First school run.

Loaded up the 2 boys and the school bags and headed up to school this morning. Average speed for the trip used to be around 6 or 7 km/h (it is a long climb up about a 1 to 2% grade to get to the school gate). This morning the average speed was 14km/h! The kids could not believe how fast we were going and the average speed would have been higher if we did not have to slow down for people on the path. Fully loaded up for a school run the bike weight is just under 190kg (418 pounds for all those on the old scale).

I can get up the hills!!!

Well today was the big day! My last task was to mount the battery and this was fairly easy. I simply placed it in the cargo box under the kids seat. To make it sit flat however I had to drill a small hole in the floor for the fuse holder on the bottom side of the battery to sit in. I used some heavy duty velcro to secure it in place and recycled some of the packaging from the Ezee carton to wedge it in place -

Eventually I will lower the seat so that it fits snugly over the top of the battery. This will enable the kids to sit lower in the box and fit under the rain cover and I may also be able to put some holes in the seat to enable quick access to the on/off switch and charging port (ie I wont have to unlock and remove the top of the seat as pictured above to charge it or turn it off).

One final check of all the connections and bolts and off I went! Some video of the first few runs follows. The hill is about a 3.5% grade according to Google Earth and without a motor from the standing start at the bottom I have to gear it down pretty low and do it at about 5-10km/h. Total weight of me, the bike, the motor and battery is about 135kg.

After these few runs I checked the motor to ensure everything was holding on as it should and it all looked good. Took the five year old for a spin (another 21kg!) and was still very impressed with the uphill assist with no noticeable difference in speeds.

Out of ten I would have to give this kit an eleven! The power comes on smoothly and stops as soon as I let go of the throttle. Using it on the uphills I am encouraged to also pedal to keep the speed up and reduce the load on the motor and this probably gives me a better workout then spinning up the hill in a very low gear!

Big thanks to Justin and everyone at Renaissance Bikes. I was often amazed at the speedy responses to my questions during the installation!

Progress report (2)

Well it is getting close now! I had to put some thought into the kill switch. My main issue was what sort of switch to buy that could be easily mounted on the bike. A quick search through Dick Smith found one that was close as I thought I could drill a hole through the cargo box and screw it on with the lock nut from the other side. However it turns out the thread was not long enough to enable this. I then thought about using a part from the Ezee kit that was not needed (due to my purchase of the CycleAnalyst) -

It is the default 'fuel gauge' that shows a green, yellow or red light depending on battery capacity. The switch is not used as far as I know but I figured I could open it up and rewire the switch to pins 2 and 4 of the pedal assist connector. I could then mount the gauge on the handlebars with the supplied hardware and hey presto - a kill switch! So I opened it up -

The yellow wire on the switch lead directly into the cable so I only had to rewire the black one to lead into the cable instead of the circuit board. I snipped the connector end off the cable and tested the black and yellow with the multimeter. First with the switch off -

No connectivity and then with the switch on -

Yeahh zero resistance! It was then a simple matter of soldering the black and yellow to pins 2 and 4 of the pedal assist sensor. I connected the battery, lifted the rear wheel and sure enough the motor will not start with the switch on!

The handlebars are now starting to look a bit crowded though! Below from the left is the thumb throttle, kill switch, CycleAnalyst and my original speedo -

A bit of trial and error was necessary to mount the CycleAnlayst's wheel speed sensor but eventually I managed to put it on in such a way that both it and my original speedo can be used with the one magnet on the spokes. I also needed to splice some more wire into the sensor cable as it was not long enough to reach the mount near the front wheel.

All the cables have now been 'tidied' up underneath the box -

So all that is left to do is to secure the battery in the cargo box and take it for a spin. That may have to wait for tomorrow though as the kids are home from school now and need some attention!

Progress report...

My five year old was pretty good today and he let me do some work on the trike. He even offered to help - 'I know dad, when you need something from your work box you tell me and I'll get it for you.' He can be so cute when he is not being naughty!

Anyway I digress. I had a good look at all the wires and various bits and made some decisions about how it should all be wired up. The battery will definitely go under the lockable kids seat in the cargo box so my attention turned to where to put the controller. Originally I thought I would just put it under the seat also (it fits in the supplied bag next to the battery) but upon looking at all the connections it occurred to me I would need some big holes in the floor of the box to accommodate the connectors from the various cables that connect to it. I had also read that sometimes it is good to have the controller outside of the battery case in the 'fresh air' to assist in keeping it cool. So I flipped the bike up and found that the controller could fit nicely underneath the cargo box nestled into the frame -

The controller is held in place by two cable ties and heavy duty velcro which is attached to the base and the bottom side that rests on the steel frame. Due to a weld in the bottom right corner of the frame I was unable to make the controller sit flat against this edge so I wrapped a nut in some black insulation tape and placed it up the top between the frame and the controller. Thus I was able to ensure the horizontal cable tie pictured above could be pulled tight while keeping the base square on to the frame. With the controller mounted here I now only have to drill a hole in the box for the power cables to the battery directly above. There is also plenty of room under here to wind up any excess cable lengths and tuck them neatly out of the way of the steering mechanism.

So far I have only had a chance to connect the grey cable pictured above to the motor. The Ezee kit as supplied is very good as it includes a connector housing with zip tie holes to ensure this connection is secure and watertight. You can see it here just in front of my pedals (still have to secure and take up the slack on the grey cable) -

The bottom of my tube also has a few ziptie mounts that are used to hold the gear cable in place on its journey up to the handle bars. I was able to utilise one of these to help secure the connector housing. The Ezee kit also had a tube of dielectric silicone compound for smearing on the connectors.

One issue that occurred to me is that with the battery mounted under the locked kids seat it will be a hassle turning it off every time I leave the bike alone. With the bike often left up at the school it would not take much for one of the curious kids to hit the throttle! I asked Justin from Renaissance Bikes about wiring in a 'kill switch' and he said this was easily done by shorting pins 2 and 4 on the 'pedal assist sensor' connector which is unused on my setup. This connector is also used for the brake cutoff lever which I may look at getting if I install a rear rim brake down the track.

Tomorrow I will hopefully wire up everything else!

It's alive!

With some kid free time today I took the opportunity to fully charge the Ezee battery (took about 5 hours) and wire up the bits to see if it all works. And it does! Small video below of the moment it came to life!

I now just have to work out the best way to mount the battery in the box so that it is secure and I still have room for the kids. Though I may temporarily wire it up and place the battery on the rear rack just to get it on the road so I can test it out up some hills!

Derailleur versus internal hub gears

After a few days of riding with the derailleur gearing (with the motor not wired in yet) one thing that has struck me is how much easier the bike seems to ride. As an example this morning I was able to cycle the two kids and their heavy bags up the hill to school in my 3rd and 4th lowest gears (15.5 and 18.1 gear inches). Previously with the Nexus hub I used to have to do this in the lowest gears (11.7 and 13.7 gear inches). And I might add that I am not as fit as I was when I was pedalling around with the Nexus! I also did a 3km ride today to the bike shop and managed  to do it a couple of minutes quicker then I had before by being able to pedal in higher gears then what I used to.

Maybe it is my imagination but I had read that internal gear hubs are not as 'efficient' as derailleurs and can introduce some 'drag' and I would have to agree based on my short experience!

The motor is on!

Well it is done. After a few hours of intense work at Cycle Surgery we managed to install the Ezee motor, the Mountain Drive and a new derailleur gear system (no wiring of the motor as yet). Simon and Tom are pictured below doing the hard yards on the new derailleur and shifter -

The 'tricky bits' of the install were as follows -

• The rear dropouts had to be spread slightly to accommodate the motor - no big issue despite my initial concern!
• Had some trouble with the torque washers due to the position of the axle in the dropouts so left these out.
• Had to cut off a connector to put a torque arm on the wiring (right) side of the motor so will need to solder this back on.
• The nut and bolt to secure the adapter claw for the derailleur hanger interferes with the 11T on the freewheel so effectively I have six usable gears instead of seven. When you count the Mountain Drive low gear though it is really 12 gears instead of 14. Again no big issue as the gear range with the newly installed 34T chain wheel (instead of my previous 42T) is 10.2 to 62.8. If the motor works out as well as I expect I may go back to the 42T chain wheel and bump the range up to 12.6 - 77.5.
• Needed to drill out a bottle screw mount on the handlebars to slide the thumb throttle and new gear shifter into position.

The end result looks pretty good -

Did a quick ride around the shop and the derailleur and Mountain Drive combination work very well. Though I'll need to get used to shifting gears on a derailleur after becoming accustomed to shifting thru the gears very quickly (and whilst stopped!) on the previous Shimano Nexus 7 internal hub.

TIme to get serious - electrify the trike!

As detailed in my previous post I have been without the trike for a few months and I have certainly missed it! Needing to use the car even for short shopping trips and school pickups has taken its toll on my fitness level and our petrol consumption! While the Mountain Drive issue was being rectified I thought it an opportune time to further explore ways to improve the trike.

With the Mountain Drive whilst I can go up any hill I want it can take a long time to do some of my regular trips when only traveling at 4km an hour! The kids can get restless when going so slow and it can also be embarrassing being overtaken by old people going for a walk! So I have been looking at installing some form of electric assist system that could increase my speed up the hills to say 15-20km/h with me also pedaling. I do not need any assistance when on the flats or downhill as the trike fairly flies along in these situations even with a heavy load.

The two main options for pedal assist are the use of a 'through the gears' type of motor that drives the cranks or a hub motor that sits inside a wheel.

Through the gear options include the Cyclone, Epac or Elation type of systems that in various ways drive the front cranks or the chain line. Advantages of these types of systems are that -

• You retain the use of all the rear gears
• The motor can take advantage of the rear gears to provide better assistance
• You can choose to use only the motor, only pedal or a combination of the two
• Most of these systems use a freewheel system so there is no extra drag if you chose not to use the motor

The main disadvantage of these types of systems for me would be the difficulty in fitting them due to the non standard frame on the trike and that most would necessitate the removal of the Mountain Drive to have 'normal' cranks. However during my research on motors I came across this setup which is a custom built variation based on the above systems. It is fitted to a trike similar to mine with a Mountain Drive installed. However it does not 'freewheel' meaning the pedals always turn when the motor is engaged. The owner of that trike kindly answered a lot of my questions during my research on the best system for my trike!

Hub motor options are too numerous to list here! The main trouble with these for my setup was that I could not use them on the front wheels as there are no suitable forks to mount them on. This would mean replacing the rear wheel which on my trike has the hub gears and back pedal brake. Thus if I was going to install a hub motor I needed to examine converting the trike to a derailleur gear system. Unfortunately the trike has no derailleur hanger on the rear dropout but thanks to the late Sheldon Brown's informative web site I learned about 'adapter claws' and I managed to track one down from this ebay shop for only $US10. I also managed to find another Christiania Trike that had a rear hub motor installed and noticed his use of a rear rim brake mounted in a way I could replicate. With my recently upgraded front brakes I would rarely need a rear one but it would be nice to have it as a backup!

So after much googling and reading of various e-bike forums I started asking questions of Renaissance Bikes about the Ezee Geared Hub Motor Kit. These hub motors (as opposed to 'direct drive' motors) have a planetary gear system built in which means more 'torque' for getting up the hills. The motors are also smaller and weigh less then the direct drive types and thanks to the built in freewheel they have no drag when being pedaled without the motor engaged. I cannot speak highly enough of the people at Renaissance Bikes - they answered all my queries very quickly and were a great help in sorting out the best options to put on the trike. I went for a rear motor with a controller from a front motor kit as the longer cables on the front controller will enable me to mount the battery in the front box if I choose. I also purchased a cycle analyst so I can accurately monitor power usage and limit the motor to make it street legal.

And would you believe the motor arrived the same day as the repaired Mountain Drive. I paid for it on October 30th, it was built (I needed the 26inch motor relaced into a 24 inch wheel) and then shipped from Canada on November 7th and I got it about 11am on November 9th! Incredible service. A couple of items were missing however (a rear torque arm and the 7speed freewheel) but after letting them know I was advised they would be sent out that day and they are now on the way.

The motor in the 24 inch wheel can be seen below. It has a fairly small diameter compared to non-geared motors and in fact is about the same size as a disc brake rotor -

The battery for the motor is contained in a neat bag that can be attached to a rear rack though I am likely to mount mine in the cargo box. A flap allows access to the charging port -

Now it all just has to go together! Simon at Cycle Surgery is going to do the Mountain Drive install, swap the rear wheels and install the derailleur. When that is all sorted I'll work out the best way to install the battery, throttle etc. Stay tuned for updates!

PS - I would like to thank my lovely wife for letting me buy the above! It will be great honey - trust me!

The trike is off the road...

Have been without the trike for a little while hence the lack of posts lately. As you can see it is looking a little worse for wear in its partially disassembled state and lack of pedals!

So what happened? Well in early September whilst heading up to school the Mountain Drive made a horrible noise then locked up! I could not rotate the pedals forwards or backwards so had to quickly wheel the bike home (downhill luckily) with the youngest on board, then put him in the car and drive up to school to pick up the oldest from Kindi. Was only a little bit late for pickup fortunately.

The manufacturer (Florian Schlumpf) was very quick to respond to my emails and I sent it back to him for inspection and warranty repair on September 21st after arranging for my local bike shop to remove it. I did not get the old cranks put back on because the thread in the bottom bracket needed repair and I thought I would just wait for the Mountain Drive to return (it does not use the bottom bracket threads).

The reason why it failed is rather unexpected to say the least! Upon receiving the Mountain Drive Florian said the one I had is designed for 'hand trikes' (something I had not heard of before). It uses only 2 instead of 4 planetary gears to reduce weight and has a 'softer' shifting mechanism. In short I somehow got sold a Mountain Drive never designed to go on a 'normal' bike and the extra stress has ruined it! I never even knew there was a Mountain Drive version not meant to go on pedal bikes and I will now be having serious words to the guy who I got it off locally. After all he knew exactly what type of bike the Mountain Drive was going on because he installed it!

Florian kindly agreed to repair and upgrade the Mountain Drive for just the cost of the parts and freight which is fair enough given it is not his fault it failed. It arrived today with some free extra bits thrown eg some new crank arms (my original ones were wrecked by having the pedals cross threaded on to them). Florian certainly stands behind the product he manufacturers!