Hello all

SKREEMR

New Member
Local time
12:50 AM
Joined
Sep 25, 2009
Messages
1
Location
upstate NY (way up)
Greetings!

I am a fairly long-time LWB recumbent bicyclist and my wife and I are taking our very first foray into the kind of scary (maybe illegal!) world of motor-assisted bicycling.

A few years ago we bought a Rans Screamer recumbent tandem. We have had a great time riding it on flat trails (our very favorite ride to date was on a very flat, very straight trail from Tallahassee to St. Mark's, FL), but the hills just kill us. (Unfortunately, we are not so small and not so young and recumbent tandems climb pretty poorly in the first place).

So, we have played for many months with the idea of motor assist. We have every intention of pedaling all the time--we actually enjoy pedaling--and just using the motor to make it a little bit easier and, most importantly, to let us ride wherever we want without worrying about how badly those hills will hurt our knees and sear our lungs. After some Internet research, we ruled out electric as too heavy and too limited in range, decided on chain or belt-drive gas and finally took the plunge and ordered a GEBE 35cc Robin/Subaru 4-stroke kit. It should arrive in a week or so. We're also getting the new not-yet-on-the-web-site super-beefy wheel with the sealed bearing disc hub.

We actually would have done something a year ago, but our bike has the tandem-standard 145mm rear dropout spacing and a 40-spoke wheel and that seemed to knock both GEBE and Staton out of the box. Now Dennis tells us that with a few spacers and maybe a little squeezing, we should have no trouble mounting the new super-strong wheel, even with its 135mm hub, on our bike. I am concerned that this will throw off the derailleur and/or disc brake (we have both rim and disc brakes on the rear) alignment, but we've decided to accept Dennis's assurances and just deal with any problems when and as they come along.

So, that's the long and short of it (mostly long by now, I guess). I will report further when we have received those boxes from GEBE and start setting this thing up. In the meantime, suggestions or experiences from any of you who may have mounted 135mm hubs in 145mm spaces would be very much appreciated. Actually, we'd love to hear from any motorized tandem teams.

Thanks for listening and we look forward to a lot of fun.
 
Welcome to the forum!
I imagine that the caliper will need to be slightly moved away from the wheel for the disc to line up with it. The rim brake should be fine.
Soon the truth shall be found.
 
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