Thank you, I was thinking that there would not be much peddling because the engine looks like it would be in the way (at least in the photos) and the additional weight of the engine. Long ago when I used to race bicycles, one of my training routines on rainy days was to wear ankle weights and ride a heavy, old Schwinn "Varsity" with bricks on the luggage rack and steel weights strapped to the front. That, too, produced an astonishing amount of drag.
My first bike was a 1969 Schwinn Varsity. Great bike but super heavy. One time I rode it to the next state for a 'battle of the bands' multiday concert. The concert was hideously bad, but the ride was epic. I used surplus gear, which made the weight something like 80 pounds. At one point I was going up a steep incline. The side of the road angled up steeply, when I got winded, I gently flopped onto the grass without getting off the bike. On the way home I coasted for what seemed like a half hour.
Forgot to include the point. Those bikes have been around for a few years, but the motors are pretty recent (that I know of). They got a lot more popular once the motors showed up. My personal opinion is that they are miserable beats without a motor. I am also not certain what they would be good for, except sand. Good for Saudi Arabia, not so much for Maine.
By the 1980s, you could find old Schwinn Varsitys just about everywhere as people began to look for lighter bicycles. You're right, they are heavy but almost indestructible. The last place I lived in Germany, Freiburg i. Br., was near the foothills of the Alps and there was a monastery at the top of one of the mountains that served wine and light meals for lunch. A few friends and I would start peddling uphill at about 7AM and usually reached the monastery by about 1PM. After a great meal and a few liters of wine, we began the downhill trip fast enough to pass everything on the road. Why no one crashed, I'll never know except there must be some truth to the maxim that God looks after drunks, fools and children.
It is true they are real bitch to pedal. But even the motorized beach cruisers which are the more common of the gas motorized bikes have a 49cc 2-stroke on them are also very laborious to pedal. And with those you have to hold a clutch lever in on The handlebar. No matter how you slice it that drive chain makes drag anytime you have to pedal a gas motorized bike. People used to ride these all over town here they called them DUI bikes, because you did not need a driver's license to operate one. Some years back they changed the law requirement at least to valid driver's license and now very few people drive one. Those tires will come in handy around here with all of these potholes. Plus I have some friends that live down the road in a little community that is nothing but dirt roads that sugar Sand during the dry season. But believe it or not I get through that sugar Sand pretty good on my recumbent if I can keep about 8 or 10 12 mile an hour momentum going. I still have the recumbent and pedal that. I always wanted to motorize one of them but there's not enough room in the frame you would have to place the motor behind the seat. I suppose it could be done and maybe I'll try to make one one day. But the axle of the motor would basically have to be at the 12:00 top dead position over the axle of the rear wheel. Either that or the wheelbase would have to be even longer yet and the seat scooted up some relative to the wheelbase to shift the center of weight of the motor forwards of the rear axle. Those little motors are actually pretty light I think mine's only 20 lb and those two strokes are lighter yet
In its present, as-sold state, my machine has 21 ratios to choose from. Riding ten km without assistance would not be much to do. So far, after over 1200 km of cumulative use, it hasn't come close to ever running out of electrons. I don't hear the motor, and neither does anyone else. One sure thing this bike has confirmed is that, as people knew before automobiles became common, one horsepower can do a lot. One horse can pull a cart with several people in it. Seeing so many two ton monstrosities running around cities with one person in them and averaging less than 20 kph while consuming great quantities of polluting petroleum products is amusing, in a somewhat perverse way. My experience so far has been that no car can negotiate city conditions as rapidly as my "Whisper 1.1", but I prefer riding it in the woods and countryside.
Batteries certainly are a problem. Cost, deterioration, weight and size all count against present models. My configuration still works quite well, however, and if any new electrical storage matrix comes along, it will plug right into what's there. Electric motors last a long time.
Fixing to crank it up and let it idle for about 10 minutes and do some more break-in riding. They say it takes about 20 miles to break in properly, so far I've probably only rode three or four. This having to work for a living thing seems to get in the way of having fun sometimes.... It wanted to stall when idling yesterday once or twice so I adjusted the idle screw higher and now it idles fine. Now I'm even considering ordering a cheap 49cc 2-stroke kit for a 29-in single speed mountain bike I have that has disc brakes front and rear. You can pick them up on Amazon all day for a little over a hundred bucks and up. It's a good deal more work to set up than mine but if you like turning wrenches it's fun.
Before they change the law several years back requiring at least a valid driver's license to operate one a lot of people around here were driving the motorized beach cruisers. And the only brake most of those guys were using was the existing coaster break. Were not even using any type of front brake, much less at least a decent disc brake on the front. So you've got a crappy Walmart beach cruiser that's going about 30 miles an hour and the only brake you have is a coaster brake..... And if your chain should pop off, now you have zero brakes....
What is the top speed most of you guys get out of your e-bikes? I know a lot of them come factory set is a what a class 2 bike or something? Top speed of 20 but you can reset the computer to become a class 3 or something?
I was a bit worried those 3 horses would rip your bike (and you) apart. But that bike looks like it can take it. It appears you've built the most 'motorcycley' thing possible without legally building an actual motorcycle. Well done! ...but now it needs a sidecar.
Thanks. I'm happy with it. I was actually considering fabricating a side car some point. My girlfriend is only a hundred pounds so that's not too much for it to carry. Sidecar could probably be kept at 30 lb or less. I would need to make brackets that could be bolted around the bike frame. For a couple of reasons, I would not want to weld to the frame to make it permanent and also my machine does not weld aluminum which is what the bike is made of. If I make a sidecar will be made of the same thing that I fabricate recumbent bikes and backwards three wheelers out of, EMT conduit. All it is is relatively thin walled steel tubing that's galvanized. It's great to build things out of they even make ultralight aircraft out of it. People think aluminum is king of lightweight Fabrications but using reasonably walled steel tubing and some good common Sense engineering to strengthen structures, steel Fabrications can be a lot lighter than people would assume. A bicycle frame made from steel also has a less harsh of a ride than aluminum. Compared to aluminum steel has a little bit of give to it. It also has a superior fatigue life
Was trying to get this stupid phone to pull up a picture of my recumbent bike build but I couldn't seem to get the picture to come up but I found this so enjoy some of my coin and fossil collection
Okay I found one of my recumbent that I fabricated from steel. And here is an e-bike very similar to the one that was on loan to me except this is the newer generation one with the 3-in tire instead of the four. 3 in is plenty of tire
It's working pretty good. It will carry my 215 lb uphill on a dirt road with thick sugar Sand at 25 mph. Try that with an e-bike. It may be able to do the same thing if it's one of the better quality ones but it won't do it for very long
A friend of mine who weighs almost 400 lb was able to ride it and it pulled him along. Now granted I'm sure the clutch was screaming about it! Lol. I told him just don't hit the gas from a dead stop pedal and get going a few miles an hour at least before you hit the gas. This will make your clutch last a lot longer. And the clutch is 70 bucks so you kind of want to be kind to it
Four strokes aren't terribly loud compared to a two-stroke. I may look into an electric wheel kit for my recumbent bike. I know the motors are relatively inexpensive it's the battery is where most of your money is. Since I already have a bike to electric motorized perhaps I can spend some of the money that it would not cost to buy an e-bike on upgraded batteries.
Sounds fun. Maybe you could swap out the motor for a Predator go kart engine. Harbor Freight has them for about $150. https://www.harborfreight.com/brands/predator/engines.html
I really doubt the general public would go for that. Speaking of pedal power I still ride my pure recumbent..... Pure pedaling that is, no motor of any sort except me. I work 3rd shifts and sometimes when I can't sleep at night and I'm off I ride my recumbent around this big rectangle in my neighborhood it's exactly 3.9 miles around. I'll start riding generally around midnight to about 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. About half of it is fairly remote going through cattle country and citrus Grove and woods. But it's pretty fun because it takes me a little over 30 minutes to ride it leisurely. And every time I pass my house I'll stop by for drinks and then ride again until I'm tired of riding. Sometimes a car does not pass me the entire way around it. There's a stretch in the back 40 which is pitch black, it's very good to sit and watch the stars there. I rode it three times around last night.
And the reason I say I doubt it is because you can't get people out of these big giant trucks and SUVs and into decent size 4 cylinder cars. Hell they don't even like making small pickup trucks anymore. I'd love to have a small truck but you can't find one and if you do even for a decent used one they probably want 7,000 for one that's 20 years old. Those tadpoles are pretty neat but you're very low to the ground. I don't know why we complain about this gas problem when everyone drives these giant v8s that suck gas down like water on a hot summer day. Look at a Kia soul it's a tiny little four-cylinder car it gets about 36 miles a gallon. A new one starts at $20,000 and I considered getting one but I don't want to be in debt for the next 4 or 5 years.
Just got done riding the 3.9 MI irregular rectangle twice. Did it on my recumbent pedal bike. It's nice riding in the wee hours of the morning. I fabricated this bracket today to hold my flashlight on my gas bicycle. I paid $60 for this rechargeable 1200 lumen flashlight about 6 years ago and I have used it for many hours. I feel like I have got my money's worth out of this light two or three times over. Just plug in your standard cell phone charger and recharge it. This light would probably take four AA's or at least two or three c or d cell batteries. It paid for itself in batteries the first year of good use on a bike. So that was certainly $60 very well spent some years ago.... It very clearly lights up the road upwards of 300 yards ahead of you. It would do a real motorcycle Justice. So I had a problem.... I needed to mount this light on my gas motorbike. There was no real where or place to mount it. So what to do when you have a welding machine and some imagination....? The answer to that question is you scratch your head and drink beer, sleep on it, think on it or whatever..... So this is what I came up with.... I think it was one and a quarter inch muffler tubing.... Cut down the center and make a bracket, turn another piece 90°... .. and weld the two of them together. Three hose clamps later and you have the most sturdy light you could ever have. If this bike could go 50 miles an hour down a dirt road this light would not move a fraction of an inch. Left and right and up or down this light is not moving
