D
duivendyk
Guest
Coming out of hibernation,I have splurged on the Nuvinci kit from Staton,I expect this will make getting around in this hilly area a lot easier if I get it to work. My ultimate goal is to ride the Blueridge Parkway to the Smoky Mountains (about 500 miles), camping on the way.
I ordered it with the hub already installed in a heavy-duty rim (My bike store is staffed by young Spandex clad cycling purists,whom I don't trust all that much)
The first thing I noticed is that everything is really HEAVY, some of the hardware parts unnecessarily so.I'll prob. try to do some "pruning" with a hacksaw, where feasible
My target bike is a garden-variety Raleigh MTB, with cantilever brakes,3/7 gears front/rear derailleur.I want to keep the front 3 speed ( useful in a power-failure mode).After some experimentation I managed to get all the controls on the handlebars,on the left,the front brake and the NuVinci controller (it can be used on the left too).On the right the front derailleur control ( I lucked out, it is only 2.5 " wide),the rear brake and the twistgrip throttle with light&kill switch
The Staton kit is a generic collection of parts that
can be adapted to different bikes by people with some mechanical smarts. The instructions provided online, leave something to be desired,to put it charitably.They will be clear to someone who has done it before,but otherwise will involve some head scratching,but by studying the pics. on their website you can get a pretty fair idea of how to go about doing what needs to be done.One thing that struck me right away is that the U-bracket up front is longer than it needs to be,this raises the gearbox higher above the rear wheel and father to the rear than really necessary.It turns out that this bracket is actually a carry-over from their roller drive kit !.Has anybody had any issues&experience with the lateral stability,that is a tendency to sway sideways of the gearbox& engine assembly, with Staton equipped bikes that affects handling?.The transverse rigidity of the combination is rather questionable in my estimation.Please let me know,I can drill another set of gearbox mounting holes in it, if needs be and also add a X brace between the rear gearbox stays,to make things more rigid.Retaining the front derailleur presents some complications since the rear derailleur has to be used as a chain tensioner,so less room is available to mount the two stanchion plates on each side, that support the engine/ gearbox,in fact one bolt has to be used for both and one plate piggybacked on the other,but it's doable,although a bit scary,one lone 1/4 " bolt has to support the whole THING including the chain tension in the drive from the gearbox,this works out to a max sideways load on the bolt of 200/300 lbs at full power.
Tires,it occurred to me that fixing a rear flat would be a real drag and that puncture proofing the tires would be a smart thing to do.What is the best product ,Slime ?
The engine I will use is a Mitsubishi TLE43,more compact than the 50 cc Honda and a quite a bit cheaper too,it has better fuel efficiency than comparable 2 strokes and much better pollution numbers.With my setup at 6k rpm,the min/max road speed will be about 7/25 mph,at 7k they become 8.5/30 mph and the pedaling cadence is 63/74 with front/rear sprockets of 48/16 teeth.
I ordered it with the hub already installed in a heavy-duty rim (My bike store is staffed by young Spandex clad cycling purists,whom I don't trust all that much)
The first thing I noticed is that everything is really HEAVY, some of the hardware parts unnecessarily so.I'll prob. try to do some "pruning" with a hacksaw, where feasible
My target bike is a garden-variety Raleigh MTB, with cantilever brakes,3/7 gears front/rear derailleur.I want to keep the front 3 speed ( useful in a power-failure mode).After some experimentation I managed to get all the controls on the handlebars,on the left,the front brake and the NuVinci controller (it can be used on the left too).On the right the front derailleur control ( I lucked out, it is only 2.5 " wide),the rear brake and the twistgrip throttle with light&kill switch
The Staton kit is a generic collection of parts that
can be adapted to different bikes by people with some mechanical smarts. The instructions provided online, leave something to be desired,to put it charitably.They will be clear to someone who has done it before,but otherwise will involve some head scratching,but by studying the pics. on their website you can get a pretty fair idea of how to go about doing what needs to be done.One thing that struck me right away is that the U-bracket up front is longer than it needs to be,this raises the gearbox higher above the rear wheel and father to the rear than really necessary.It turns out that this bracket is actually a carry-over from their roller drive kit !.Has anybody had any issues&experience with the lateral stability,that is a tendency to sway sideways of the gearbox& engine assembly, with Staton equipped bikes that affects handling?.The transverse rigidity of the combination is rather questionable in my estimation.Please let me know,I can drill another set of gearbox mounting holes in it, if needs be and also add a X brace between the rear gearbox stays,to make things more rigid.Retaining the front derailleur presents some complications since the rear derailleur has to be used as a chain tensioner,so less room is available to mount the two stanchion plates on each side, that support the engine/ gearbox,in fact one bolt has to be used for both and one plate piggybacked on the other,but it's doable,although a bit scary,one lone 1/4 " bolt has to support the whole THING including the chain tension in the drive from the gearbox,this works out to a max sideways load on the bolt of 200/300 lbs at full power.
Tires,it occurred to me that fixing a rear flat would be a real drag and that puncture proofing the tires would be a smart thing to do.What is the best product ,Slime ?
The engine I will use is a Mitsubishi TLE43,more compact than the 50 cc Honda and a quite a bit cheaper too,it has better fuel efficiency than comparable 2 strokes and much better pollution numbers.With my setup at 6k rpm,the min/max road speed will be about 7/25 mph,at 7k they become 8.5/30 mph and the pedaling cadence is 63/74 with front/rear sprockets of 48/16 teeth.
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