LightningRods mid drive kit

[Marc S.]

I've already been working with a couple of customers in Holland who have velomobiles. They are just using my current kit on the boom. I feel strongly that a mid bike motor location with a jackshaft would be hugely superior. Whether I get my own velo or not (mostly a matter of money) I will be developing electric drives for them.

For some velomobile models with one sided rear suspension (Quest, Strada, DF) bolting a motor to the boom is likely the only easy to implement solution. I'm not shure its a good solution at all by the amount of power your kit can generate... There is at least one pully on the power side of the chain. Not to forget the wear on 4m of chain. I wouldn't even do it in my recumbend trike.

I also like to keep electric power train and human power train as much separated as possible. A second chain to the left side of the rear wheel with a sprocket adapter to the disk brake mount is likely the best solution at these power levels, I think.

Yes the reason I like the Rotovelo is the impact resistant 'Frisbee' plastic shell. I hate worrying about body work. After fuel costs and insurance, dealing with body damage is one of the most annoying and constant expenses of owning an automobile.

Yeah, the rugged plastic shell sounds like a real plus point about the Rotovelo. Price isn't bad either. On your side of the pond they are even available without the hassle of importing them from Australia.

Body repairs is one point where the WAW is quite interesting as well, I think. The detachable nose isn't exactly cheap, but in case of a crash much easier to deal with than a monocroque chassis. The WAW is around for a while already but still among the fastest velomobiles available (if it got a strong 'motor') as well.

Thank you for the link to the velomobile forum. I'll do some lurking and see what I can learn.

Thats what I'm currently doing there as well (and the German forum).

An other interesting idea could be the $500 SpearHead velomobile kit, a pre cut Coroplast velomobile shell, to mount on an existing trike.
Here is the build thread from Rick OBrian: http://www.bentrideronline.com/messageboard/showthread.php?t=102957
He got a website where he sold the kit, but it is down at the moment: http://spearheadvelo.wordpress.com

 

[emaayan]

i'm pretty sure if i'll show up on israel riding one of those i'll get beat up by small children while i'm waiting on traffic

 

[LightningRods]

i'm pretty sure if i'll show up on israel riding one of those i'll get beat up by small children while i'm waiting on traffic

Paint it flat black and tell them it's a 'Stealth Bike'.

Will they let you carry pepper spray in Israel? I find that it's good for repelling aggressive dogs and children.

 

[Marc S.]

i'm pretty sure if i'll show up on israel riding one of those i'll get beat up by small children while i'm waiting on traffic

Most unlikely. They'll love it!
I was riding along side a white Quest velomobile at the Critical Mass in Hamburg lately and he got a lot of cheers from the crowd.

 

[LightningRods]

For some velomobile models with one sided rear suspension (Quest, Strada, DF) bolting a motor to the boom is likely the only easy to implement solution. I'm not shure its a good solution at all by the amount of power your kit can generate... There is at least one pully on the power side of the chain. Not to forget the wear on 4m of chain. I wouldn't even do it in my recumbend trike.

I also like to keep electric power train and human power train as much separated as possible. A second chain to the left side of the rear wheel with a sprocket adapter to the disk brake mount is likely the best solution at these power levels, I think.

For normal use on a velomobile I'd limit the power on my kit to 48V 40 amps. As long as you show some restraint in jumping on the throttle the gears should hold up at that power level. For the 4kW high speed run, yes as Matt Schumaker recommended single run would be best. It wouldn't even have to be to the left side. Hill climbing and acceleration from a stop is not important when you're chasing terminal velocity.

 

[LightningRods]

Most unlikely. They'll love it!
I was riding along side a white Quest velomobile at the Critical Mass in Hamburg lately and he got a lot of cheers from the crowd.

In the US half of the people would love it and cheer and the other half would try to run you over with their jacked up 4x4 pickup truck.

 

[Marc S.]

For normal use on a velomobile I'd limit the power on my kit to 48V 40 amps. As long as you show some restraint in jumping on the throttle the gears should hold up at that power level. For the 4kW high speed run, yes as Matt Schumaker recommended single run would be best. It wouldn't even have to be to the left side. Hill climbing and acceleration from a stop is not important when you're chasing terminal velocity.

4kW in a velomobile...
Try the Ebike Simulator, choose custome frame and type in 0.07 for cda and 0.0096 for cr...

 

[turbo1889]

. . .

In the US half of the people would love it and cheer and the other half would try to run you over with their jacked up 4x4 pickup truck.

Unfortunately very true, and is the main reason why I'm still after all these years still riding all upwrong bikes. Just too many aggressors out there to be down that low on the public roads with everyone else at least for my taste. At least at normal bicycle and e-bike speeds. Now something that can do 70-mph or better well now we might have enough speed to mitigate the issue enough for me to consider being down that low.

 

[Marc S.]

i'm pretty sure if i'll show up on israel riding one of those i'll get beat up by small children while i'm waiting on traffic

Paint it flat black and tell them it's a 'Stealth Bike'.

I'd rather take this black Milan.

Will they let you carry pepper spray in Israel? I find that it's good for repelling aggressive dogs and children.

Ouch! :lol:

 

[Marc S.]

Most unlikely. They'll love it!
I was riding along side a white Quest velomobile at the Critical Mass in Hamburg lately and he got a lot of cheers from the crowd.

In the US half of the people would love it and cheer and the other half would try to run you over with their jacked up 4x4 pickup truck.

You people live in a strange world...

 

[LightningRods]

I'd rather take this black Milan.

OMG YES! Rotovelo? What's a Rotovelo? :lol:

One question: How much?

 

[r3volved]

If you rode that around dressed in full camo gear and just claimed it was new military technology, those 4x4s would clear you a path.

 

[Marc S.]

I'd rather take this black Milan.

OMG YES! Rotovelo? What's a Rotovelo? :lol:

One question: How much?

These older price list says €6,750 for the 'basic' Milan SL plus €1,900 for the carbon/Kevlar variant. Thats about $10,800.
http://www.milan-velomobil.de/Preisliste Milan SL 092010.pdf
Here is the site http://www.milan-velomobil.de/milansl.htm

But you should check the site of the Milan producer on your side of the pont and his blog:
http://velomobiles.ca/MilanSL.html
http://velomobiles.blogspot.de

 

[Marc S.]

If you rode that around dressed in full camo gear and just claimed it was new military technology, those 4x4s would clear you a path.

I wouldn't mind disturbing aerodynamics a tiny bit by mounting some .50 barrels in front of the wheel arches.

 

[LightningRods]

I wouldn't mind disturbing aerodynamics a tiny bit by mounting some .50 barrels in front of the wheel arches.

I've always liked the esthetic of the WW1 era Spandau machine gun myself.

 

[LightningRods]

These specs from the Milan web site:

"Energy efficiency: 150 Watt at 31mph, 200 Watt at 37.3mph, value could differ depending on payload, riders weight, tires and road surface."

 

[Marc S.]

These specs from the Milan web site:

"Energy efficiency: 150 Watt at 31mph, 200 Watt at 37.3mph, value could differ depending on payload, riders weight, tires and road surface."

No motor. Without hood. 52mph top speed. 80t chainring/13t sprocket.

[youtube]5CmByXl_rHw[/youtube]

'Kid Karacho' is one of the stronger riders, though.

[youtube]baDnqNtH-dQ[/youtube]

 

[emaayan]

detected keywords "camo, military, kevlar, machine gun..."

oh hello N.S.A how ya doing, oh me, nah, just passing through, i don't know any of those people, i was just looking for some new bike gear..

 

[LightningRods]

"VeloVader"

 

[Marc S.]

"VeloVader"

You made my day!

 

[LightningRods]

No motor. Without hood. 52mph top speed. 80t chainring/13t sprocket.

Very cool!

 

[spinningmagnets]

In the US half of the people would love it and cheer, and the other half would try to run you over with their jacked up 4x4 pickup truck

You people live in a strange world...

Mark S, most of the anti-bicycle people are not against bicycles by themselves, places like California promote bicycles, but...they also try to pass federal legislation to make large vehicles illegal everywhere (because they burn too much gasoline). People with guns and large trucks don't mind if you don't have guns and trucks, they just get angry when someone wants to take theirs away.

Sometimes, bicyclists ride in the center of the road, and the cars must slow down to 15-MPH behind them. Bicycle advocates say that the law allows bicycles to ride in the road, but...the bicycles also run through stop signs. Many of the bicycle people pick and choose which law they want to follow (bicycles pay no road tax, roads are maintained by a fuel tax). We need bicycle only paths (like Netherlands). The city of Portland, Oregon is very bicycle-friendly, but the rest of the country is fighting each other.

 

[turbo1889]

. . . (bicycles pay no road tax, roads are maintained by a fuel tax). . .

Not trying to start an off topic argument but thought I should point out one hard fact error in your statements there. Fuel taxes make up the majority of the cost of the public roadway systems. About 2/3 of the cost to be specific. The other 1/3 comes from the general fund which anyone who pays any kind of taxes pays into. The average pedal bicycle must be run over the same mile of roadway about 6,000-9,000 times to do the same damage and wear to the roadway as driving the average car over them once. For mopeds, power scooters, light weight low power motorcycles you have to run them over the same section of road 300-1,000 times to do the same damage and wear. Full on big fat hog motorcycles you have to run them over the same section of road at bare minimum at least three or more times to do the same damage and wear and that's with the heaviest hogs. The primary damage to road surfaces is due to weight, and then it is a matter of how quickly the weight is applied (a matter of shock impact as speed increases the weight is applied to each square inch of road faster and faster) and then further down the list how much torque is applied and how quickly it is applied; basically the number of times you have to ride over the same mile to do the same damage exponentially goes up as the weight drops and then exponentially as the speed drops, and then exponentially as the torque applied drops. [And road engineers debate among themselves whether its the cube (x^3) or the quad (x^4) function that is best for estimating the wear due to increased weight, speed, and torque in that order of importance all highly cube or higher exponential on all of them.]

We get a cut rate and just pay our regular taxes (approx 1/3 of public roadway costs comes from the general tax fund) and unless you build a really big heavy fat hog powerful electric motor bike your being considerably overcharged and paying way more then your fair share considering how much less damage and wear we do to the roads. Now electric cars that are full size power and weight, well then an argument can be made.

I only addressed the one hard fact based part of what you said that I believe is incorrect (although you did correctly interpret that as the general perception), anything else that I might disagree with it not so solid fact based. And I do not wish to create an off topic argument. Thus I only address the hard fact issue.

 

[nukezero]

How are the kits coming?

 

[LightningRods]

I just got a dozen hardened jackshafts from Steve. I replaced the unhardened one in Spinningmagnet's kit and installed the spindles in the three other kits that are very nearly ready to ship. I just need to do little things like cut keys for the pulleys and sprockets and spacers for the chain and pulley guards.

I have almost all of the parts to build a dozen kits. I have sheets, motors, ISIS BBs and cranks, ACS freewheels to build 30. I just ordered aluminum pulley stock and 219 driver sprockets for all 100 of the motors I ordered. I just ordered 25 more 25mm GT belts.

Since today is Sunday, Father's Day, and I'm beat I'm not going to get much done today. Not nothing but not much. Back at it tomorrow.

It was fun dreaming about new projects.