TheCrystalSkull
10 µW
First off, I've been lurking for about a year. I'd like to thank the ES community for providing such a wealth of experience, information and variety of perspectives. Almost everyday I'm reading and learning and experimenting. By no means do I consider my bike finished.
My foray into electric started when I thought it might be fun to strap a scooter motor set up to a gravity bike I was building... the resulting machine was a hideous mish-mash of twisted frames and unfocused electrical shenanigans. But it gave that first grin. Eventually, I started building a purpose-built electric chopper, but that project has been put on hold, more or less, indefinitely. During the course of that build, I made the switch from SLAs, from direct drive to shifting setups and so on.
That bike had taught me the value of maintaining the non-powered qualities of the base bicycle. It was a great riding electric motorcycle, but terrible for pedal-only work. After a couple 'walks of shame' of about ten miles each, I got hip to the idea of using an actual bicycle, and maintaining the 'bicycle-ness' of it.
I fancy the old cafe racers, veteran-era bikes, board-trackers and rat rods in general, so these aesthetics and attitudes have their influence in this project.
The base bike:
This bike, that was given to me, was one of those yellow Boeing bikes. I've never been able to positively ID it, but the best I've come up with is that it's a late-eighties Schwinn. Could be wrong. Anyways, it got spray-bombed, and basically turned into a huge Stingray (my first bicycle was a blue 1969 Stingray that I rode from 6-16). It went to Burning Man, had the bearing grease replaced with caustic lake-bottom dust and left outside for the fall and winter. Not very responsible ownership, I know
A pretty little Cannondale hybrid had caught my fancy for a while. About a month and half ago I got a hair to fix up my Schwinn cause the hybrid's narrow road tires give me the fear. Things got out of hand fast; while trying to clean the now rusted spokes I had the bright idea to break down the wheel and replace the spokes, this resulted in converting the rear-wheel to a modern wheel, disc brake multi-speed downhill hub. The crank bearings were likewise shot, so I converted it to cartridge style three piece crank.
Anyways, I was thinking about trying a GnG kit on this, but I had the 290kv Turnigy setup from my other bike, so I picked up a gearbox from andymark, and that's what feeds into the crank setup. The nano-toughbox is pretty loud, but it seems to work. To the crank I'm running 19:1. I'm using a cheap HobbyKing 190-200 SS Esc on 6s6p of Turnigy Lipo for now. I plan to up the voltage, and gear down further, as soon as I can afford a better controller.
I'm in the process of making bodywork, converting the fenders, adding supplemental electrical systems. So, please don't mind the duct-tape too much, once I get it how I like it, things will be finished.
No CA yet, it's on the 'to get' list.
edited title
My foray into electric started when I thought it might be fun to strap a scooter motor set up to a gravity bike I was building... the resulting machine was a hideous mish-mash of twisted frames and unfocused electrical shenanigans. But it gave that first grin. Eventually, I started building a purpose-built electric chopper, but that project has been put on hold, more or less, indefinitely. During the course of that build, I made the switch from SLAs, from direct drive to shifting setups and so on.
That bike had taught me the value of maintaining the non-powered qualities of the base bicycle. It was a great riding electric motorcycle, but terrible for pedal-only work. After a couple 'walks of shame' of about ten miles each, I got hip to the idea of using an actual bicycle, and maintaining the 'bicycle-ness' of it.
I fancy the old cafe racers, veteran-era bikes, board-trackers and rat rods in general, so these aesthetics and attitudes have their influence in this project.
The base bike:
This bike, that was given to me, was one of those yellow Boeing bikes. I've never been able to positively ID it, but the best I've come up with is that it's a late-eighties Schwinn. Could be wrong. Anyways, it got spray-bombed, and basically turned into a huge Stingray (my first bicycle was a blue 1969 Stingray that I rode from 6-16). It went to Burning Man, had the bearing grease replaced with caustic lake-bottom dust and left outside for the fall and winter. Not very responsible ownership, I know
A pretty little Cannondale hybrid had caught my fancy for a while. About a month and half ago I got a hair to fix up my Schwinn cause the hybrid's narrow road tires give me the fear. Things got out of hand fast; while trying to clean the now rusted spokes I had the bright idea to break down the wheel and replace the spokes, this resulted in converting the rear-wheel to a modern wheel, disc brake multi-speed downhill hub. The crank bearings were likewise shot, so I converted it to cartridge style three piece crank.
Anyways, I was thinking about trying a GnG kit on this, but I had the 290kv Turnigy setup from my other bike, so I picked up a gearbox from andymark, and that's what feeds into the crank setup. The nano-toughbox is pretty loud, but it seems to work. To the crank I'm running 19:1. I'm using a cheap HobbyKing 190-200 SS Esc on 6s6p of Turnigy Lipo for now. I plan to up the voltage, and gear down further, as soon as I can afford a better controller.
I'm in the process of making bodywork, converting the fenders, adding supplemental electrical systems. So, please don't mind the duct-tape too much, once I get it how I like it, things will be finished.
No CA yet, it's on the 'to get' list.
edited title
