KMX Trike with???

[calfee20]

I am waiting for a few parts for my Electra Cruiser Fat. While I am waiting I decided it was finally time to start the trike project. I mounted the front wheels, a temporary rear wheel, the seat, handlebars, and the leftover crankset from the Paratrooper.



This thing is kind of narrow. When I am sitting in it I feel like 10 pounds of crap in a 5 pound bag. I can get in and out of it pretty well. In fact it may be easier to get out of than my Civic. It needs to be wider. I can't get much of a turn angle on the front wheels because my wide body is in the way.



I can see this is going to be a long term project because I am already thinking of modifying the frame. I will get it going and use it a bit before I decide what to do. I already have a wheel built for it with a TDCM IGH. The first time around I think it will be a throttle setup.



The motor on the bottom has been installed on an Alec DX32 rim and I have another Big apple tire coming in a few days. I am going to have to construct some kind of torque plate for the left side. I will see what I can figure out once the wheel is sitting in the frame.

[paxtana]

Nice looking trike..

[calfee20]

Well a lot of time was spent just sitting on this thing. Moving the seat back and forth, changing the seat back angle and getting the boom length right.

This motor has a strange movable torque tab so a custom torque plate had to be fabricated from a piece of steel. I have some 3/8th flat stock laying around so I cut a piece and faced it on both sides with my lathe to a fat 1/4 inch.



The torque plate is the bare metal piece behind the dropout. The torque tab is directly below the axle nut.



You can see the tab a little better from this view. This is probably the worse thing about this motor. The nonstandard torque solution. The rear brake is also setup with a factory Electra caliper

After getting this wheel and brake installed has kind of gotten me a good leg up on this build. Wiring and controls are about all that is left and that should be more straight forward now.

Here is a view of the other side.

[calfee20]

There is always something. I bought a couple of Shimano Ice Tech 203mm rotors for the front. Well long story short, nothing fit on the left wheel. It would be like trying to setup disc brakes on the right side of your bike. So now I have a couple of clean sweeps coming and a spare set of Ice Tech rotors.

[Kdenmark]

love how you are always doing some cool project... Looking foreward to see where this one is going

[StephanieZ07]

So cool!!! I like this!

[Rider]

Very cool ride and fun I'm sure. I bet it will get your heart racing when at the speed that DD 5spd combo will likely put out.

[BK Xray]

I used the handlebars off this trike to get my (different brand) trike to turn sharper: http://sunseeker.bike/index.php/products/eco-tad-sx/

[calfee20]

Well I got the trike finished. I was out of commission for a few months due to a small accident but I am back at it now.

From the last photo about all that was left controls and wiring. I mounted a couple of rectangular batteries in Blackburn Outpost bags. I put a 52 volt on one side and a 72 volt on the other.



The additional under seat bag is stuffed with tools and tubes. I strapped it to the end of the Blackburn bag.

Here is a view of the other side.



The twist shifter for the five speed is on the left along with your typical set of switches mounted in a gang. I am using the headlight on/off button as an additional kill switch and the horn button is now a reverse switch.

I have a Cyclone throttle/ignition switch on the right and a couple of green buttons to change my PAS levels. The controller is an amazingly small Phaserunner mounted on the boom.

[calfee20]

Here is a close view of the rear wheel and battery bag. I still have to install a reflector into that tube holding up the nose of the bag.



I went for a forty mile test ride and used the 52 volt battery on the way out and the 72 volt pak on the way back. I saw very little difference between the voltages as long as the PAS was being used. What I really missed was a luggage rack and my Topeak trunk/bag that goes on every bike.

Sooooooooo



I moved the slimline battery rack from the Paratrooper and decided to stick with 52 volt batteries in this rig. I also added a mount for a niterider taillight to the bag so I can have a strobe on any bike that has the bag on it.

Well that is all for now. I will make a report on the TDCM motor in a day or two over on endless sphere and link it here or maybe do a copy and paste.

[calfee20]

On a side note, while I think I can make improvements in the seat it is great right now. You might want to walk around once in a while so your legs are doing something else but for your butt it is the most comfortable seat around. No bike saddle ache after 40 miles...…...nice!

[calfee20]

Here is a photo of me properly disguised with sunglasses on the trike.

[xcnick]

Super nice, thanks for sharing.

[paxtana]

How's it ride?
What sort of accident were you in, you okay?

[calfee20]

How's it ride?
What sort of accident were you in, you okay?

It rides real good. The brakes were pulling but I learned how to properly adjust them and now they are easy to tweak if they are a little off. I bought front suspension for it and I feel I should be getting more action out of it. I am getting ready to contact the manufacturer and see if I am missing something. That motor has a poor hole shot but if you pedal along with PAS it accelerates quite well after 5 mph. Once you are moving if you throw a couple of thousand watts at it, it will pull you right up a hill. You have to remember though I am a flatlander here.

I was rushing a build on my Luna cargo and didn't do enough testing on the stand. I also didn't have a kill switch close at hand so when I caught a WOT I couldn't stop the bike and had to crash it in a hayfield. My first ride on that bike lasted about 200 feet. I broke my right arm, nothing fancy like you though. If we want to get into the injury competition though I technically broke my neck and stressed one of the small arteries that feeds the brain. Everyone was quite excited at the emergency room and they shipped me off to a larger hospital with a trauma unit.

You know how the vertebrae have small spikes that stick out, well I cracked one. The x-ray showed a little line through the pointy part. It wasn't out of place and there was no pain. Then there are two small arteries that go up the neck before they merge and then branch out in the brain. Well one of them got stressed and they were quizzing me all night. Do you have pain? Do you have any numbness or tingling. Are you dizzy? Are you feeling any weakness in your legs or arms?

All of my answerers were NO NO NO NO NO and when are you going to fix my ARM. So they threw me out in the morning and the fix for my neck was a neck brace I barely used and an aspirin a day. I consider the whole neck injury a non issue.

[paxtana]

Wow you're a lot tougher than I am if you consider that a minor injury, when I broke my wrists I was an emotional basketcase. (fun sidenote, i went to that park today and the parks department filled in the entire area where i hit the ditch. i guess they decided it was too dangerous like that, go figure)

So the throttle malfunctioned? Did it get stuck or something, what kind of throttle was it? I don't use ebrakes on either of my bikes but your story has me rethinking that.

[calfee20]

I don't know what I did wrong. I connected everything straight to the controller. The Cycle Analyst was not connected so the were no visuals of anything. It didn't do it on the stand and I only had the front brake setup. I had set up a separate throttle for regen "rear brakes" and my brake levers were wired in but how do you test for regen on the stand.

Anyway the brake levers didn't shut the motor down and the 50mm QS motor was so strong it just pushed my locked front wheel. If I had kept my head I could have reached down and pulled the XT-90 apart but when you get old you get stupid.

Now that the trike is done and some mods to my Electra Fat I will start working on the Luna frame again. I will have two kill switches. One on each side of the handlebars. Maybe I will rig a pull tab for the XT-90.

I am not so tough. I am a month out of the cast and just getting my flexibility back in my hand and arm. There has been more pain in that than the broken arm. The thing about my neck though there was no sensation of anything wrong. If I hadn't broken my arm I never would have gone to the hospital and no one would have known.


I had a slight abrasion on my forehead and because of that they started doing CT scans and then everyone went nuts. So I am treating the neck issue as a non-issue.