biggest engine on friction drive ?

ok, who has some real power running thru a friction system ?

what are the percieved limits and pitfalls ?

yes, you know what i'm thinking - HEHEHE

steve

My 43cc with velocity stack and manifold spacer was pretty pimped. Besides the operating pitfalls (i,e wet road) it worked great when dialed in. But the system required constant tweaking. Drive roller to tire gap, tweaking the drive roller PTO so the drive wheels would not lose power by spinning on the shaft, ect. An then there';s the dynamic of the tire being ground down and reshaped so the handling properties of the bike are constantly changing. And not for the better.

I differ with the statement that friction drive is "simple and light weight". Hogwash. GEBE is simple and light weight. I grin every time I look at my back tire which has seen 1000+ miles and it has the tread remaining of a friction drive that has gone 70- miles. I had to do a bit of engineering for my pimped motor to work with the GEBE drive ring but those efforts were minimal compared to the near constant thinking /wrenching on the friction to keep it at peak performance.
 
If you're getting only 70 miles from a tire, you must not know what you're doing. I had no problem getting 800+ off my Staton TLE43. Wife is still running one of my old tires and it has plenty of miles to go. When you set the roller tension, apply just enough load so the roller won't slip while holding the bike and going WOT.
 
Kerf,

Either you were a bit ADD reading my post or i was not being understandable. I was comparing the tire wear of 70 miles of friction drive to 1000+ miles of belt drive. After 1000+ miles the tire has near all its meat left.

And there is the concept of setting the drive roller gap set so the drive wheels don't spin on the PTO. That is fine if one is down with having and working around a slipping clutch dynamic. For me I like to have all the power from the PTO making it's way to where the rubber turns on the pavement.

If it were not for engineering laziness, wood wheel friction drive makers might have come up with a keyed shaft to mate with the drive wheel. Not as good as belt or chain drive but would be a huge improvement.


Michael
 
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Then you were and are running a direct drive? No centrifugal clutch on friction or GEBE, one bad dude.
 
I don't see how it could get any more simple and lightweight than friction drive. Theres no drive train to worry about at all except for how much pressure is placed on the wheel. You never have to worry about replacing belts or lubing chains or breaking spokes due to some of the arsebackward mounting schemes some chain and all belt drive kits use. If I get 800 to 1000 miles out of a tire then switch it out in 20 minutes to me thats no big deal at all. It's worth not having the headache of other more complex systems at times.
 
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I don't see how it could get any more simple and lightweight than friction drive. Theres no drive train to worry about at all except for how much pressure is placed on the wheel. You never have to worry about replacing belts or lubing chains or breaking spokes due to some of the arsebackward mounting schemes some chain and all belt drive kits use. If I get 800 to 1000 miles out of a tire then switch it out in 20 minutes to me thats no big deal at all. It's worth not having the headache of other more complex systems at times.


Funny, since i left friction drive behind my headaches went away.
 
I love friction drive!

I love friction drive so much that I use two of them on one bike.:eek: I don't think too much, I just bolt 'em on, adjust the rollers once in awhile and enjoy the ride. No need to worry about busting spokes, and I use stock 14g ones on my bike "Mr. Hyde".

It's a major spindle resistance drag, though, but I'm working on that.

And in 61 years, I might've had 3 headaches.
 
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