Etrike Touring

[m4s73r]

So I am interested in touring on a tadpole trike from Kansas City to Seattle. Been doing a lot of pricing and looking at what other members have done. Chatting with several people about doing this and thought id put it up for more to have a look.
Here is my current plan.

KMX frame
24" rear wheel with moped tires around.
Unsure on rear gearing. Looked at hubs, derailleurs, just not sure yet. So far kinda on the N360 only because it comes with the trike i would order.
1650 Watt Cyclone double freewheel kit for recumbents. would eliminate this completely if i knew the Bafang would complete this on its own.
750 Watt Bafang BBS02 Crank motor on PAS.
48v 40ah lifepo4
Pulling a trailer with camping gear/dog total weight around 650 lbs. (trike, rider, dog, trailer, equipment)
Will have fairing and a wrap around rain cover.

Looking for a top speed of 35 mph. The cyclone says 45. Im sure thats inflated. Not saying i want to tour at this speed (more like 19mph). but have it available to me with out the trailer and all the weight.

This has just been my solution

What would be your solution to this scenario traveling 1800 miles from the midwest to pacific nw on a e trike?

 

[amberwolf]

I'd be looking at something with suspension for those kinds of speeds on many roads (not great condition), for that kind of length of a ride, including on the trailer.

I'd also probably go with something ohter than the NV for transmission, because the NVs are rather lossy for a transmission: by nature they slip, and lose more power to friction because of that, and over a long trip that will probably matter a lot. Geared hubs, or external derailers, are going to be more efficient than the NV hubs. Under higher power levels the older 151 has been reported to waste more than a third of input power. It's a nice system, and has advantages in traffic where you may have to shift gears frequently, but if you don't have to do that (probably wouldn't on most intercity/state roads) it's more efficient to use a geared system or derailer.

There's a couple of other etrike/ebike touring / long trip threads, one in the last month or two, that have a lot of other considerations detailed out, like lighting, charging, etc. Might wanna poke around for those.

EDIT added: here's one: http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=55146&p=822912

 

[Bike Xing]

Seems like a reasonable setup. The biggest wild card is all of the weight. 650 lbs is a bit on the crazy side ...by about 200 lbs.
I've played with a few of the Bafang 750 crank drives and they're quite nice.
I've also had some experience with the Nuvinci N360. I wouldn't worry as much about losses myself. There is loss, but it's not noticeably bad. The scenario which results in the most loss is when they're under high torque. After climbing very steep hills, like ~20% grades, the hubs do feel warm. It will work though.
I've used Rohloff hubs too. This might be a better choice but for the price you can just replace your Nuvinci mid-trip if it fails.
On a long trip like that I wouldn't consider a derailleur though. With derailleurs I've ripped teeth off of cassettes, bent chainrings, and split chains apart; always due to shifting at a bad time or sometimes due to ghost shifts from out of tune or dirty hardware. But with all those miles and conditions you should expect a derailleur to get dirty or out of tune.

Oh yeah, good luck! Sounds like a super fun trip!!

 

[m4s73r]

650 does sound nuts.

Heres a weight break down

Rider 290 lbs. (down from 340! and dropping)
Trike 75 lbs
Trailer 35 lbs
Dog 70 lbs
2 gallons of water 16 lbs
5 lbs dog food
this leaves me 159 lbs for camping gear. My hiking pack weights 85 lbs. Then throw on repair tools and any "comforts" and im sure my weight will be around this area.

Ive considered other options for gearing. Thought about a SA 3speed DD hub with 8 speed cassette but a lot of horror stories of derailleurs shredding bikes/tires apart. Rohloff, yeah, no. Then there's the alfines and the nexus's. both of which i have heard/read fail badly on MDrive systems. It seemed like the N360 or a rohloff was the way to go.
But amberwolf, you make a good point. Im not going to be in town. More then likely while riding, ill set my speed, change my gearing for best efficiency and just enjoy the ride and where im riding in.

Biggest thing is reliability. Hence changing the tires around with moped tires/tubes and bmx rims. I dont want to have to deal with tires and flats on the road. Upgrade the chain to handle the torque. Heavier duty chain will mean ill need to stay with a smaller cassette or a single freewheel on a hub.

 

[dogman dan]

Personally, I decided to grab the same hubmotor Justin rode across Canada with, when one was available used. Old school 5304 crystalyte.

But I only weigh about 400 loaded for the tour, including me. 15-18 mph is about the speed that gets me there in good wh/mi. But I have 30 mph if I need it. Working good for me, I just took a two night tour. See the thread on it as soon as I get it posted.

 

[m4s73r]

I look forward to it. Think that 5304 would work for what i'm doing?

 

[dogman dan]

Or some other large hubmotor will do the trick. You can't buy a new 5304 anymore.

The idea is to run something so honking big it won't melt climbing the larger hills. A 5304 can handle the 2000w max I'm giving it with no problems, so I have a lot of reliability. But I can still ride at 200w to make extreme range, if it's not hilly. 400-500w gets me about 18 mph on the flat, at 400 pounds and horrible aerodynamics.

Others are doing similar approach, with two smaller hubmotors. Maybe you could do something with a bafang crank drive, and a smaller hubmotor on the rear wheel.

 

[LockH]

Ummmm... It may be true, that at slower speeds and on as light a vehicle as you can handle, one might travel further on one battery charge. Also, I am unsure of prevailing winds (direction), but if going in the same direction as you are, one might benefit (or if not, if you and your vehicle are as aerodynamic as possible)... eg rider recumbent.

 

[m4s73r]

can that be done with out running lipo batteries? If i can wire 2 48v 20ah a123 batteries together for a 96v 20ah and can run 50 amp continuous through it, then sold. Or go with a cellman 75 volt. dont remember what the discharge on that is.

 

[m4s73r]

Ummmm... It may be true, that at slower speeds and on as light a vehicle as you can handle, one might travel further on one battery charge. Also, I am unsure of prevailing winds (direction), but if going in the same direction as you are, one might benefit (or if not, if you and your vehicle are as aerodynamic as possible)... eg rider recumbent.

Head wind should be decreased with the front fairing on it. To be honest, I wont be on any hurry on this trip. I have all the time i want to do this. If the weather is that bad, ill just stop set up camp.

 

[amberwolf]

If i can wire 2 48v 20ah a123 batteries together for a 96v 20ah and can run 50 amp continuous through it, then sold. .

If they are the Cellman A123 packs made from 20Ah pouch cells, no reason that wouldn't work; they're made for 30A continous, at least for the one I have here. Probably cylindricals could do it too, but I haven't got those to test. Bunch of threads around here about both kinds of packs, though.

But they do weigh a little less than 25lbs each (in a 50cal ammocan, mine weighs almost exactly that). So that's 50lbs of battery right there.

Same voltage/capacity pack made of EIG NMC cells is a few pounds less, and leaves some room inside the same kind of ammocan, where the A123 pack *just* fits inside it. Same current draw possible, too. AFAICT is just as "safe" as A123 pouches. (catch is getting hold of the cells. But at least with EIG you can actually buy them new from the factory, if you buy enough of them, whereas it's still impossible to do that with A123, AFAIK)

 

[m4s73r]

And even after all of that I dont know that a hub motor will work getting across the rockies. Im already heavy, you add another 25lbs of hub motor and 50 lbs of batteries with 47lbs trike and WHEW. Im thinking that for economic reason should proly stick with 48v nominal options. Which brings me back to the Bafang/cyclone setup.

Edit: or a SA 3spd with cassette and just a bafang.

 

[amberwolf]

Ooops: I see I missed you were going to run them as 96V (series) I *meant* that they'd work as a paralleled 48V 40Ah pack, which could easily handle 60A continuous.

 

[m4s73r]

Ooops: I see I missed you were going to run them as 96V (series) I *meant* that they'd work as a paralleled 48V 40Ah pack, which could easily handle 60A continuous.

Thats what i thought lol. Was confused for a second. I like the idea of the 3 speed geared hub with cassette. Would give me the 2 front gears im losing to the bafang.

 

[amberwolf]

If you don't mind always pedalling when the motor runs, you could run the system "stokemonkey" style, and drive a leftside chainring with the motor, and leave your front chainrings and shifter alone. Then the motor drives thru whichever one you shift to, and also does whatever you shift to thru the rear.

Then you don't lose any gears.


If you want to, you can use a freewheel on the leftside chainring so that the motor is not backdriven when you pedal, to make it a little easier to do just pedalling whenever not using the motor.

 

[dogman dan]

IMO, you don't need high voltage to tour. 48v is plenty, if you have the amps. The deal though, is to have enough power to get up hills without bogging down. Through the gears is perfect for that of course.

FWIW, when Justin rode across Canada he used 36v.

 

[m4s73r]

IMO, you don't need high voltage to tour. 48v is plenty, if you have the amps. The deal though, is to have enough power to get up hills without bogging down. Through the gears is perfect for that of course.

FWIW, when Justin rode across Canada he used 36v.

Funny you should say that. I just spent a hour and a half reading his oddessy. Good read.

 

[Bike Xing]

Go for it with the mid-drive. You'd be one of the first for that long of a trip which is cooler than it is risky. And it will be an advantage with the weight and hills.
On the derailleur thing, I'm surprised more people on this forum are not derailleur haters. On my purely human powered mountain bike I have SRAM XO derailleur and I still hate it. I threw a chain last week in the rain. And with mid-drive motors of fairly modest power I've had lots of problems. Am I the only one? Nuvinci's and Rohloff's have almost completely solved that problem. The last component which has completely solved that problem is the addition of a chain guide for the front chainring. Even keeping the front derailleur on just as a guide helps.
I use Stan's tubeless goop in my tires which really cuts down maintenance. I use it for my tubeless and tubed tires and it only takes an ounce or two to prevent flats for months. I get holes all the time and I see a tiny wet spot on the tire but no significant loss of air.
One thing that helped with that was finding tubes with Presta valves on Amazon that have removable valve cores. That way I can squirt the fluid in through the valve stem.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A93T978/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[m4s73r]

Well after reading Justins trip across canada, tires rims wheels and such are going to be top notch. Even thinking a set of perelli moped tires/tubes around might be ideal.

 

[dogman dan]

On the other hand, Justin pulled a wheel out of a junk pile, and it ran him halfway across Canada with no problems at all.

But yeah, the prospect of spoke and wheel issues is part of why my longtail had to be full suspension. That extra spring really takes the shock loads off spokes. Tires come from Walmart. There is one every 100 miles or less in the US. I use a 26" wheel, so nothing is so funny I can't get it in nearly any town. It's a different approach than the moped tire route, but I can carry a spare tire with ease. Same would apply if you were to use 20" bike tires. You could start out with nicer ones, but be able to buy something in nearly any town if you cut up some tires.

Of course, the tool kit I carry has everything.

So why didn't I go with a bent if Justin was my inspiration? Because I wanted to be tall and visible, especially in city riding, which is 99% of my street riding. Plus, I'm just old school. Rode so much on the old Peugot 10 speed in my youth, I know how to deal with the saddle issues. I just rode 175 miles in 3 days and my ass is just fine. I like my head high, seeing over car hoods.

I know you are set on the trike thing, for very valid reasons. The trike may be quite superior for towing for starters. But when I started thinking about a cross country longtail, one of the top priorities was to be able to swerve into a ditch at 30 mph, when a pickup driven by a guy watching porn on his phone comes along. Only a two wheeler with suspension, no trailer, and some fattish tires can do that without it being a pants pissing event. I like the ability to jink around potholes and debris easily, and ride a steeply side sloped shoulder with ease.

Clearly your needs will be different since you plan to bring the dog. But it would be much simpler if you could find a way not to haul so much.

 

[m4s73r]

I have been thinking about that as well. I may see what i can find to have him transported out there. Loosing the dog shaves just over 100lbs off the travel weight. Id proly still pull a trailer just so I dont have all that weight on the trike however it wouldnt have to be anywhere as large as i was going to have to do to take the dog with me.

Visibility is something ive been thinking about. Ill make sure to have a SMV triangle and some flashing lights. I expect that like justin ill do a lot of traveling at night.

 

[dogman dan]

On the other hand, put the 100 pounds back, and you can carry a generator. I have harped carry more battery for a long time, but it's worth thinking about. I just couldn't commit to trailering myself. In the past, I've done several nice trips to the mountains where I carried both bike and generator there in a car. Real nice to have a charge in a remote camp. In a way, the ideal trip would be somebody following you in a car with the dog. Then you could just ride a nice 100 mile day carrying batteries only.

If you have motels in the budget, then charging gets easier. You get a full charge every night at the room. Currently I'm trying to travel with camping gear, and sitting around a very long time to charge may have to happen in a place where you are not camping. I'm looking at where I can go, and still end up in a state park that has a cheap RV space so I can get overnight charges on longer trips without forking out 60 bucks for a room.

Do a lot of shorter trips before you set out, to dial in your rig for the long haul. Find out what works, how to beg a plug, where to find truly public plugs, what you need to carry, and what you don't. I have found county and town community centers the best places to find a free range plug.

 

[m4s73r]

Ah yes. The elusive plugs. I'm not a shy person. Ill knock on someones door and ask for a plug. Not a bashful bone in me. If not then like you said, walmart has to be close. Im planning on having the batts and chargers all set up so i just have one plug. (thank you justin) However i am going to make it detachable as well. Ive slowly started planning my route.

Generator is an interesting idea. With out the dog/all his stuff, heres a little 47lbs genny.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sportsmans-Series-2000-Watt-Portable-Generator/21174257?action=product_interest&action_type=image&placement_id=irs_bottom&strategy=TIC&visitor_id=59824712224&category=0%3A1072864%3A1031899%3A4338&client_guid=af010bda-0fcc-4d79-b63d-35fb9e008953&config_id=0&parent_item_id=27484658&guid=3b8d6241-f7e3-4722-9864-8c59d42ce526&bucket_id=irsbucket011&findingMethod=p13n

That could do the trick. Dimensions are good for the little trailer id be pulling. with 11 hr run time at 50% that could work well.

 

[RyanT]

Wouldn't something like a 800 watt generator be enough? 21 lbs..

http://www.amazon.com/Earthquake-800-watt-Portable-Inverter-Generator/dp/B00FL89I2W/ref=pd_sim_sbs_lg_48?ie=UTF8&refRID=02MCKGBMWRNDVRN59V1A

 

[LockH]

Wouldn't something like a 800 watt generator be enough? 21 lbs..
http://www.amazon.com/Earthquake-800-watt-Portable-Inverter-Generator/dp/B00FL89I2W/ref=pd_sim_sbs_lg_48?ie=UTF8&refRID=02MCKGBMWRNDVRN59V1A

I'm curious. Would you please stick you nose up the running engine exhaust? And let us know how your experiment goes?
THANKS!
L