Front wheel drive at the hub. No chain.

A

Alyn

I am interested in building or finding a two-wheel recumbent bicycle with front wheel drive at the front hub itself. No chain. The hub could be single speed, three speed, or whatever. I have found very little mentioned about such a bike in all my years of searching. I am surprised that so little is out there on this concept. Any ideas? One possibility below.

Direct-drive — Velotegra

www.velotegra.com www.velotegra.com
 
That's the first I've ever seen of such a hub. It puts your feet disadvantageously lower than more usual chain driven examples from the pedalling effort viewpoint. I doubt they are much more common than rocking horse poo.
 
The Schlumph drive is a geared drive with 2 speeds. But it would take a clever zombie to adapt those to a hub variant.
 
I have seen these before although this one is new to me. Can't seem to find the photos I had when I was researching this exact idea, but I know they were from the 90's.

I did a "hub drive" prototype like this once, but instead of the internal gearing, I ran a sprocket (standard cranks) and then a chain to a cluster above the top head tube hardware and back over to the other side and then down to the wheel again. It was a complex thing, but did work.

The goal was to reduce pedal induced steer on this thing...

SpinCycle%20Stunt%20Trike7a.jpg


SpinCycle Stunt Trike

ChopZone DIY Plans for Recumbent Bikes, Trikes, Choppers and Electric Vehicles
atomiczombie.com atomiczombie.com

In the end, I stayed with the design shown as there wasn't much difference and it could be easily built by a sane person!

I do like the simple look of the geared unit for sure. It is more than a DIY project though.
Brad
 
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I beat that horse for a while, too.

I considered trying to support two individual cranks with chains running to a jockey shaft with a derailleur, then down to the wheel, but making the setup rigid enough looked nontrivial.

After seeing an article on "linear drive" setups, I think that might be the most reasonable solution, as far as being simple and buildable. Two pedals, pivoted above the wheel, with connecting rods running forward to an ordinary crankset, with the connecting rods attached to the shortened crank arms with rod ends. Everything else would be a standard bicycle chain drive. You could put the center-of-travel of the crank arms anywhere you wanted, not just the middle of the wheel.
 
In 2004, Mike Burrows (RIP) did experiment with a FWD no chain, "centre wheel steering" 2 wheel recumbent. It worked, but his was twitchy and in racing he did crash it, giving him some gravel rash. Reference from his book " From Bicycle to Superbike", page 164. Try it, but be wary with a low racer type, an expert in the field has been there. The Velotegra looks very good and has a sensible seat position.
 
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Radical Brad said:
I have seen these before although this one is new to me. Can't seem to find the photos I had when I was researching this exact idea, but I know they were from the 90's.



I did a "hub drive" prototype like this once, but instead of the internal gearing, I ran a sprocket (standard cranks) and then a chain to a cluster above the top head tube hardware and back over to the other side and then down to the wheel again. It was a complex thing, but did w



The goal was to reduce pedal induced steer on this thin





https://atomiczombie.com/content/pl...on the sit de/e.adugh.son!RL] g...ork.
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It got weird from the phone. Can't delete or edit in the phone, so I started the computer and try again.
That model is similar to the Airbaike described on this page together with Phyton and Flevobike.
Hope it's ok to link to another site, they don't sell anything, it's all free.

Python Lowracer

Python - A Center-Steered Lowracer. Construction of a low-cost and easy-to-build recumbent bike.
www.python-lowracer.de
 
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Popshot said:
That's the first I've ever seen of such a hub. It puts your feet disadvantageously lower than more usual chain driven examples from the pedalling effort viewpoint. I doubt they are much more common than rocking horse poo.
Click to expand...
There was actually a front wheel drive delta cargo trike built in France in 1938. It was called Le Super Triporteur Cyclauto.

Here is a link to both photos of the trike and a 2D layout of the front wheel internal gear arrangement: https://onlinebicyclemuseum.co.uk/1938-cyclauto-triporteur/
 
I spoke to Mike about this over at his workshop, he ended up fitting the trasmituin into a town bike called Gorden. He was dead against it due to lack of grip and practicalit, but did use fwd in low racers and a speed attempt with a carbon frame and a very flimsy looking hinge for steering.
 
I think the best version of this type of design is Ron Thompson's G4:: https://g4bikes.com/. Unfortunately the design is not that easy to make a DIY version. If anyone can do it, please show me how you did it, as I would like to try it too.

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I can see how that could be done DIY. What I'm struggling to see is why. It's a fair bit of extra work over more conventional machines. I can see it reduces the leverage at the wheel for pedal steer but RWD removes it completely. Whilst lowering pedal steer leverage it does mean that the wheel is more between your leg and as such will be more limited on amount of turn before a tyre / leg interface.
 
Could suit someone with very small inside leg measurement [ he will be along shortly :D [ joke ]]
However for me it reduces the amount of power I can put down the lower the pedals are to the front of the seat.

Paul
 
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