Refurbished Homemade Delta Trike

The trike is based on Atomic Zombie Aurora plans with some deviations of course. Over the winter it got a 500 watt geared front hub motor. New handlebars and a new seat. New marathon 20 by 1.35 tires as well. A plywood rear storage replacing the coro box and 2 48V batteries linked with a dual battery manager from area 51 bikes in the U.S.

It got 2 shakedown rides then last night Apr 17 was taken for a 30 km ride. Average speed was 24kph, the outside temp was plus 6 Celcius. The battery system was great, at the start voltage was 50, at the end 48 volts. Half the ride was against the wind and power levels 3 and 4 were used with me pedaling always. I have been riding this trike for a couple years now, it had a few thousand km's on it so got a refresh over winter.

 

I had used some smaller bolts on the coroplast and despite using loctite and doublenutting they often broke and/or came loose. Plus the rear fenders were mounted through the coro which required fender washers. With the constant need to tighten bolts the trike was quite noisy going down our rough streets.

 

Just a quick update on the red delta. After several short and a couple longer rides all the controls are sorted out as to their placement. The front hub motor seems to be working just fine. Gearing is a bit low so a 53 tooth will be installed up front in a couple weeks replacing the old 50 tooth I found in my parts bin. The last ride was roughly 60 km's around the city and everything worked great, it,s shaping up to be a great year for recumbent riding.

 

Another short update, we are in the midst of a heatwave here with a lot of humidity making it even feel warmer so not too much daytime riding. I did install the 53 tooth chainring and felt bigger might be better so a 56 tooth will be here in a week. Also purchased were two cable operated hydraulic disc calipers I found and want to try. Changing them over is a bit more complicated though so that won't happen for awhile. No riding for a few days though, thanks to a dna site I found I have 5 brothers and a sister I never knew about and 3 of them are flying in today the 3rd, so I will be busy getting to know them.

 

The itch to build has returned. This time I'm going to continue the development of an enclosed delta. So far I've made 4 different enclosed versions, 2 Tadpole versions and when delta became my preferred style 2 enclosed versions in a delta flavor. To that end I've been acquiring some parts. A rivnut gun, some thin wall galvanized 1/2" sq tube which will be used to give the body it's shape. This time 1/4" plwood or luan will be used and the curved section over the feet will be bonded to the sides with fibreglass. A small mtn bike has been purchased and it has 20" by 3" disc brake equipped wheels. These will go on the rear.

The road here are rough and my fatbike with its 4' tires offers the best ride, thats why I have hopes the 20 by 3 will smooth out the ride. I'm not looking for a Velomobile but have found with the previous builds that almost any effort at streamlining really helps pedal effort, especially riding into the wind. So speed isn't an issue, 20 mph is the rough target. I have 3 different homemade frames so one will be selected for the base of the project. I,m sure many here have noticed the weather being a bit more extreme lately. So there are 2 main design elements going into this build. First is SUN and rain protection, that one is easy. Next is heat, that was an issue for the previous builds. What was learned was airflow is very important, we are after all air cooled.

 

Well it has been a busy summer which is now drawing to a close. Here in Winnipeg snow is forecast for Oct 25th so the fatbike will be the ride of choice for the next few months. But I have been working on my latest delta project. The front part of the 2 wheel full suspension recumbent was selected as the basis for the build. A childs bike with 20 x 2.8" tires and disc brakes was purchased and promptly cut up. It's rear triangle was retained to allow use of the stock drivetrain on the left side and a 20" Bmx fork was modified into the right rear triangle and mounts the front 20 x 2.8" wheel is the right rear wheel. The front wheel is a 48 spoke BMX wheel with a 20 x 2' tire and uses the suspension fork from the kids bike.

Also being reused is a jackshaft from a previous project to route the pedal power from the front right side of the frame over to the left side.

 

Another year another modification for the trike. I removed the rear suspension and added a tube in it's place that is longer than the rear shock. In effect the ground clearance was increased. An extra benefit is due to a slight straightening of the chainline I was able to remove one of the two original pulleys. Plus the rear plywood box was a pain to lock and unlock so it got shortened and now is a box with bungee cord attachments that also holds a second battery.

 

Running with 2 batteries the range is great. Went for a ride the other night with a friend who has built himself a small 4 wheel pedal car. He does not use a motor and is a very strong pedaler. He can maintain 30 plus kmh for long distance's. I need to run my front hub motor but pedal the trike in the fastest gear in order to keep the pace. Anyway we went for a fairly short 35 km ride and the power level used was mostly number 4 out of 5. With one battery the power gets used up quickly but using 2 was great. Arriving home the display indicated 52 volts available.

This friend has also built a coroplast tadpole velomobile. With it he can quite easily get up to 40 kph and headwind resistance is minimal. So I ordered a 69 tooth chainring for my delta to allow for greater speed and will build a streamlined coro body for the aerodynamic effect. Based on my other enclosed builds at the very least it should take less power than it does now as an unfaired trike to maintain speed.

 

I was sent a 75 tooth front chainring by mistake instead of the 69 I ordered. Figured what the heck and installed it anyway. It's actually not too bad. There's no way I could ever max out my speed on the smallest rear gear except maybe downhill or with a huge tailwind though. It did get a test run the other day and the most important thing is to make sure you run through the gears. I still mostly cruise along at an easy 20kph.

 

That's pretty good, is this with or without the battery power?

 

I almost always use the assist and leave it on Level 1 or 2 depending on wind, hills etc. I always peddle as well and the display shows how much my efforts add to the motor. On a side note a ride to a Provincial park nearby that has a couple small hills the trike got up to 37 kph going downhill, still wasn't on the smallest rear gear. The e assist cuts out at 32 per gov't rules so that was due to gravity and my effort.