Safe's Electric Bike Project #001
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Drunkskunk
100 GW
Impressive.
Really, the whole bike is!
Are you powder coating the parts, or just painting them?
Really, the whole bike is!
Are you powder coating the parts, or just painting them?
Geebee
1 kW
Safe, if your fairing is done effectively it should exceed the Quests drag as it is a lot slimmer and the Quest according to the calc will exceed 60 mph at 1040 watts. 
Your current setup should just about be able to achieve that.
How do you explain to the officer when you get pulled over for doing 60 when you are meant to be limited to 30? Atleast if you have pedals you can say the motor was only assisting cough, cough.
Your current setup should just about be able to achieve that.
How do you explain to the officer when you get pulled over for doing 60 when you are meant to be limited to 30? Atleast if you have pedals you can say the motor was only assisting cough, cough.
safe
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Geebee said:
Well... if I'm caught going too fast then they have me and I get a ticket for speeding. Here in Missouri they tend to be pretty forgiving to electric bikes because they know that most people drive big SUV's and the small vehicles are given as much chance to survive in traffic as possible. People drive fast everywhere... so for me just staying up with the pace of traffic is actually going to make things safer for me.
The day I start PASSING CARS is the day I'd likely get a ticket!I think there's also an "uncertainty factor" about the future and they look at me as a sort of "guinea pig" that is testing an alternative future to gasoline powered vehicles.
They are watching... but they aren't reacting yet.
Missouri is called the "Show Me" State because the legend goes that someone once was skeptical about something and said "I won't believe you until you can show me it's true."
So they wait and they watch...
CGameProgrammer
10 kW
Can you post videos, safe?
Beware that if it pops, a wide tire on a narrow rim is more likely to get off the rim and jam the wheel. It's preferable to mount wide tires on wide rims. Sorta looks like you're running 3 inch tires on 2.5cm rims, you'd also get less side to side play with these tires on wider rims.
safe
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Mathurin said:
Wide rims are expensive, but it would be better to have them. (someday?)
I've just ordered and expect today to receive some improved tires. Apparently the "top of the food chain" is the "Road Hog" and has much stronger construction than the Kenda tires. Kenda is running a "Special" and letting the tires go for $10 each so I bought a few of them too and in both sizes. I'm buying one Road Hog mainly for the rear of my current very heavy bike at a price of $23. I have the "Kenda Kraze" tires now and don't like them very much... they have troubles getting their beads to seat on the rim properly, they tend to wobble as they spin. I hope the Krusader with it's more rounded shape is less prone to this problem. At $10 each they are worth testing.
Road Hog
http://www.choppersus.com/store/product/432/Tire-24-x-3-Road-Hog/
Krusader
http://www.kendausa.com/bicycle/weeklyspecials.htm
safe
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Feedback on the New Tires
The "Road Hog" lives up to it's claim of being the strongest and highest quality tire for the 24" x 3.0" category. It can be inflated to 65 lbs and the sidewall is as thick as a motorcycle tire. This tire isn't going to break.
The Kenda "Krusader" is better than the "Kraze" and the shape is more "pointy". In fact both tires are "pointier" (triangle shaped verses square) and that changes the handling on my bike. Before, with the flatter "Kraze" tires I had to "turn in" all the time in a turn. The tendency for the bike was to NOT want to lean unless "forced". I had gotten used to it, but I always knew it was not "ideal". These tires "fall into the turn" more easily and seem to stabilize better once you are in the lean. I didn't get a full ride in today and the turn I was testing on goes left... may favorite high speed right hand sweeper turn had a car in it that was putting along at under 10 mph
so I'll scrub the right side eventually. At first I'll have to take it easy until the tires are worked in right.
All in all the "Road Hog" is so much stronger and stiffer that the bike actually seems to have less rolling resistance. So I'm already finding another 1-2 mph in places that I didn't have before. 8)
I've also created a new seat with real padding and real synthetic leather. It's so much more comfortable than the old one.
A wider rim on the rear would only add to the strength of the "Road Hog" tire and it would slightly flatten out the shape of the tire too. This would be about ideal because in the rear it's "okay" to be flat shaped. (you want the rear end to break loose, but the front you want never to break loose) So when it comes to another "upgrade" a wider rim on the rear is definitely a possibility. More $$$ though... $55? Ugh!
The "Road Hog" lives up to it's claim of being the strongest and highest quality tire for the 24" x 3.0" category. It can be inflated to 65 lbs and the sidewall is as thick as a motorcycle tire. This tire isn't going to break.
The Kenda "Krusader" is better than the "Kraze" and the shape is more "pointy". In fact both tires are "pointier" (triangle shaped verses square) and that changes the handling on my bike. Before, with the flatter "Kraze" tires I had to "turn in" all the time in a turn. The tendency for the bike was to NOT want to lean unless "forced". I had gotten used to it, but I always knew it was not "ideal". These tires "fall into the turn" more easily and seem to stabilize better once you are in the lean. I didn't get a full ride in today and the turn I was testing on goes left... may favorite high speed right hand sweeper turn had a car in it that was putting along at under 10 mph
so I'll scrub the right side eventually. At first I'll have to take it easy until the tires are worked in right.All in all the "Road Hog" is so much stronger and stiffer that the bike actually seems to have less rolling resistance. So I'm already finding another 1-2 mph in places that I didn't have before. 8)
I've also created a new seat with real padding and real synthetic leather. It's so much more comfortable than the old one.
A wider rim on the rear would only add to the strength of the "Road Hog" tire and it would slightly flatten out the shape of the tire too. This would be about ideal because in the rear it's "okay" to be flat shaped. (you want the rear end to break loose, but the front you want never to break loose) So when it comes to another "upgrade" a wider rim on the rear is definitely a possibility. More $$$ though... $55? Ugh!
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safe
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Dual Disc Hub
This should help me slow the bike down when needed... I took two hubs and cut them in the middle then welded them together. It's steel obviously... paint is still drying, maybe tomorrow I'll lace it into a wheel and sometime later weld new disk brake braces on the fork, then repaint, etc...
Oh, those tires above are working great. The edge is smooth compared to the ridges the old tire had so it's very smooth in a lean now. It's feeling really nice...
This should help me slow the bike down when needed... I took two hubs and cut them in the middle then welded them together. It's steel obviously... paint is still drying, maybe tomorrow I'll lace it into a wheel and sometime later weld new disk brake braces on the fork, then repaint, etc...
Oh, those tires above are working great. The edge is smooth compared to the ridges the old tire had so it's very smooth in a lean now. It's feeling really nice...
I'd really like to see how one could adapt a standard fork for the second caliper. That would be defiantly come in handy.
safe
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Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh said:
I have a welder and am not afraid to use it!
It's really nice to be able to just hack stuff off and then weld new stuff in it's place. If you make a mistake you can always cut it off and then start over.
One thing I tried BEFORE this one was to use a standard rear disc brake hub and create something that would hold the other disc but SCREW ONTO the place where the freewheel would normally go. That idea would allow you to buy a standard rear hub and simply screw the disc part on as an extra. The problem I had is that I started with the remains of a broken freewheel core and began chopping and welding. What happens with low quality mild steel is that when you heat it up it tends to SHRINK and so by the time I got most of the disc mounts welded on the threaded part it had shrunk and would no longer fit on the threads of the hub.
Anyway... I realized that was beyond my technical capacity to deal with and so I was forced to cut the hubs.In a "perfect world" all you would need is a threaded replacement for the freewheel and be sure to flip the wheel in the right direction so that when the brake is applied it tightens rather than looses the disc.
One other thing is getting the brakes to operate evenly. If I were using hydraulic brake fluid the balancing would be easy, but I'm actually using some brakes that are cable operated. I'm pretty sure there are "cable splitters" that tandams use that will divide the front brake cable into two. Then once you get it configured the brakes will tend to wear faster on the disc that is tighter to begin with. Eventually they will stabilize.
Yet another issue is that my wheel is already getting enough brake induced pressure that it slowly creeps along on the rim. After a while the valve stem starts to get crooked and I think one of my flats was actually caused by a cheap tube and a ruptured stem and not any type of thorn. The "Road Hog" tires fit more firmly to the rim than the Kenda tires and seem less prone to this problem. One solution would be to take the tire off and make little notches on the INSIDE of the rim where the tire contacts the rim. Motorcycles have these notches and on dirt bikes they even used to have to have tire locks that bolted the tire to the rim.
With dual disc brakes I will finally be getting close to the actual limit of the front tires traction. The way it is now I can slow very rapidly, but I can't stand the bike up on it's front wheel OR make it skid and that's the true test for front brakes. I've got a lot of weight to slow down...
I've seen a disk brake adaptor that has freewheel threads on one side and a standard 6 hole pattern on the other end. Wish I could remember where.
Ypedal
100 TW
CGameProgrammer
10 kW
Safe, there's no point in balancing dual disc brakes that act on the same wheel. Sure, ideally they'd wear at roughly the same rate, but it certainly doesn't have to be exact. You are thinking of trikes or cars where there are two wheels side-by-side with their own brake; those obviously have to be balanced or the vehicle will steer in the direction of the quicker-braking wheel.
Also, still echoing my previous request of a video of your bike.
Also, still echoing my previous request of a video of your bike.
safe
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Lowell said:
Excellent!Wow, at $13.50 that's a good deal. I've already laced up the wheel and it's all done as far as the hub, but if I were to do it over again I'd just buy that adaptor. Is ebikes.ca somehow making their own? I wonder who makes those? (it appears to be a relatively rare item and I've even seen messageboards talk about the "impossibility" of finding such a thing :lol: )
safe said:Lowell said:
Wow, at $13.50 that's a good deal. I've already laced up the wheel and it's all done as far as the hub, but if I were to do it over again I'd just buy that adaptor. Is ebikes.ca somehow making their own? I wonder who makes those? (it appears to be a relatively rare item and I've even seen messageboards talk about the "impossibility" of finding such a thing :lol: )
'Impossible to find' just means I have to machine/weld/fabricate it myself 8)
I'm not sure who makes that piece, but it sure is a good idea.
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