft wood).
Today I met up with (again) Chris Parham (IceCube57 on this site). He has a killer ride. Two-wheeler with 66v LIpo on a 9-continent rear-mounted wheel. He parked in town and rode to my house to meet up. I tried his bike around the block, and it's fast and strong. NICE. I didn't realize the same motor I had on the trike (there's that word had, as in past tense) is the same as his motor kit. Very cool.
So, after we chatted a bit we went for a ride. We went up the big hill, down another big hill, around several twists and turns in our bike path system, until after about two miles we came to the lake. We rode around the east side of the lake (with a breeze coming off of it that was fantastic) and rode to the end of the lake, checked out the local BMX track and amphitheater, and then rode back toward town on the west side of the lake. We went up and down hills, around corners, and all over.
Then, very close to the end of the ride (actually about 200 yards from where Chris was parked), I took a turn too quickly, and the path not only turned sharply but had a tilt in it that was not favorable for my circumstances. I was going too fast and it was all my fault. I tried to make the turn, but the trike started tilting. If I would have continued that sharp turn at a high speed, I would have been thrown from the bike (and, no...sorry...I wasn't wearing a helmet).
So I tried to correct, but that was worse and the trike lost stability the other way. All this happened in a split second, and so I straightened out, knowing I was going to hit a tree head on.
For a second I thought I was going to get really hurt. That's what killed Sonny Bono when he skied into a tree. I was probably going about 15mph.
Well, sure enough, the tree wouldn't get out of the way, so I hit it straight on.
When the dust settled (and all the people in the little park were staring at me--the wreck was noisy), I got off the trike, staggered a few steps to the side, and look upon my own body.
I didn't get hurt. I have a tiny knuckle scrape and a tiny scrape on my knee, but that was it. The trike took about 99% of the impact.
And here are your results:
So, I called my wife (somehow Chris avoided the crash) and she came to pick me up in the minivan. Chris and I shook hands and I told him it was a nice ride. He had to head home to work anyway, so I took the trike in the van and drove home. I probably should have let my wife drive as I was a bit shaken up and almost got in a wreck with the car. Geesh.
So, now that I'm back home and feeling fine, I am going to get a new front fork for the trike, and take the entire motor kit off it for good. The trike will be a permanent utility vehicle at our school for hauling heavy loads throughout the building (it works perfectly for that), and it doesn't need the electric motor in the building because pedal power works just fine on those very smooth and flat floors. Plus, the potential of going 20mph in a school hallway is a bad idea.
I'm also convinced that electric tricycles are not ideal. They are great if the area is flat (my area is not flat where I ride to work and back), smooth (our is a little smooth) and few turns (my area has a ton of twists and turns).
I learned that an electric tricycle can easily lose control in a split second. Sure, any bike can, but with a trike you are left with no options when a sharp turn comes up and you haven't slowed down enough. A bike can dodge and make the turn. A trike cannot. Also, if something were to run in front of you, a quick change in direction on a bike is easy, but on a trike it will tip and throw the rider.
The tree was in the way, and I couldn't dodge it. The accident was entirely my fault, but on a bike I would have been able to get around it.
The ride has sadly come to an end.
From now on I ride two-wheelers. The trike, at slow pedaling speed, will be fine in the school. Perfectly safe. But at 20mph it was an accident waiting to happen. That's my story.
As many of you know, I started coming on this website a year or so ago (I don't know when I signed up...probably in my profile) looking to learn about electric bikes and trikes.
I applied for a grant with our local utility company to build an electric bicycle with my students. Suprisingly, we won the grant.
Then came a lot of research, mostly through this website. In the end, after considerable help and advice from you fine folks, I decided to use the 1500-dollar grant to purchase a high-quality, American-made tricycle from Worksman Industrial Bicycles and an e-bike kit from Ebikekit.com.
All was well.
Through much learning and work, my fourth (and a couple fifth) grade students assembled the tricycle, the ebike kit, and put it all together. The end result was a very smooth and fun-riding electric tricycle.
I rode it around town, around the neighborhood, to the store and back, and even to work and back several times. It was a lot of fun. At slow speeds it was very stable and had literally a zero turning radius (it could turn in circles in its own footprint).
It could haul three hundred pounds on the back platform, and cruised at a steady 20mph with the 9-Continent front-mounted motor and 36-volt SLA battery pack run through a 22amp controller.
Cool basket on the back.
Ebikekit.com bike kit
So things were going well. Lots of rides with friends, neighbors, the kids. I let anyone try it who wanted, and everyone digs it (er, dug it). Even yesterday there was a teenager laughing at me as I rode by, so I turned around and said, "hey, you won't be laughing once you ride it." He said he wasn't laughing at me, and I replied in a friendly manner, "yes, you were, and now you have to try it."
Sure enough, after riding it he had a huge grin on his face, and then his girlfriend tried it and liked it.
What a great tricycle.
But a tricycle is not a bike (in so many ways). Some of those ways are good (trikes can ride slowly, can stay upright when parked, can haul heavy loads, and are really easy to learn on. The disadvantage, however is a major one: TRIKES DON'T LIKE HIGH SPEED TURNS.
I learned this today the hard way (when I say hard, I mean hard...a 60-year old pinetree isn't very soft, even though pine is called a soft wood).
Today I met up with (again) Chris Parham (IceCube57 on this site). He has a killer ride. Two-wheeler with 66v LIpo on a 9-continent rear-mounted wheel. He parked in town and rode to my house to meet up. I tried his bike around the block, and it's fast and strong. NICE. I didn't realize the same motor I had on the trike (there's that word had, as in past tense) is the same as his motor kit. Very cool.
So, after we chatted a bit we went for a ride. We went up the big hill, down another big hill, around several twists and turns in our bike path system, until after about two miles we came to the lake. We rode around the east side of the lake (with a breeze coming off of it that was fantastic) and rode to the end of the lake, checked out the local BMX track and amphitheater, and then rode back toward town on the west side of the lake. We went up and down hills, around corners, and all over.
Then, very close to the end of the ride (actually about 200 yards from where Chris was parked), I took a turn too quickly, and the path not only turned sharply but had a tilt in it that was not favorable for my circumstances. I was going too fast and it was all my fault. I tried to make the turn, but the trike started tilting. If I would have continued that sharp turn at a high speed, I would have been thrown from the bike (and, no...sorry...I wasn't wearing a helmet).
So I tried to correct, but that was worse and the trike lost stability the other way. All this happened in a split second, and so I straightened out, knowing I was going to hit a tree head on.
For a second I thought I was going to get really hurt. That's what killed Sonny Bono when he skied into a tree. I was probably going about 15mph.
Well, sure enough, the tree wouldn't get out of the way, so I hit it straight on.
When the dust settled (and all the people in the little park were staring at me--the wreck was noisy), I got off the trike, staggered a few steps to the side, and look upon my own body.
I didn't get hurt. I have a tiny knuckle scrape and a tiny scrape on my knee, but that was it. The trike took about 99% of the impact.
And here are your results:
So, I called my wife (somehow Chris avoided the crash) and she came to pick me up in the minivan. Chris and I shook hands and I told him it was a nice ride. He had to head home to work anyway, so I took the trike in the van and drove home. I probably should have let my wife drive as I was a bit shaken up and almost got in a wreck with the car. Geesh.
So, now that I'm back home and feeling fine, I am going to get a new front fork for the trike, and take the entire motor kit off it for good. The trike will be a permanent utility vehicle at our school for hauling heavy loads throughout the building (it works perfectly for that), and it doesn't need the electric motor in the building because pedal power works just fine on those very smooth and flat floors. Plus, the potential of going 20mph in a school hallway is a bad idea.
I'm also convinced that electric tricycles are not ideal. They are great if the area is flat (my area is not flat where I ride to work and back), smooth (our is a little smooth) and few turns (my area has a ton of twists and turns).
I learned that an electric tricycle can easily lose control in a split second. Sure, any bike can, but with a trike you are left with no options when a sharp turn comes up and you haven't slowed down enough. A bike can dodge and make the turn. A trike cannot. Also, if something were to run in front of you, a quick change in direction on a bike is easy, but on a trike it will tip and throw the rider.
The tree was in the way, and I couldn't dodge it. The accident was entirely my fault, but on a bike I would have been able to get around it.
The ride has sadly come to an end.
From now on I ride two-wheelers. The trike, at slow pedaling speed, will be fine in the school. Perfectly safe. But at 20mph it was an accident waiting to happen. That's my story.
Sounds like a case of "Ambition exceeding Ability" .. :lol: 
....then again... if the shoe fits :lol: 
