Christiania Trike rates well!

The latest edition of Ride On magazine reviewed a large assortment of cargo bikes and trikes that are now available in Australia. Both the 2 and 3 wheeler Christiania's were rated a 'recommended buy' scoring 94 and 92% respectively! What also impressed me about the review was the sheer number of cargo options now available. When I first started exploring options all those years ago the range was a lot more limited. Ride On magazine was able to get their hands on 14 different options compared to the 3 or 4 that were around for me in 2007. The market in Australia has certainly grown significantly in five years.

Motor Update

I have been off the road for a little while unfortunately. About a month ago I removed the rear wheel with the motor from the trike to get some broken spokes repaired. Whilst it was off the trike I thought this would be the ideal time replace the seven speed freewheel with a higher quality Shimano one. This is where the problems began as despite the best efforts of my LBS the freewheel would not come off. This is probably due to the fact when I first screwed it on I never greased the threads! In addition my use of the low geared Mountain Drive on occasion would have applied an awful lot of torque to the freewheel ensuring a very tight attachment. So after a substantial amount of effort we gave up on the idea however our attempts caused the threads on the hub motor side cover to strip. So basically when I pedalled the rear wheel did not move - the freewheel just spun around all by itself!

I tried to get a side cover from ebikes.ca (who supplied the motor originally) however they were a bit slow to my requests to get one sent (unusual for them but later found out some emails fell through the cracks with staff on leave - it happens!). Being keen to be back on the road as soon as possible I decided to contact Ezee direct and within an hour of my email to them I was told to contact Glowworm Cycles in nearby Sydney who are now an Australian dealer for Ezee gear. They were great and when I explained the situation they offered to remove a side cover from one of their motors and send it to me express post for only $55 and I had it within a few days of contacting them! They even gave me some pointers on how to remove my cover and replace it with the new one.

The side cover was attached with 9 small phillips head screws secured with Loctite. Most were OK to remove with a bit of firm pressure but one needed a hair dryer to melt the Loctite before it would come off. I replaced the 9 original phillips head screws with ones that used an allen key - much better in my view as the head of the screws is less prone to being wrecked when removing or tightening.

It was interesting to take the motor apart and check out the insides -

Drive side of the motor

Internal gear assembly

My previous seven speed freewheel was 11T-32T. However I could not use the 11T cog as it was to close to the frame and due to a fault in the freewheel itself I was also never able to use the 13T cog (the freewheel would just 'ratchet' around and not drive the wheel when pedalling). So in effect I have gone from a 15T-32T 'five' speed to a 14T-34T six speed! I will not have much need for the 34T cog unless I get stuck somewhere with a flat battery and need to pedal up a hill but the 14T will be useful when pedalling on the flats. For the technically minded I have now have a high gear of 72 gear inches instead of 67.2 or to put it another way a cadence of 90rpm will see me cruising along at 31km/h instead of 29 (info courtesy of Sheldon Brown's gear calculator).

My first ride with the new freewheel was going well until I went on to the 34T cog and it all seized up! Looks like I needed a slightly longer chain to use the very low gear. I adjusted the low stop point on the derailleur to lock out the 34T cog until this was installed a few days later. I may also look at changing the current 7 speed trigger shifter to a 6 speed twist. Now that my handlebars come apart in the middle a twist shifter can be installed very easily.

So after all that I am now back on the road and it is all going very well!

Thumbtacks!

For the second time since owning the trike I received a flat tyre due to a thumbtack! I don't know why these things appear on the bike paths - I suspect idiots leave them there to create mischief. Anyway it was time to get a new tyre anyway so I ordered a Schwalbe Marathon Plus after hearing about them some time ago from my LBS. Unfortunately buying the 24 inch size in Australia turned out to be pretty difficult hence I ordered one from Chainreaction Cycles in the UK. It arrived really quickly and thanks to this helpful video I had it on pretty easily. The ride seems pretty good and hopefully punctures will be a thing of the past. It might be my imagination but the tyre seems to cushion the ride a bit better then the old Schwalbe Big Apples. Anyway the other two tyres on my trike have not been replaced since purchase so I have now ordered two more of the Marathon Plus to ensure all round protection!

Trike update

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Life has been a bit hectic and the trike was off the road for a while after I had some issues with the steering. It was all a bit technical but the part of the trike frame that interacts with the pivot point / headset under the cargo box was slightly worn away. Simon from Cycle Surgery helped diagnose the problem and after discussions with Peter from PSBikes a new frame was supplied by him and has now been installed. Christiania in Denmark say they have never seen one of their trikes have this issue before so all should now be good - probably just a one off manufacturing issue with my frame. Indeed a google search turns up no reports of anything similar ever happening to anyone else. As always great to see after sales support from PSBikes and I couldn't have got it fixed without my great LBS!

Original handlebar - all in one piece with lots of curves

When the new frame was dropped off by Peter he had a new trike in his van and I noticed the handlebars were higher then mine. Apparently they now come this way as standard and as an added bonus the handlebar splits in two to make it easier to install brake levers, gear shifters and all the other gadgets people like me put on their handlebars. As you can see from this old photo of my trike, previously anything that needed to be 'slid' onto the handlebar could only be done by removing the entire bar and sliding it from the bottom, over the drink bottle mount points, around a few corners and over the hand grips. I remember the trouble we had getting the throttle around this obstacle course - it was almost as hard as getting the motor itself on! So I took the opportunity to order the higher set of handlebars and installed them whilst also switching over to the new frame (with help from Simon of course). I find it a lot more comfortable to ride now and making changes to items on the handlebar will be a lot easier in future as the bar splits in two about 3/4 of the way along the top.

New handlebar mounting point for lights

Another new item from Peter is a headlight mount that attaches to the front of the box after drilling a small hole through it. Positioning bicycle lights on the handlebars is obviously not much good on this type of trike as it would just illuminate the back of the kid's heads (hence my current helmet mounted light). This new mount from Christiania screws through the front of the box and basically adds a small 'handlebar' where any standard bicycle light can be positioned. I am thinking of obtaining one that can run off the motor battery so am researching a few options for this.

And my youngest is happy with this new piece of equipment below that he spied on the trike Peter had in his van. A bit florally for my tastes but hey whatever keeps the kids happy and it does spin very well in the breeze!

Every kid should have one on their bike!

School run.

Winter is well and truly here and this morning the ride to school required some rugging up and the use of bright tail lights! The trip to school is up hill and with the kids only getting bigger I am very thankful for the torque of the geared hubmotor in the back wheel.

Christiania goes electric!

I was chatting to Peter from PSbikes and received some information on the new e-trike now available direct from him. Christiania has come to the electric bike party and can now supply cargo trikes (and two wheelers) with a small geared hub motor in the rear coupled with a 9 amp hour Panasonic Li-ION battery integrated into a rear carrier rack -

It utilises a pedal assist sensor (common in Europe) that applies power automatically as you ride. The power level can be varied from none to low to high through a controller on the handlebars. Power is cut when you stop pedalling or your speed reaches 25km/h and I believe this is the European legal standard for e-bikes. I actually have a 25km/h cut off on my trike as well because if I am travelling faster then this I am probably going down hill and don't need the motor on!

The rear hub gears standard on a normal Christiania are replaced by a seven speed derailleur system and the rear coaster brake is replaced by a hydraulic disc brake. It all looks very good. Throw some panniers on the rear rack and you would have no idea it was electric!

Nice to see Christiana copying my idea for a geared hub motor in the rear! These bikes really need a geared motor with the extra torque it provides to get up hills - especially when you have substantial weight in the cargo box. Peter tells me some people in Australia have them already and are happily riding around hilly areas loaded up with the kids and groceries!

Quick update!

Yes it has been a while since the last update. A combination of Christmas holidays, school holidays and not much happening with the trike are the main causes of the lack of posts.

The only issue lately was some weird noises emanating from the left front wheel - lots of 'clunks' as we rode along. The kids thought the wheel was going to fall off but it turned out the wheel bearings were the cause and I had these replaced (as well as the ones on the right hand wheel as a precaution). Got the front disc pads replaced also - they get a fair workout trying to stop my fully laden trike! Speaking of brakes the installation of Avid BB7s inspired a fellow Christiania owner to undertake the same thing with similar success. His write up of the Christiania and the modifications he has undertaken are well worth a read as well.

The motor is powering along very well. On a couple of tests of my range the two batteries I have now installed in parallel have given me full power for about 16 amp hours before dropping off. I routinely charge up well before this though.

I hate posting without a photo so here is a shot of the boys in the trike and my lovely wife after a trip to a local park. Happy cycling!

Reelights

A recent comment on my blog led me to this website - an Australian distributor for the rather nifty Reelights. I had purchased a set of these previously from a local bike shop for a 'normal' bike and they work very well. From the site I saw they now had a version that fitted to a rear rack with a generator unit attached via a cable. Previously the light and generator were an all in one unit and therefore it had to be mounted at wheel level on the axles (either front or rear). These lights are very popular in Europe due to their set and forget nature - once installed they just work without ever needing batteries and they have no discernible affect on the bike's performance. This looked like a great new gadget for the trike so I ordered one!

In this shot you can see the light, the generator unit and the magnets that attach to the spokes and provide the power as they spin past the generator -

The installation was very easy and the thought that has gone into the product is quite impressive. For example -

• The generator unit can 'slide' once attached to the seat stay to ensure it can be positioned the correct distance from the magnets attached to the spokes.
• The magnets that attach to the spokes are well designed and could be attached to any wheel regardless of the spoke pattern.
• Any excess cable can be wound into the generator unit.
• The mounting bolts for the light are able to be adjusted to fit different mount points on rear racks.
• The light also has reflectors on either side.

A video of it in operation follows -

Now the Reelight company just needs to work out how to put a front light on a Christiania where there is nowhere to mount the generator unit!

And just another interesting footnote regarding the delivery of this light. It was posted in Melbourne on a Tuesday and I received it in Canberra the following Monday. On the Friday afternoon I ordered some computer memory from America (go Aussie dollar!) and it was this package that arrived first (about 30 minutes before the light!). Australia Post really needs to lift its game!

Electric vehicle show

An electric vehicle show was held today and it had something for everyone. From these 1917 Detroit electric vehicles (yes electric cars have been around that long!) that have a top speed of about 40km/h and a range of 50km -

Through to the showstopping Tesla roadster with a range of about 380km (this one drove from Sydney to Canberra without a recharge), a top speed of 200km/h and 0-100km/h acceleration in 3.7 seconds! It is a strict two seater and the 'boot' is full of batteries so it is not exactly the most practical car in the world but I would not mind one anyway -

In other displays one guy had even converted his ute to electric and piled all the batteries into a lockable box on the rear tray -

No petrol required here-

And of course lots of electric bikes were also on display. The one below is an interesting prototype. With a weight of just under 10kg it is (apparently) the lightest and probably the smallest electric bike in the world. The motor is on the front wheel and looks like it uses a cog to drive a series of notches built into the rim. The battery is built into the central tube and is recharged in place. The range is about 30km but it is not built for speed so it may take you a while to go that distance! The bike was imported by Switched on Cycles who I have done some test riding for previously.

Trike review

I came across this great review of the Christiania by the owner of one in Portland USA of all places! I was impressed by some of his modifications and he was equally happy to hear about how I upgraded the front brakes with the Avid BB7s to address some of the issues he is also experiencing.

Throttle issues

I have had some problems lately with the power dropping off. Initially I thought it might be because of the sub zero temperatures causing the battery to struggle a bit. However it also occurred on warmer afternoon rides and if I kept the battery inside overnight. And then one day it stopped working all together! When this occurred I noticed the red LED on the controller was flashing 5 times then going off and flashing again. A quick email to ebikes.ca and they informed me this was an error code for the throttle.

Closer inspection of the throttle cable showed a possible area of concern. The steering dampener situated underneath the cargo box seemed to be rubbing ever so slightly on the cable when I turned right. By wiggling this section of cable I was able to get the LED to stop flashing so there was obviously now a fault in this part of the wiring. I cut out this section and soldered the cable back together and all was good again. Sure enough the section of wire I removed did have some issues with the internal insulation and there was an intermittent short circuit occurring.

I rerouted the cable well away from the steering and checked everything else and it all seemed fine. The bike now powers along as it should. I only wish the controller was flashing this error code every other time I was looking for the problem!

Lots of trikes

Yes I have not updated the blog in a while - life has been a bit hectic!

The Aussie distributor of the Christiania has a new website and if you look closely here you may even see a couple of shots of my bike (photo 82 and 83). Indeed looking through all the great photos I may even have some more ideas about what I can do to the trike!

Another electric bike

A local company was after some test riders for a range of electric bikes they are importing and I volunteered! I spent two days with a 'townie' style electric bike with a 200 watt hub motor in the rear wheel, 36volt lithium battery, pedelec system, brake cut off and twist throttle.

I had read a lot about the pedelec system where the motor operates only when you are pedalling. On this bike as soon as you started pedalling a nominal amount of power assist was automatically applied and you could then twist the throttle if you needed more power. It took some getting used to but I quickly got the hang of it and found it very easy to use. Basically I could just hop on and pedal! I only needed to worry about the motor if I hit a hill though unless it was really steep I could just drop down a few gears and not worry about applying more power with the throttle. I did two rides over two days - 17km on day 1 and about 24 on day 2. I recharged in between and the power gauge on the throttle never got below 2 lights (out of 3). I would estimate range to be about 40km depending on how much you use the throttle.

The battery locks in to the frame for security but can be unlocked with a key if you wanted to bring it inside to charge it up. Another key turns the battery on and off. With the motor turned off this bike is a bit hard going with only 6 gears so you would want to make sure the battery is fully charged up before heading out. With a 40km range though this should not be a problem.

I was pretty impressed for my first ride on a 'normal' electric bike. For commuting to and from work one of these would be ideal especially in summer when you want to arrive relatively fresh and not dripping in sweat. And if you did not have a huge cargo bike sitting in your garage like I do you could also load it up with a handy amount of shopping with the addition of some strong panniers. I also liked the style of the bike with the more upright seating position which is common in Europe but not so much here. All in all a great way to get around!

Let there be light!

The local bike shop received a stack of lights for our upcoming winter and I liked the look of the Cygolite MiliOn 200. Unlike other helmet mounted lights I have seen, on this one the light and li-ion battery are together in one neat little unit. The velcro strap on the helmet mount could have been a bit longer though as I was unable to mount it in my preferred position at the front of my helmet due to the large spacing between the air vents. It fitted very securely on the top though -

The light output is fantastic and simply does not compare to the lights I had mounted previously. The run to Scouts with my eldest is now done one hour after sunset and I can see quite clearly on the unlit bike paths with this light. It was a good thing too as tonight I saw that someone had dumped a bunch of old mattresses on the path. Further up someone had dumped all their tree cuttings over their back fence straight on to the path as well! Honestly sometimes I think I am just better off sticking to the road!

Sheldon Brown Memorial ride

Each year the LBS holds a ride around the local lake in memoriam to Sheldon Brown - bicycle guru who gave so much of his time to helping others. He replied to one of my email questions (of which he received hundreds per day apparently!) shortly before he died - it was regarding the torque on a Shiman Nexus 7 speed hub if you change to a smaller front chain wheel.

It was a great evening for riding and I enjoyed 'letting loose' on the trike around the bike paths without having the kids on board. Though I quickly discovered that a number of the paths are on a rather severe angle which meant I needed to do a bit of leaning on the trike so as not to tip! It is not so bad with a bit of weight in the front (ie if the kids were in the box) but the camber of roads and paths needs to be watched when empty! Some of the other riders who I had not met before were also a bit amazed at my ability to keep up on the hills until they heard the motor noise! It was a bit dark on the way home and though I was lit up like a Christmas tree I had trouble seeing the odd obstacle so may look at investing in a helmet mounted light that will enable me to brighten up the path ahead properly. I can't really use handlebar mounted lights as I have no room and the light would be blocked by the kids sitting in the box.

Some shots of the trike as the sun set over the lake -

Battery range part 2

Since the recent surgery on my battery pack I have done 7.85 amp-hours without any cut offs from the battery management system. So it would seem the early cut offs around the 6 amp-hour mark are a thing of the past! The minimum voltage this time around was 32.9, resting voltage was 35.8 and I used 288 watt hours.

The local bike shop is organising a Sheldon Brown memorial ride tomorrow which will involve a bit of distance and some hills thus I'm charging the pack up tonight so I don't run out of juice half way home! I'll probably aim to recharge around the 8 amp-hour mark from now on.

Battery range

Seeing as the big trip in my last post did not flatten the battery I thought I would have another go to see how it was performing in terms of capacity. Unfortunately after not doing any top up charges last week it cut out after about 6.4 amp-hours which is where it has cut out on my previously. I should at least be getting 8 or 9 amp-hours so I sent an email query to Justin at ebikes.ca. As usual I got a reply very quickly! Justin informed me that yes I should be getting more out of the pack and that it was likely a cell balance issue. He offered me a replacement pack straight away or a chance to pull it apart and have a go at fixing it. I went for the chance to fix it as sending mine back to Justin overseas may have been problematic with our laws regarding postage of battery packs. And I was also keen to see the inside of the pack!

I was instructed to do a full recharge and then pull the pack apart and check the voltage of each battery cell. Getting it apart was fairly easy and I must say it is very well put together. As you can see from the photo it has 2 separate groups of 5 battery cells that are securely attached and wired together with some circuitry to manage the charging, balancing and low voltage cutoff (LVC) to protect the cells.

When fully charged each cell should be 4.15 volts or higher however one of mine was only 4.02 and Justin thought this cell might be prematurely tripping the LVC. To fix it I found an old charger that put out about 5 volts and soldered some alligator clips to the output wires. I attached the clips to the weaker battery cell (making sure they were the right polarity!) turned it on and waited.... and waited .... and waited for the voltage to increase. Eventually it got up to 4.04 and we were on our way. It took about 7 hours to reach 4.17 volts! I asked Justin why it was taking so long and he figured that given my charger was only 500 mili-amps, and that the cell was cutting out about 3amps short of where it should (ie at 6 instead of 9 amp-hours), that it would likely take about 6 or 7 hours to put another 3amps of capacity in to it.

So I got it all charged, put it back together and have been riding around this week to see how far it would go. Today I hit 8.5 amp-hours before it cut out! The lowest voltage was 28.9 and for the last little bit of riding (around 8.3 to 8.5 amps) it got a bit sluggish as I hit the 30 volts limit I had on the Cycle Analyst.  At 8 amps the lowest voltage was 33.3 so the last bit of use really drops the volts off quickly. The range was 42 km which I am very happy with!

So the battery is back on the normal charger and hopefully I will get a similar range next time without having to pull the pack apart again. I am confident that will be the case. As an added bonus Justin offered me 25% off any future battery pack I purchase off them in recognition of my receiving an unbalanced pack and the work I put in to hopefully fix it up! Outstanding!

A ride in the wet!

Well my 'big' (for me at least) bike ride to test the range of the battery went better then I thought it would. It was 11.5 km each way and I only used .87 of an amp on the way there and 2.24 on the way back! The trike was empty though so if I add 50kg of children I expect those figures would increase. However even if I double them that is still only about 6 amp hours for a round trip.

Though it is a hilly trip I was able to use the downhills to gather a fair amount of speed to tackle at least some of the next uphill. I have the Cycle Analyst set to a 23km/h speed limit and I found that this worked as a great 'cruise control' eg go down hills at around 30km/h then start going up the next one and as speed gradually dropped the motor would kick in around 23km/h and I could pedal in higher gears for most of the hill. After a while I could then kick down a few gears and pedal to match the gradually slower speed of the trike up the hill. By not maxing out the motor with this method the range seems to be quite impressive. The uphills are longer and steeper on the way back hence the higher use of the battery coming home.

I was not counting on the rain being as heavy as it was though! I guess this was a good test for the 'waterproofness' of the motor and all my wiring and it looks like it passed as no sparks flew!

Electric motor range

Am only now getting back into riding the trike regularly as the kids are back at school and we were away for Christmas and New Year.

I have been careful not to overtax the battery and have only twice hit the BMS cutoff (on recharge cycle 1 and 3) after I had pulled about 5 or 6 amp hours out of the 10 amphour pack. The cutoffs both happened whilst going up some sort of monstrous hill with a full load of groceries. However I only use the motor when going uphill so I guess that is the only time it is ever going to cut off for me!

My most recent recharge (prior to any shutoff) was when I had pulled 6.2 amp hours out of the battery and it still seemed to be travelling pretty well with minimum volts a fairly good 34.7 (at least I think that is fairly good as on previous charges I had dropped to 32). To date I have always recharged after about 5 or 6 amp hours and I am averaging about 7 watt hours per km actually travelled. However that includes travelling downhills and on the flats where the motor is not used at all.

In the next few days I plan on doing a big ride with a fully charged (and now hopefully well worn in) battery towards some of the more distant attractions we take the kids to. This trip involves some pretty horrendous hills that go on for a while so it will be a good test to see if I can get there and back on one charge and how many amp hours I can now pull out of the pack before it shuts down.

Rear rim brake installed!

The rear rim brake is on after some great work by my LBS (as usual!) -

It works really well and today it passed the big test of riding down hill from school fully loaded with the two boys and the school bags on board! It has no where near the stopping power of the front disc brakes of course but on the descents it slows me down quite smoothly. When heading into corners it also works well at smoothly reducing speed where as the front discs tend to 'swerve' a bit when trying to brake in turns. So just a matter of getting used to them and being careful not to overuse them on long descents and risk heating up the rims to much.

I also now have another parking brake thanks to utilising the old brake handle that used to control the front disc brakes. Here it is on and then off-

The brake mount is very secure with just the two hose clamps in place so I have decided to not worry about the bolt meant to go through the top as this would greatly interfere with the wheel lock on the reverse side of the frame. For added strength though I will put two more hose clamps on the upper parts of the brake mount in such a way that they don't interfere with the wheel lock.

The wheel lock went on with a bit of encouragement - I had to mount it on a slight angle to allow clearance for the hose clamps. Because of this angle I had to place a few washers behind it to bring it out from the frame slightly to allow free movement of the locking mechanism -