How stable will this escooter be?

[Desertprep]

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.25.262a6052fGQINz&id=581009613713&ns=1&abbucket=17#detail (this is not meant to be an advertisement, I am not selling anything)

I was just in an accident on my ebike - tried to stop when I saw some rebar laying across the road but couldn't make it - there was sand and small gravel on the road also, which prevented me from stopping. It hurts, to say the least. I have gathered enough info here from my past few posts about batteries to be able to make that decision but am now thinking about a 3 wheel scooter. The one shown in the link caught my attention because the rear wheels are hinged so that it will lean into a turn the way a 2 wheel will. Each wheel has a motor in it - there is no differential. The ad claims that it "can't tip over". I am sure there are situations that will make it tip, but I am sure it is much more stable than a 2 wheel or a 3 wheel with a differential powering two wheels from one motor. I think there is only one controller for the whole system. Is this going to create problems? Will one controller create a "differential effect" for the two motors? I was hoping to find a 3 wheel "tadpole", 2 wheels up front and one in the rear, but cannot find one small enough. If there are 2x500 watt motors, is one common 1,000 watt controller enough? or does it have to be a special controller for 2 motors? And can regen still work with two motors and one controller?

 

[Chalo]

Rear wheel slips can often be caught without falling. Front wheel slips usually result in an instant fall. Even if you assume that having two contact patches in the rear will help prevent slipping (which is a generally sound assumption), this design does nothing to address the more dangerous front wheel slip. If there is a benefit in that case, it would have to be that the inside rear wheel offers a chance to recover a front wheel slide-- which seems unlikely to me. To me, it looks like it could possibly turn a low side crash into a high side crash (which is bad).

 

[dustNbone]

I don't think I'd feel safer on that than my bike.

You made the mistake of being on the brakes when you hit a loose surface/obstacle, it's a easy thing to do. A bike, especially one with big wheels, can ride over almost anything if you do it right, but you can't panic.

Slow down as much as you can BEFORE you hit whatever you're about to hit, but release the brakes (at least the front one) and get yourself positioned properly for the inevitable shit show that's about to take place. You'll usually make it over/through that way.

If you're on the brakes, you're basically doomed.

 

[Desertprep]

Hmmmm most ebikes and scooters here have 10-12" wheels. I think mine has 16", but not much improvement. That is one of the main reasons why I am thinking about a third wheel.

 

[flippy]

Adding more rims is not a replacement for getting proper rubber from pirelli for example.

You made a normal mistake by brking on loose surface, accept, learn and move on.

Get better tires and learn to not use the front brake on sand

 

[Drunkskunk]

Looks neat, but I don't think that will solve your problem. Scooters are like psycho girlfriends: Cute, fun to ride, but inherently unstable and prone to dump you suddenly.

Losing traction on the front end of a 2 wheeler, or tilting 3 wheeler almost always means a crash. having a small wheel and a low center of gravity means the limit between perfectly fine and being a road stain is very very small. With a full sized bicycle/motorcycle, having a large wheel and a high center of gravity means the point at which you lose control may be more of a gradient instead of a razor's edge, giving the quick and the nimble time to react before all control is lost. And with enough high centered mass, you might just carry on in a ballistic trajectory until traction is regained, instead of falling over.

2 things will help with making your scooter safer and less prone to dump you. Increase the contact patch of the front wheel. More tire on the road makes it harder to lose traction with the road. So fit the largest, fattest tire and wheel the forks and fender can handle
The other thing is about rider skill. It takes more skill to handle a scooter in an emergency than it does to handle a big sports bike. If you have any local Motorcycling schools that teach things like how to safely brake in an emergency in a corner on sand, then you will probably get more out of the class than someone who rides a big sports bike.The situation you described is the reason schools exist. it's not something you would normally encounter, and not something most people could handle without experience and training dealing with situations like that.

 

[dogman dan]

A hard crash is a bummer. That scooter does look cool, and will have one major advantage. It will stand up on it own when you are stopped. But, that's about it. It won't do any better than a two wheel, if you lock up the brakes to deal with a situation. Particularly on gravel. Only if it has an abs front brake will it do any better. And then really, only on clean pavement. Once you lose traction on the front wheel with too much brakes for the surface, you are on a physics ride. You are no longer in control, physics is.


Now your situation, if that rebar was bent into a shape you could not roll over, well, you were just screwed. Anything shorter could have been swerved around, or a flat piece of steel just rolled over. If that is how it was, the only way to shorten your stopping distance is a sideways stop. Lock up the rear brake, and throw the bike sideways. Tricky maneuver, you might just high side it, or lay it down. This is a maneuver you learn on a coaster brake bike as a child, then transfer it to bigger and bigger vehicles as you grow up, till you could do the same thing on a Harley. The idea here is to never lose ability to steer that front wheel, trying like hell to avoid the thing if possible. The locked up rear wheel can be smeared all over the road while you still steer the front. Its basically a counter steering slide. Like a drift car, or a flat track racer. The key thing is point the front wheel where you want to go, and let that rear slide.

But in fact, perhaps 10% ever master it on anything more than a bmx bike. They hop on motor bikes, and then think stopping shortest is done by locking up both brakes. Its not. Sometimes you just must lay er down, and if so, you better have practiced this on something before.


If you have good dry, no gravel or sand pavement, you can stop very short by grabbing a lot of front brake, but NOT locking the wheel. This is where ABS really helps on a good motorcycle. But if you lack all that, putting both wheels sideways can slow you a bit more than just grabbing both brakes hard and risking a front wheel lock. But more importantly, you now face the other way. This makes it possible to immediately hit full throttle, and go somewhere else.


This manuver has allowed me to not hit cars many many times. Another time, I did hit the car, but slowed a lot first, and then hit the car with my foot, kicking myself to a stop and denting the shit out of the cars door. ( guy turned right into my path).


Practice this mauver.


And, think about riding slower on something that is harder to stop without crashing.. that has no abs brakes. This is one reason I ride a lot slower on e bikes these days, on debris strewn bike lanes.


And I get in the lane and haul ass, on a scooter that can keep up, and has that front abs. It DOES take more skill to ride than motorcycles. When I started riding a big scooter, I dropped it many times because I left pavement to enter a dirt parking lot. It took some time to get the hang of that low center of gravity. Learned to stop doing that with much angle on the front wheel, and keep the grab on that front wheel when pulling off the paved. Now I ride a gravel road fearlessly, but at first they terrified me.


Again, its practice, and failure, followed by more practice.