whats the pusher for?

Well the easiest bike I have at the moment to ride is the bubba bike. I can roll it out then add the battery pack and off I go. The pusher isn't bad either. I just roll it out of the shed and take off. It is a little more complicated than the hub but only because I have to pay more attention to how the bike feels.

I have a second pusher motor ready to install. I am looking for a bike to put it on now. Actually I might get a full suspension for the hub motor and move it over. The pusher I can slip onto the bike I am using now for the hub. It would work out pretty well I think.

more fun everyday

Now that the gross build is done, I make small improvements everyday that make the bikes more fun to ride. Today for instance I rode the bubba bike (hum motor) and discovered that my shoe tapped the homemade luggage carrier... So I took a few minutes to move it back and bend a corner a small amount to get it out of the way.

It actually a lot of fun now to ride these bikes. The weather is nice and the bikes are performing will. I have another whole motor kit to install on a bike if I run across one I just can't live without.

the double tap failure

yeah the bike with two motors was a bust, but I did learn a few things and that's what experimenting is about.

I am going to do it/

I was so impressed with the pusher motor that I am building one that I am going to attach to the hub bike. I will be interested to see what, if any, effect it has. I have the bike ready to accept it. I also have the pusher frame built and fitted. All I need now is the motor and wheel assembly which is on it's way to me.

I still need to build a battery rack but that is a simple enough job.

Yes I know

Yes I know it infuriates the four wheelers to see me zipping along at a blazing ten miles an hour. I hold them up thirty seconds while they wait for an opportunity to pass me.

Most pass me safely and bite their tongues, Some pass me safely and show me their fingers, some pass me safely and shout obscenities. I don't mind any of those too much. Okay the obscenities remind me of the last scene from easy rider so they bother me a bit. However the worst by far are the ones who feel the need to try to force me off the road but cutting back in too close.

But the truly frightening ones are the ones who pull out in front of me at cross streets. I suppose they think might makes right and I guess it does since I stop for them.

I like it more and more

Every time I ride that pusher bike I like it more. I rode it twice today and it has a lot going for it. It has a low power consumption and great torque. it climbs hills like a mountain goat. It really is one of my better builds. I just don't have the trailer right yet but It will come to me. Not sure just when but it will.

I am going to get another wheel set. Just in case they are hard to find later. I expect the motor will outlive me but I guess I'll get one of those as well. hell I might build a bike for it as well.

What to tell a 5year old

I was thinking during my morning shower how I am going to explain my fascination with bike riding to my 5year old grandson. I wish he was older so he would understand. I am rebuilding a bike for his mom to ride with him. He is going to have questions for sure. "Why do you ride a bike "P" (his name for me)?

Bike riding is life caught in a single microcosm. Some days it seems that it is all downhill or flat, Some days it seems to be all uphill and a strain so bad you are not sure you will make it to the top, then you have to do it all over again.

But the more you work at it the more you can enjoy the downhill and flats and the smaller those same hills seem to get. So in the end up have your ups and down but they kind of seem to even out a little. Then of course there is the inevitable crash at the the end. But ****, I do it for the ride not to get anywhere in particular.

Then of course I could be mysterious and say, "I ride because I still can."
__________________

latest and I hope the last

Incarnation of the robo-tandem e bike. I hope this one is finished at last.

pusher ride

I managed to dodge the rain long enough to get in a two mile ride on the push bike. It handles a little differently but more than acceptable. I am going to put a twenty inch wheel on the front of the bike again. The balance is pretty far off and this one isn't quite as easy to control as the bubba

waiting always waiting.

Im waiting for it to dry up enough to test my new bike. If this propulsion system works it will be a great little unit for people to build at home. Not much to building it.

I am in the middle...

I'm in the middle of a range test on the ebike. I rode it five miles already today. I am going to ride it around the neighborhood until it starts to die. That way I can get a pretty good idea of the range of the bike. Ten miles of riding it my way would be acceptable. More would be better of course. Ten miles comfortably would be fine since I only have a hundred bucks in them. Fifty three dollars and change per set of two is the actual figure.

We will see in an hour or so.

I rode it and got ten miles. The battery was weak but still turning the motor over acceptably. I on the other hand was worn out. I gave up at ten miles but I'm sure there was more in the bike. I decided to pull the battery pack apart and reform it into two packs again.

gettin' stronger

I might just become an advocate for the healthy life. Okay probably not but I took the bubba bike out for a spin. I took it down to the local chicken joint to buy some cold slaw for dinner tonight.

Yes I have made this trip before on the bubba bike and there were a couple of hills that kicked my butt. Not so today. Today I pedaled hard up them alright but I wasn't gasping for air when I got up them. I got home feeling pretty darn good about myself. Maybe there was some unknown hand guiding me when I bought the undersized motor. I have to pedal hard now and then but it seems to be helping me improve my stamina. The biker god works in mysterious ways,

Also I took a good look at my experimental bike. The one I will be putting the pusher motor on. It has a friction drive front wheel drive already. I might just leave that as well. It would give me a total of 650 watts of raw power.

Here is the real beauty of it. I began a while back putting an extension cord female end on my battery pack and a male end on the motor. Now I can plug both motors into the cord. I can remove either of them at will. Sometimes you just have to get lucky.

All in all a good day so far in E-Bike land. AkA sparkville, NC. The good thing about being the only bike builder in Sparkville is I get to be the mayor. Wonder if I can get my title changed to Mayor of Sparkville

the weather is getting warmer

I will be riding this afternoon.

a cold wind that blows no good.

There is a really cold wind blowing hard today. Very unusual for North Carolina. This is more like New England. So for exercise I cut my grass.

I don't know about anyone else but my mind wanders to lots of things while I cut grass. It doesn't require too much focus to push a lawn mower. So as I am cutting I'm also trying to talk myself out of a larger hub motor.

There are a lot of good reasons not to go up in size. Not the least of which is that the motor I have now will probably last a lifetime. Not because I think it is great, even though I do think it works just as it is supposed to. It's more because it isn't exactly what I want. I just want to see what a 600watt 36volt motor is like.

Then i got to the cost of one of those. $350 to 500 bucks low end. Heck I could get another china girl kit for only $150 these days. Then somewhere out of my minds waste basket I pulled all the other things I had to buy for the kit. Piston rings that I screwed up. Various nuts and bolts I had to replace. A new chain because I switched bikes and the old chain was too short. I couldn't find the links I had cut off to make it fit. Oh yeah a chain tool to cut the chain to fit. Three count em three tensioners trying to find one to keep the chain out of my rear wheel. Oh yes a new rear wheel for when the tensioner went through the spokes of that rear wheel. Special gas cans to keep the premix away from my lawn mower gas. I'm sure there are some other small things I JUST HAD to have.

That's when I realized that the Ebike really wasn't that much more expensive. Especially when I add in the new registration and insurance cost. They are estimating the ins at 85 bucks a year. Oh I almost forgot the fifty dollar motorcycle helmet in my storage room that I will never wear again.

I have to keep telling myself how expensive the hub motor is or I will be out buying a new one.
__________________

next project.

I am going to build a push trailer with electric motor. It should be a good project and I hope not too hard to do.

Downtown test ride.

I don't think anyone realizes the condition of our roads unless they ride a power bike. Automobiles can step right over the cracks and small rough spots. The most I ever remember knowing about some of these rough spots was the sound of the tires humming as they went over them. That was in a car, not on the bike.

Those same hummer spots toss me all over the place. Every crack in the road has to be planned for unlike in a car. In a car it is the rail road crossing you might notice. On a bike something a lot smaller can toss you to the ground. I am very very careful around broken pavement. In a car I looked a block down the road planning for what might happen, on my bike I look ten yards down the road to plan.

I haven't even mentioned manhole covers yet. I expect every bike rider knows about those. They are much easier to avoid if you are not pulling a trailer.

This is brought on by the five and a half mile ride downtown and back on my bubba bike. It is the dress rehearsal for my wife's retirement party. The topography isn't too bad, so it is very doable.

Since I doubled the battery pack I had more than enough power. As a matter of fact I came in with 25.5 volts. The power saver feature of the bike shuts it down probably about 24.5 so I had a good amount of reserve. It started at 26.5 volts.

I ran the bike in full comfort conditions so it seems it will go over ten miles at comfort riding mind set and probably twelve or more miles at conservation mind set riding. All in all a successful test..

Oh just a piece of advice, if you build a battery trailer, build a frame on the bed so that the batteries can't shift onto the tires. It makes it hard as **** to pedal with the battery case rubbing a trailer tire. It's a lot like a hand brake dragging. See I am still learning. I learned that during yesterday's test.
__________________

For some time

For sometime now my life has been headed in this direction. Medical issues have forced me over the last year or two to curtail my driving. I have been preparing for the day that I would have to just give up my car completely. The day has come. From this day forward I will be riding my ebike everywhere I go or bumming rides with friends and family. So it's time to make the bike I have now workable and plan for the next one. I will need to build one bike that will really do it the way I want. The bike I have now will be my teacher.

The bike was designed to give me exercise not run as the only means of transportation for me. It will be interesting to see how I do things now.

trailers trailers and more trailers

I have returned the scooter trailer named for the wheels and tires, to a singer battery pack sla trailer. I plan to use the newest one for a two pack trailer. It will henceforth be known as the lawnmower trailer also named for the wheels.