Weighing In

Hi

A few days ago, I put some trikes through a switcheroo process, mainly to set up a trike for delivery to fringe furniture. This involved removing the seat and fairing from this trike and getting the tailbox from the electric trike.  So rather than just do the switcheroo, I weighed a few parts when they were separated from trikes. 

Minimum weight for timber tailbox is just below 4.3 kg, this is when the panels and lid of the box is swapped out to corflute tailbox. In the pic it has a Ventisit seat pad which is not strictly necessary and could be removed if required.

The timber tailbox with timber panels and lid weighs just over 5.4 kg, and the fibreglass seat with 3d printed plastic and supports weighs about 2.2. The fairing weighs 1.4.

All for now, Regards

Steve Nurse

Cad Pictures from John Bird

John's pdf and drawings draw on ...

photos he took of my trike in Coburg.

Current fairing trike is discussed in this post.

Current Electric trike is discussed in this post.

Hi

If you haven't noticed already, I have some slightly unusual bikes, and when I'm out and about shopping don't mind talking about them and will often hand out a business card so anyone who wants to can follow up by looking up my website and blog and instagram.

About a month ago outside Aldi in Coburg I spoke to John Bird, who is an engineer who uses electric cars to teach driving through his business Ezeedrive. John is also associated with the Aurora Solar Car Team.   I didn't  think too much of it at the time, but within a few weeks he had come back to me with a pdf of several possibilities for my bike including a series hybrid electric drive, carbon tailbox, integrated lights, fairing and solar panel. Several of his pictures and snips from the pdf are shown above.

So, I was able to write back that I was already across a lot of the topics mentioned in his pdf.  My ATRF article from last year was about series hybrids, and the preprint for this year's conference article discusses fairings and solar panels on bikes and velomobiles.  Anyway, although I use cad to make trikes, my presentation cad ability is not that great, and I was very glad that John lent his considerable skills to showing some possibilities for my trike design.

For some further background on the preprint, see this post in my design blog.

Regards

Best Wishes

Steve Nurse

Stop Press: John has visited a couple of times, and tried out my trikes in including the electric trike.  Here he is about to launch.

John Bird, trike testing and learning.

Short Trip to East Melbourne

Good even footpaths on the Wellington St. Bikepath.

Looking South along Wellington

Some finishing touches

Tony with the trove of fixies and bike bits.

My haul

The wheels

Hi

A few days ago, I needed some washers so headed out along Wellington Street to Bunnings: a large hardware chain store about 5k from where we live. It was great to find a separated bike lane which runs along Wellington St had been extended to Johnston St making for a 2k bike freeway in the inner city.  As well, I saw a pile of old bikes on hard rubbish and resolved to check them out on the way back. That would give me the opportunity to take some pics as well.

But when I got back, the bikes were already being picked over by Tony who I'd met before through various bike sheds. Tony claimed the whole bike on offer, and I settled for his leftovers, 2 wheels, carbon handlebars with some bits and a large steel frame. It wasn't far to get home and I was fairly cautious but managed to pedal most of the way.  One of the wheels was set up as a single speed with aero spokes and rim and was broken and a bit of a shocker. To me the flange spacing at the rim was way too narrow. Ok, I will put my boring engineer's hat away!

Nice bike lanes with plenty of good features for pedestrians as well as cyclists. Here is the Yarra webpage on the project. Good job!

Regards  Steve Nurse

Some Klapprads Part 2

Hi

In the last week I have worked on my Velocino (small bicycle). I made it by making half of a separating bike to bolt on to a back-half folding bike by Victoria cycles and blogged about it recently here .  So its done and painted now, and fitted with a Massload Kickstand obtained through Rev Bikes in Nunawading.

I have been out a few times on it, most recently to survey a site for a traffic action group I volunteer for. It rides well, has 2 gears to choose from via a Sturmey S2C hub. The hub has back pedal brakes built in, all that is needed. Its fun to ride although steep hills and very long rides are out I think.  Its good to ride "all the bike that is needed" in size terms at least for the short distances. It weighs about 16kg, very hefty for such a small bike. But I like it.

Regards  Steve Nurse

Update, Aug 10

I was at the Fitzroy library in the week but didn't have my camera. Remedied that today to catch the soon to be grown over fixie on my way to Wecycle.  Regards

Some Klapprads Part 1

Latest Buy, a Luxus: combine Luxury with Lexus (Salubrious Japanese Car) with a separating German Town Bike.

Ad that came with the bike

Velocino as it was this morning

Bolt for steerer before sawing and brazing.

Tubes and handgrips for steerer laid out. The T bar is a scooter steerer.

Tubes which fit inside can be cut with a pipe cutter because the cutter leaves a large burr inside the tube.

Outside tubes are cut with a hacksaw after marking a cut line with the cutter.

Steerer and steerer bolt almost done.

Hi

After not buying bikes for a while, and even selling my DA40 bike, I succumbed to a Facebook ad and bought a quite rare (I'd never heard of it anyway) Luxus bike.  A few pics are shown above, and this page explains a bit about them.  Suspension of any sort is quite rare on folding bikes, and this one looks quite cool I think. I bought it from Daniel who had a complete stable of bikes (Bickerton, Mostie bike, Moulton etc. etc. in a room in nearby North Melbourne.

As well, I've dragged my Velocino out to finish it off after almost a year of not much happening. I'm making a fairly minimalist steerer for the bike which shares its back end with this mule train load carrier.

Will report more later, Regards

Steve Nurse

Zzipper Fairing Part 3

Inside of bike trainer leg with crush bar

Shortening bike trainer wheels with pipe cutter with

this result. The trainer now suits the 20" bike wheel and means I get a realistic idea of the view over the fairing.  Struts supporting the bottom of the fairing are modified light steel tent pole tubes.

Glueing fibreglass rods into fairing support brackets. These rods help distribute stress into the parts which are home 3d printed.

Mounting bracket and...

fairing support.

A bucket from Bunnings and some handlebar ends from the shed.  Bits of the bucket are now the front of the fairing and the handlebar ends ...

fitted on the handlebars with white nylon bolts to hold the fairing top.

Using a holesaw set to make....

this small piece which covers a hole in the new, longer fairing. Without further modifying the fairing, I can mount a light to this wooden piece.

This set of fairing mounts didn't work as it placed the fairing support right near the pedals, causing interference.

End result after a quick test ride.  Still quite a few things to fix but I'm quite happy.

Another view, plan to go for a longer ride tomorrow.

Hi, this post is mostly pictorial again.  The fairing I received from OzHpv mates  5 or 6 weeks ago is now on a bike and ready for an 80k or so test ride tomorrow. The bike trainer I was using to test the fairing was for 700c bikes, and I cut it down to better sit a 20" and so I could get a realistic idea of my view of the road when testing.  The fairing mounting has been totally home made and the fairing has been extended using parts of a bucket.  Very happy with the results sofar. For a long time I have been aware that my front wheel drive bikes are an aerodynamic mess at the front, and this fairing should fix some of that.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Update, July 7: I took the trike for a ride of about 60k today (Mordialloc and back via beach road), with no real problems.  I had to stop a few times to do up screws which attach the fairing but that was to be expected as I hadn't bothered with nyloc nuts, spring washers etc.  I'm fairly out of condition and didn't stop to eat, drink or wee till I got back within a few k of home so was tired, thirsty and hungry when I got in.  Happy with the bikes speed and I overtook a few of the slower Beach road roadies. Didn't take many photos, and the ones I did take were undramatic and out of focus. Here is the best of them showing a screw coming undone!

Update, July 23: From here, the story goes sideways, I used the design of one of the fairing mounts for other purposes. Flick over to my design blog here for details. Trike is ready for a longer ride now, will report progress.  Regards  Steve Nurse