GEBE or Staton?

[Warner]

I've narrowed my kit choice down to two vendors. I'm currently leaning toward one over the other though. I would be going with a 2 stroke engine
(40cc Tanaka with the GEBE and 43cc Mitsubishi with the Staton). I would use the Chain drive kit from Staton, WITHOUT the expensive NuVinci deal. Does anyone have any opinions about or experience with either kit/vendor? GEBE was quick to get back to my first e-mail, but hasn't yet responded to my 2nd. Staton responded to my e-mail but was very brief, basically telling me to check their website or call them to discuss. So I called today and left a message with my phone number (talked to a person, not a machine) but never got a call back. So I suppose these companies are pretty busy. My first impressions of their products are as follows:

GEBE - Simple to install, probably less durable than the Staton kit

Staton - More difficult to install, but I REALLY like the idea of their gearbox and chain drive system - seems relatively bulletproof.


I have the bike I'm going to use for the conversion. It's been in my garage for years and I went out and put air in the tires tonight and rode it a bit...it's a pretty NICE bike actually! It's a Trek 920 Singletrack with the grip shifters. Not too heavy (32 pounds I think) and is much higher quality (made in USA) than the wal-mart stuff. Should make a good finished product! I'm going to put the narrow smoothies on it to make it really roll good. I bet it'll be fast with either kit that I go with!


Looking forward to all of your opinions!

Warner

 

[Eco Speeder]

I also read a few posts about the 40cc Tanaka being a little bit too powerful for their system. I certainly have NOT made up my mind either way yet......


Warner

I just converted my 43cc Mit to Gebe. If you had a moment to PM me about some of those concerns/issues you read that would be great.

Luckily I have gotten great input from other Gebe pilots saving me from possible future " educational costs". The drive system originally that came with the motor I did not have such benefit of experience to tap on.

One thing that I can recommend is NOT using the stock rear rim. Get a double hull rim, heavy duty. The only negative thing I've heard so far about the Gebe system is that over time / miles the lateral flex of a cheaper rim might undo the mounting and centered-ness of the drive ring.

Luckily i had already upgraded to the double walled rim before my recent Gebe conversion. After "talking" with a few people in the know I'm going to bind my spokes as well. If Gebe came up with a drive wheel to fit those macro spoke rims, I would jump right on that. (Come on GEBE; the future is calling)

I hemmed and hawed on the same decision. I like fast and nimble so it was hard to choose the chain drive and gear box system. For a heaver cruiser that would be the way to go as far as rack mounted. And you can pile on the ponies engine-wise.


Michael

 

[Warner]

Warner, where are you? I'm in Morton Grove and haven't checked my local ordinances yet... probably should have done that before ordering a bunch of stuff.


ETA: Nevermind... I found your posts on the other forum when searching for the laws myself. That sucks that Elgin is so strict about it. Thankfully Morton Grove looks like it's still using municipal code from back when this was a farming community. Good news is I can drive a tractor on the main roads if I want to. Now I just need to check out Niles, Skokie and Lincolnwood to see if I'll have any problems there.

Good Luck! Keep me posted!

Warner

 

[ironwarlock]

you have to pedal start the eagle to be easy on the (belt and clutch).
you should pedal start the staton (to save clutch) unless you have the nuvinci hub.

you should have no problem with the golden eagle pressure on the spokes if you have a beefed up wheel (staton cost more) so money saved would get you that beefed up wheel.

golden eagle is way lighter and cheaper to maintain.
staton is heavy duty and heavy, more bearings to change things to oil.

golden eagle gear and belt drive saves the horse power.(better)
staton gear box and chain robs more horse power.

you cant freewheel the golden eagle.
you can freewheel the staton. (better)

both are good systems
if i went with a staton it would have to have the nuvinci hub (you talking a $1000.00 set up.) but vary nice.

eagle is the best bang for the buck i think.

 

[Warner]

Well IF I even convert my Trek mountain bike to an MAB (which is a big IF based on what I've seen for local ordinances lately!) I have convinved myself that I would go with the Staton kit. I like the direct drive. That whole ring on the spokes thing just seems hokey and prone to failure to me. Is the Staton kit heavier? I'm sure it is. Is it less efficient than the GEBE kit? More than likely. But I would bet any amount that it is more durable (the gearbox has a lifetime warranty - they must think it's durable). For the true freewheeling alone I would go with the Staton kit, in fact.


Here's the way I see it:

The downsides to the Staton kit are (probably):

1 - Weight (due to the gearbox)

2 - Possibly slightly less efficiency (again due to the gearbox)


The advantages are:

1 - Strength and durability. A lifetime warranty on the gearbox and the ability to handle more powerful engines without worry. (due to that same gearbox mentioned above)

2 - True freewheeling design - you can actually pedal the bike more than 8 miles per hour without removing the belt or having it cause drag.

3 - This is strictly my opinion, but I think the kit looks better too. The GEBE kit (to ME!) looks goofy with that big metal ring attached to the rim.


This is all moot at this time now though....as I won't be buying a kit until I'm sure I can use it to commute to work without getting hassled.


Warner

 

[Eco Speeder]

Certainly some good points there. If you have a quality light-weight bike that will 'balance out' some of the extra weight trade off with the gearbox/ chain system. As well as the better free-wheeling.

I'd go with the most HP that you can get with it. Not only for the speed but bigger cc motors last longer than a smaller ones. If you are forking out the extra money and effort you might as well go all the way; you'll thank yourself later.


Michael

 

[sjackson]

Good Luck! Keep me posted!

Warner

What I found was that Niles, Skokie and Lincolnwood all specifically define and allow motorized bicycles. Both Lincolnwood and Skokie specifically ban motorized platform scooters and skateboards though. It might be worthwhile to petition Elgin to make that legal distinction, and also maybe require the operator of the MAB to carry a valid driver's license. Good luck, though... I took a brief look at their municipal code, and Elgin seems abnormally draconian. Hope it works out in the end though.

 

[Warner]

Certainly some good points there. If you have a quality light-weight bike that will 'balance out' some of the extra weight trade off with the gearbox/ chain system. As well as the better free-wheeling.

I'd go with the most HP that you can get with it. Not only for the speed but bigger cc motors last longer than a smaller ones. If you are forking out the extra money and effort you might as well go all the way; you'll thank yourself later.


Michael

Michael, my plan WAS to use the 43cc Mitsubishi engine which is rated at 2.2 HP which should be more than adequate. I was also going to get it geared a bit taller so that I could cruise at 30 mph. I ordered skinny, mountain bike slicks for my bike to lower the rolling resistance as well. My bike is a nice Trek 920 mountain bike - probably 10 pounds lighter than the usual Walmart mountain bike or cruiser, and higher quality components as well. It's a decent starting platform. I would also (have to!) go with the special 48-spoke 26x1" heavy duty rear wheel from Staton due to the skinny tires I'm using (1.25" wide, kevlar belted Mountain bike slicks). It's about $70 for the wheel, all laced up and ready to go. The kits that I was looking at had the EXACT same price - $629 each. I think that would be the hot ticket, personally.

Warner

 

[Warner]

What I found was that Niles, Skokie and Lincolnwood all specifically define and allow motorized bicycles. Both Lincolnwood and Skokie specifically ban motorized platform scooters and skateboards though. It might be worthwhile to petition Elgin to make that legal distinction, and also maybe require the operator of the MAB to carry a valid driver's license. Good luck, though... I took a brief look at their municipal code, and Elgin seems abnormally draconian. Hope it works out in the end though.

My GUESS is that the ordinance in Elgin (and probably Hoffman Estates too) was written with the the electric and gas scooters and go-peds that kids use in mind, and I probably wouldn't have a problem riding my bike. But who knows? I wouldn't want to bank on it, really. I DID see people riding around on a scooter today (two up!) which is technically illegal according to the ordinance. I think that none of the police here are even AWARE of the ordinance, nor would they care about some 42 year old guy riding his bike to work. But again, is it worth risking it? I don't know.....

Warner

 

[lennyharp]

I recently bought the Staton with a Robin Subaru 33.5 CC motor. I am commuting 16 miles each way every other day. I will do it daily soon as I get fit because I got out of shape from my bike racing days in the late 1980's. (As long as I'm not dead I can still work on fitness, right?)

I got the Staton to have a more durable and bike like system. The freewheel on the left is a cool way to keep things working right. The machining and quality of David Staton's work is supurbe for the cost. At this time his is the best production available and he is still developing new parts for new bikes.

I used to build bikes and worked in bike shops and do think the rings mounted on spokes would make wheel maintenance a problem. I think that there might be a special rim that could be made for the belt driven systems so the drive rim is part of the rim, not clipped onto the spokes. I would really like to see that because then you could have the lightest and most responsive system. Rotating weight is the most critical in bicycle racing and so you see few spokes on racing wheels, also no TR tubes. Alternatively using 12 gague spokes would probably keep the spoke breakage problem form developing, but would add a lot of rotating weight.

 

[Warner]

I recently bought the Staton with a Robin Subaru 33.5 CC motor. I am commuting 16 miles each way every other day. I will do it daily soon as I get fit because I got out of shape from my bike racing days in the late 1980's. (As long as I'm not dead I can still work on fitness, right?)

I got the Staton to have a more durable and bike like system. The freewheel on the left is a cool way to keep things working right. The machining and quality of David Staton's work is supurbe for the cost. At this time his is the best production available and he is still developing new parts for new bikes.

I used to build bikes and worked in bike shops and do think the rings mounted on spokes would make wheel maintenance a problem. I think that there might be a special rim that could be made for the belt driven systems so the drive rim is part of the rim, not clipped onto the spokes. I would really like to see that because then you could have the lightest and most responsive system. Rotating weight is the most critical in bicycle racing and so you see few spokes on racing wheels, also no TR tubes. Alternatively using 12 gague spokes would probably keep the spoke breakage problem form developing, but would add a lot of rotating weight.

Lenny, thanks for the real world review! It helps. Having an experienced cyclist like yourself give that type of review weighs that much more heavily on my opinion. I too think the Staton kit SOUNDS like the way to go, but having a review from someone who actually owns one and uses it the way I intended to was great!

Thanks again,

Warner