Fabian
Well-Known Member
Oh please!
An 8 to 10% grade is only chicken feed. Now a 22% grade and above is starting to get mildly serious with a trailer loaded up with 150 lbs hanging off the back of the bike.
You are not going to get that kind of heavy haulage unless modifying the front chainwheel system to a Tetra chainwheel arrangement with a minimum of a 34 tooth rear cassette sprocket, but preferably a 36 tooth sprocket ripped from a 29'er cassette, grafted onto a conventional 34-11 cassette; using an 8 or 9 speed arrangement, but 8 speed being the better option, as the chain isn't rubbing up against the adjacent gear (especially if using 9 speed chain on 8 speed sprocket spacing), giving a better fudge factor for misalignment.
On flat ground, you should have no problems getting 500 lbs moving with this method, in fact, maybe more because i've had two bikes and riders connected up to my bike with a tow rope going between all three of us as i've towed them up a good 8% incline, and that includes not only my attached trailer but their trailers also.
Each (towed) rider and bike and trailer combination would have weighed 180 lbs for the rider, 25 lbs for the bike and panniers and 40 lbs for the trailer x 2 sets = 490 lbs (give or take a bit) + my bike which weighs 90 lbs and the trailer and gear which weighs around 100 lbs and myself being a good 180 lbs.
So overall the mega low range gearing was able to haul 860 lbs - a staggering amount of weight when you think about the torque going through the pawls in the rear hub.
I've had no problems climbing in excess of 30% gradient with 150 lbs hanging off the bike, maybe even a good 40% gradient but it got to the point where i couldn't climb any further because i wasn't able to lean far enough over the front handlebars to stop the front wheel lifting off the ground and flipping the bike.
Maybe if i attached lead weights to the bottom of the front fork legs, i might be able to keep the front wheel on the ground and climb steeper gradients with a tetra Chainwheel Setup!
An 8 to 10% grade is only chicken feed. Now a 22% grade and above is starting to get mildly serious with a trailer loaded up with 150 lbs hanging off the back of the bike.
You are not going to get that kind of heavy haulage unless modifying the front chainwheel system to a Tetra chainwheel arrangement with a minimum of a 34 tooth rear cassette sprocket, but preferably a 36 tooth sprocket ripped from a 29'er cassette, grafted onto a conventional 34-11 cassette; using an 8 or 9 speed arrangement, but 8 speed being the better option, as the chain isn't rubbing up against the adjacent gear (especially if using 9 speed chain on 8 speed sprocket spacing), giving a better fudge factor for misalignment.
On flat ground, you should have no problems getting 500 lbs moving with this method, in fact, maybe more because i've had two bikes and riders connected up to my bike with a tow rope going between all three of us as i've towed them up a good 8% incline, and that includes not only my attached trailer but their trailers also.
Each (towed) rider and bike and trailer combination would have weighed 180 lbs for the rider, 25 lbs for the bike and panniers and 40 lbs for the trailer x 2 sets = 490 lbs (give or take a bit) + my bike which weighs 90 lbs and the trailer and gear which weighs around 100 lbs and myself being a good 180 lbs.
So overall the mega low range gearing was able to haul 860 lbs - a staggering amount of weight when you think about the torque going through the pawls in the rear hub.
I've had no problems climbing in excess of 30% gradient with 150 lbs hanging off the bike, maybe even a good 40% gradient but it got to the point where i couldn't climb any further because i wasn't able to lean far enough over the front handlebars to stop the front wheel lifting off the ground and flipping the bike.
Maybe if i attached lead weights to the bottom of the front fork legs, i might be able to keep the front wheel on the ground and climb steeper gradients with a tetra Chainwheel Setup!
