Recumbent E-kit Archives - DT Recumbents Blog

Christmas 2020

The team at DT Recumbents wish you all a Safe and Merry Christmas, and thanks you for your support over the last 12 months.

We will be having a Christmas break, so we will be closed from Christmas Eve 24^th December, re-opening Monday 4^th January 2021. We will be monitoring emails, so if you have a major catastrophe, send us a message and we will see what we can do to help!

GreenSpeed Update

In March we saw the sale of GreenSpeed Australia to WhizWheelz USA, who packed up all the GreenSpeed stock and shipped it to America. We went from “yes, we can have a GT20 ready to go for you next week” to “We don’t know if new GreenSpeed Trikes will be available to Australia in the foreseeable future.”

In October, Victorian company Trisled was announced as the new Australian distributor for GreenSpeed. Trisled have been doing their best to secure an Australian share of GreenSpeed Trikes in production at the moment.

So far, we have seen a quantity of GT20’s (all sold now) and Magnum BW’s (1 left) and are expecting some GT26’s very early in the new year. Other models including Magnums and Anura’s are anticipated around mid-year.

We’ll keep you posted!

COVID Impact on the Cycling World

COVID has had a massive impact on the cycling world. As our gyms and fitness classes closed under lockdown, cycling took over as a COVID-Safe form of exercise that we suddenly had the time to explore, often with our families. The demand for all types of cycles soared, and is still high. As the cycle manufacturing world struggles to catch up with the upright (upwrong?) and growing eBike demand, the smaller Recumbent market is experiencing similar issues.

It is going to take a while for the industry to recover and catch up, so 2021 will still see lots of ups-and-downs regarding availability of bikes, trikes and components.

Electric Assist

On a more positive note, Electric Assist kits and batteries have recovered from the COVID-induced shortage, and are more readily available. We can supply and fit your Mid Drive or Rear Wheel Hub drive. See our E-Assist web page for more info on which type will best suit your needs, and give us a call if you have any more questions.

Coming Soon….

As well as our GreenSpeed GT26’s, we have a Performer JC-26X – Suspension trike due to arrive in early January to add to our demonstrator range.

Our demonstrator Trikes include:

GreenSpeed GT20, and a GT20 with an Electric Assist Mid Drive motor;
GreenSpeed: Magnum BW; Aero; GT26 (mid Jan 21);
Performer JC20, and JC26X-Suspension (early Jan 21);
Rehatri Delta with USS.
(See our Recumbent Trike Web Page for more details.)

Our Demonstrator Bikes include:

Bacchetta: Giro A20 & Giro A26
Performer: Folding Front Wheel Drive
(See our Recumbent Bike Web Page for more details.)

And of course our personal bikes are here for discussion… Challenge Mistral, Performer 700C Highracer, and M5 Carbon High Racer.

Remember, the more you ride, the more Christmas Treats you can eat....

One of the more challenging installations I have done recently, has been the addition of a Bafang electric assist (E-assist) kit onto a Greenspeed Anura IGH. This posed a few issues:

the Bafang mid-drive and the chain gobbler – used for chain tensioning – are mutually exclusive,
the Anura steering rod passes exactly where the motor fits,
and the standard question of where to fit the display and controller!

Greenspeed Anura IGH with E-kit

If you have not been involved in fitting an e-assist kit to a recumbent, it’s easy to forget that generic kits are arranged for the standard upright bicycle, and the parts and wiring, in the main, do not just “bolt on” to a recumbent!

Back to the Anura then. Greenspeeds’ Anura is a fine trike – much underrated in my view – offering a convenient seat height, easy on and off access, great steering, and quite surprising performance too. Standard equipment for the IGH version is a Nuvinci 380 CVT internal gear hub and Schlumpf speed drive crank-set.

The challenges for the E-Anura are:

Keeping the Nuvinci hub in the right place;
Chain management (tension);
Steering; and
Mounting the rest of the stuff (battery, display, controller etc)

In order then…

The Nuvinci mounts in a slotted bracket that allows the hub to be moved to tension the secondary chain drive to the rear axle, and relies on the axle nuts to be very tight to stop it slipping. This has proved problematic for some installations and riders, I added positive location devices to stop the hub axle slipping under high load. (That’s the purple snail cam adjusters in the photo.)

Chain tensioning on the IGH is essentially by the sliding of the boom used to set the frame for the riders leg length. Workable but not ideal. I re-routed the chain to use an over/under idler, and created a chain tensioner to look after the excess chain.

Chain tensioner for E-kit on Anura IGH — Chain Tensioner

Over/Under chain tensioner for Anura E-kit Install — The new chain management

Steering was the one thing that had to be right. While you can fit the steering rod between the crank arms and the motor, the rod rubs the motor, bends, and restricts the steering lock available to the rider. My solution adds a new steering arm to the fork, and runs the steering rod direct from the handlebars across the top of the motor to the fork. Result: play free steering with full lock available left and right!

The rest of the “stuff” is more straight forward: battery mounted to the frame alongside the left rear wheel; display on a bracket on the main frame with the keypad separated and mounted on the handlebar end.

Anura E-kit battery installation — Anura E-Kit Battery Installation

E-Kit display — E-Kit Display (mounted on the boom)

E-Kit Controller keypad — E-Kit Controller Keypad on Handlebar

All in all, an e-assist system that preserves the trikes’ original handling. In the words of the owners of this trike:

“…runs like a dream, Grant has been out for a few rides now and is beaming every time he rides it…”.

Nothing beats that!

Links:

DT Recumbents Electric Assist information page

2020 ….. A year of challenges!