I'm bent!

[anotherkiwi]

After riding upright for over 50 years I decided my backside needed a break, borrowed [new feature] some money and ordered a AZUB T-Tris 26 which was delivered yesterday. Built it and after almost calling it a day because of a missing light holder in my parts box managed to get out for a quick ride at 1 a.m. The light mounting thingy appeared as if by magic when I was packing everything away...

1. AZUB won trike of the year two years in a row, I can see why. I have seen German trikes and the build quality here is as good if not and for 20% less. Well packed and shipping included in the price as was a 5% discount for buying a stock trike...

2. As comfortable as I imagined. A cross between a deck chair and a go kart. I now need to exercise all the muscles that don't usually get used on an upright it appears mostly behind the leg.

3. Quick! During the muscle building period I will be using the tiny bit of flat that I have on hand and without the GPS and riding carefully this things gets down the road like a scalded cat. When the brakes are bedded in I will try a hill but this is already fun [bent grin].

4. Handles like a kart, you can hear the tension on the spokes when you push a bit in corners and feel the offside wheel trying to go airborne or the rear getting a bit loose on the sand. Yes the owner manual said not to try too hard the first times out but men will be boys... And yes I was wearing a helmet, trikes roll... You have to be careful with widths, the urban furniture restricting access to cycle paths is just wide enough.

5. Elecric ASAP. I am posting in the right section because this bike will be marked as EN15194 but under the hood built to go fast and far on the open road.

To be continued...

Putting the bits together:

 

[anotherkiwi]

After a few km my initial thoughts:

1. Different muscles - the muscles you use on a bent just happen to be the ones you use rowing sliding seat boats. Happy days! I haven't been in a skiff for a while but those muscles have been hard worked over the years and didn't take long to get back to doing their job.

2. Safety - a near miss on day two showed me where I am invisible to drivers. Now I stay well out of the blind spot preferring stopping dead rather than trying to pass in traffic. On the road cars see only you and leave a wide berth probably thinking that I am handicapped. I don't believe a flag will be of any use on the road, maybe in town and that isn't where I intend to ride much. The town's I will be going to have extensive cycle routes.

3. Curiosity - I am the only bent in the region! That has advantages and disadvantages, one of the advantages being in point 2 above.

4. Equipment - French law requires yellow reflectors in the spokes. They are not going to help wheel balance which becomes a thing on a trike when compared to a slower bike. Roadies don't have any so I am going to use that as an excuse. White reflector front and red rear I can manage. Pedals need to support the leg, you get cramp holding your leg out to the pedal continuously without being able to relax. Making my own version of Hase pedal. Rear view mirror is obligatory! I t is near impossible to turn your head when lying down. I have a bell on the way but am looking at really loud horns too. The standard tyres are good for nice clean cycle paths but I want Big Bens on all corners ASAP. Ever tried avoiding a hole in the road with all three wheels? There was lying water the other day, a rear mudguard is waiting to be mounted.

Loving it, definitely the best choice for my needs. Been a while since I cycled unassisted, still not up to climbing any hills but have already cut back one assistance level on my upright!

To be continued...

 

[Nealh]

AK is now a fully fledged bender .
For a horn then an Airzound is very loud ,140 decibels loud.
Cheap to fill with air from a track pump to 100 psi.
If it were I then at least one if not two flags are better then none.

 

[anotherkiwi]

AK is now a fully fledged bender .
For a horn then an Airzound is very loud ,140 decibels loud.
Cheap to fill with air from a track pump to 100 psi.
If it were I then at least one if not two flags are better then none.

I think it depends on where you are. A flag is no use in town here, it is invisible. On the road you are seen and boy do drivers leave a lot of room!

Tried the Airzound and it is too loud for cycle paths, maybe the Hornit...

Hills

Tried those. 26:30 not low enough for the Basque Country... Maybe an 11-34 cassette would be a better standard cassette. You have to get used to going very slowly and realise that you can ride up anything (if you have low enough gearing). Downhill is scary fast, no speedo mounted but a radar told me I was doing over 20 km/h when I was going really slowly through a village. Being so close to the ground alters perception of speed so can't guess for the moment.

 

[Ducknald Don]

On the road you are seen and boy do drivers leave a lot of room!t.

It's funny that isn't it, I know I've done it myself because the riders look so vulnerable.

 

[anotherkiwi]

As in my previous build I have been hum-ing and ha-ing about motor choice, that choice is now made.

- the GSM unrestricted gets up to about 45 km/h with a 15 Amp controller and a 36 V battery (with a 28" wheel)
- the Mxus is good for 27 km/h similarly equipped and 26" wheel
- the trike is destined to go as far and as fast as possible in a day
- the upright is for going to the shops and mucking about around town
- the Mxus is a freewheel motor and although I have an 11-32 DNP freewheel for it I much prefer an 8 speed wide range cassette (11-40)
- the GSM build should be easier: PAS is sorted, HWB Sensor shouldn't be too complicated with the SA drum brakes, speed sensor no problema!

Yesterday I fitted all the bits to make the trike road legal in France, I hope to get some photos done today (beautiful weather) as a vanilla trike. The pedals are the only thing to be finished up.

 

[johneb]

Taking note of your last post, I'd be very interested to hear if there were any performance reasons leading to your choice of a hub motor over a crank drive for your trike, and how well it performs. After several months, I'm still prevaricating about the bush on which to go for on my HPV Scorpion, and the opinion of an experienced Pedelecer with similar kit would be much appreciated. The gurus of this forum have been really helpful in answering my questions to date, but decent kit is a significant capital outlay and I keep wavering between the two formats. Your reply to my recent query about motor rpm referred to the Q100C motor (and d8veh the Q100H) so I've been looking at those, but I'm also tempted by the MXUS.

Having been sold on the idea of a hub motor, I've noticed that both HPV and ICE have switched their primary electric assist option from hub to CD. However, they both use Shimano Steps, which I presume is more refined (definitely far more expensive!) than the CD's I have in the frame (BBS-01B or GSM units).

Like you, my riding will largely be in the countryside, but I need help on the hills due to health issues (which also make reliability a prime consideration). I also hope to return to some of my old mountain biking haunts, albeit on the Noddy trails!. The current standard gearing of the Scorpion is too high for either (for me), so that will be changed irrespective of motor choice.

As for tyres, I plan on going for the Marathon GT 365's for combination of on/off-road grip and puncture resistance, but I can see the appeal of Big Bens.

 

[anotherkiwi]

I modified my post which was ambiguous, sorry:

I have decided on the GSM "mid"-drive ("out the front drive" in my case ) for ease of build and better performance without hot-rodding.

If I didn't have a Mxus on hand I would have probably gone for a Q100C, overvolted to 48 V and with 17 A controller. The shortcoming of the Mxus is that mine is a freewheel version so there is not a great choice of gearing available. I have presented it to the frame and it fits without stretching (1 mm does not qualify as a stretch in my book). But... it doesn't please me, I think its place is rebuilt into a 28" rim for my round town bike.

Let me try again

I want to go fast on the flat, the GSM will get me to s-pedelec speed on the flat without modification so with a 44.4 12S battery and an 18 Amp controller I should be able to average 45 km/h over long distances.

I need to climb insanely steep hills sometimes and the GSM allows me to have a really low granny gear which will climb walls but slowly (9-10 km/h) with the motor spinning at optimum revs.

My stock gearing is also great for the Netherlands, Germany's flatlands or Nantes France. I am going to continue to use my manual derailleur on the front, a glove... On the rear I will mount the Sunrace 11-40 wide range 8 speed that should cover all my needs. On the front I am looking at my options - at least a 50t chainwheel.

 

[johneb]

Many thanks for the comprehensive reply. I'm very tempted by the GSM myself, as it is available at a good price from Woosh. I've also read suggestions somewhere on the forum that it has a bit more grunt than the BBS01. My main reservation was reliability, having read a few negative comments in that regard. However, your experience is obviously good, as you're transferring it to a machine you plan to use for long distance trips.

Was the external controller chosen because of reservations about the built-in variant, and were you happy with the torque simulation of the S06SC?

Thanks again

 

[anotherkiwi]

I am at about 2000 km on my GSM. Almost all of the problems were with the internal controller so I chose the external controller for that reason and:

- I have more choice available - 15, 17, 20 Amps...
- I can choose voltage too and will go to 44.4 V 12S for more speed

The S06SC is a great controller, very soft and natural feeling. I am going to upgrade to the S12S which I will de-tune (d8veh disagrees with me on this...) to 17 or 18 Amps because the motor comes standard with an 18 A internal controller and can handle the power. I spin quite fast and am getting back EMF which cuts the motor at the most inconvenient times so am upping voltage to 44.4 V to get 20% extra motor speed.

I am also getting the BT dongle for KT controllers. Running wires on a trike is a nightmare! I am going to lengthen the wire to the selector buttons, mount those on the bars and put the LCD in back with the controller. When I need feedback I will use my phone/tablet thang mounted up front. The BT dongle is about the price of a Bafang programming cable and offers the same easy controller configuration as you get on a computer, no more endless sequences of button pushing!!!!!

Bad things:

- the internal PAS was working with the pedals turning in both directions. Before I could sort that out I fried it by a stupid plugin mistake... I replaced with the KT V12 external PAS which gives instant response - 1/8 th of a turn!
- the first versions were not sufficiently greased at the factory so I opened the cover, one of the screws was stripped at the factory. This has not been a problem so far, newer versions are greased by Woosh
- the cranks supplied were not to my liking so I replaced them. I will replace again with 165 or 160 mm cranks which are more adapted to riding lying down according to my mentor (marcs - etrike.wordpress.com). The Shimano Steps cranks I have mounted improve the Q factor by an insane amount and the increase in comfort really blew me away the first few km!

Yes I would buy another, which I guess is kind of a good thing for those interested

 

[anotherkiwi]

SHAKEDOWN!!!

When you need to do a shakedown where do you go? The cycle path from hell a.k.a. EuroVelo 1 If bits are going to fall off your new bike they will fall off there, especially after the heavy rain we had earlier in the month. At the moment some sections look like something @EddiePJ would enjoy riding!

So I rode the loop to Hendaye, along the coast and back up the main road. Hills I could not climb without stopping for a breather on the upright? Check, climbed those without stopping, even with a too high low gear! I did not manage to trigger the speed camera so I was doing less than 70 km/h on the way back home but close because I was catching cars that were braking for it.

I LOVE Schwalbe Big Bens!

I have said it before but it bears repeating. Handling is better, the steering remains light but there is more purpose to it, less twitchy so more forgiving for a beginner like me. And the rear tyre removes a lot of the vibration that the Marathon Racer was transmitting. Is it because they are new? There is a definite tyre noise now at speed. Braking? Improved. Cornering at speed? Check! And the 20" front wheels look so mean dressed that way

More new noises at speed: a whistle caused by the spoke reflectors I added? The mudguard mounted real close bouncing off the tyre from time to time...

Lessons learned:

- you don't care about climbing speed because you know that when you get to the top the fun begins on the other side of the hill and on the way up you have the time to look at the cows grazing
- a bent tadpole is easier on ageing asthmatic bodies than an upright
- you can do stuff on an analog bent that you need pedelec assistance to do on an upright
- kids and even adults have a very positive attitude "que es eso? eso es un bici!"
- dogs worry me a little, face is at perfect biting height and the frontier zone has quite a few vagabonds with uncontrolled, badly treated dogs...

 

[johneb]

Thanks for the update - I'm inspired to get the Scorpion kitted out soon!

Ah, Hendaye! Fond memories of a road trip with my brother down the west coast of France and on to San Sebastian in the early 80's. I had a very ropey old Triumph Spitfire convertible, but it attracted so much attention it might have been a Ferrari!

 

[anotherkiwi]

Hearing the noises the standard rear wheel makes under load I am starting to think it is a very good idea not to use the mxus wheel back there

Does your Scorpion make those too?

 

[johneb]

Hearing the noises the standard rear wheel makes under load I am starting to think it is a very good idea not to use the mxus wheel back there

Does your Scorpion make those too?

Although I've read similar comments on the Facebook Recumbent Trike group, I haven't experienced it myself. Two reasons: Primarily, I have health issues which restrict me to very gentle riding on the flat, so haven't been able to really chuck it around Secondly, I have 20" wheels all round. Tadpoles with a 26" rear wheel are known for flexing under lateral load. I believe Azub claim that their frame geometry has overcome this problem to some degree, but perhaps not? That said, I would actually have preferred a trike with a 26" rear wheel for the improved rear mech ground clearance and pothole-bridging, but the Scorpion came at the right price. Once I'm electrically assisted, I hope to ascend some hills and then experience that 'Downhill Grin!'

Interesting point re. the mxus.

 

[anotherkiwi]

Oh the frame is solid as a rock it is the rim and spokes plus the Big Ben tyres doing all the talking Because my head is right there next to the wheel you can hear the spokes coming into tension. I am learning so am taking things easy. Despite that I have managed to find a couple of limits to handling and am slowly leaning further and further out on corners. The SA brakes are just starting to bed in so I am more confident in the stopping power.

I am cheating, people think I have health issues too because I am on a trike they certainly leave a lot more room when they pass.

 

[Gaz]

.... I hope to get some photos done today.

[Drums fingers]

Gaz

 

[Deleted member 4366]

The S06SC is a great controller, very soft and natural feeling. I am going to upgrade to the S12S which I will de-tune (d8veh disagrees with me on this...) to 17 or 18 Amps because the motor comes standard with an 18 A internal controller and can handle the power.

You're right, I do disagree. It would make much more sense to get one of the 20 amp controllers, which are about 1/4 the size of the S12S and they have exactly the same functionality apart from the higher current, which you're not going to use!

 

[anotherkiwi]

You're right, I do disagree. It would make much more sense to get one of the 20 amp controllers, which are about 1/4 the size of the S12S and they have exactly the same functionality apart from the higher current, which you're not going to use!

25 A, not yet...

I want to mount the controller directly to the frame (after waterproofing) and I wanted to get rid of the wires and fit higo panel mount connectors in the end. If I fit higo connectors to the smaller controller box they will have to be on pigtails.

[Drums fingers]

Gaz

I forgot the camera... Remembered when I was about 8 km from home.

 

[johneb]

AK, is the Azub running GSM power, now? If so, how are you finding it and what other kit (controller, battery, etc) did you team it with?

 

[anotherkiwi]

No motor yet. Reasons follow:

Basically as I have a working pedelec for shopping and heavy lifting I have decided to use the trike as an un-powered bike over the winter break. I will get some fair weather riding in and so I just ordered the Sunrace 11-40 8 speed wide range cassette which I hope will sort my climbing issues, the other day I failed on the Col St Ignace There are plenty of 40-60 km rides to do around here but most of them involve some bit of mountain or other. Pamplona is only 62 km by bike so that could be a two day affair if I get a weather window during the winter (it snows a lot in Navarra).

The conversion budget isn't too steep but won't be available for the quality components before next season:

- ventilated SA brake hubs from Ginko @ 305€ a pop...
- wide T2 rims from Halo (24" front wheels??? to be decided)
- 2 x 8 speed front derailleur and shifter with problem solvers spacer mount
- 48 tooth chainwheel to replace the 42
- new 48 V controller - 17 or 18 Amps
- more Graphene LiPo to make a >20 Ah 12S 44.4 V battery
- I am not sure of my trike wheel building skills so may ask Ginko to build their hubs into the rims...

Which comes to about 1,000€ with bits and bobs like building the Mxus into a 28" rim for the upright bike and so on.

Still no photos!