My life with Python trikes Mk1 , Mk1.5 , Mk2 ?

[Popshot]

5KG sounds more if you call it 12LBS. Unless you got the tourer upto a speed where aero starts to hurt it's more likely the weight. One other possibility could be rolling resistance though I doubt you've found ultra low rolling resistance for the rear of the racer given the size of them.

 

[stormbird]

I see that you live France Paul.

WW1 English aircraft ! The front goes through a couple of nationalities

Looks good.
You keep working on them. I am curious how much weight you can get off.

Yes DannyC and I were discussing how much we over build these projects , although dynamic forces are harder to gauge than straight weight.

How is your shorter quad going ?

This is for sale in UK for £300:-

Looks to be good value should you want a vehicle like this , however neither DannyC nor I have any use/space for it

Paul

 

[stormbird]

5KG sounds more if you call it 12LBS. Unless you got the tourer upto a speed where aero starts to hurt it's more likely the weight. One other possibility could be rolling resistance though I doubt you've found ultra low rolling resistance for the rear of the racer given the size of them.

Yes and I forgot the 2kg of tools the tourer carry's , all run on road tyres they take a pounding around here mainly through glass damage.
It is not unusual for me to change a tyre due to the blue/green guard being visible.

It might be tracking of the rear wheels , I need to get wheels without tyres on and check.

Paul

 

[Popshot]

I've seen that quad on ebay. The owner obviously knows nothing as it was described as full suspension when it has none.

 

[stormbird]

I've seen that quad on ebay. The owner obviously knows nothing as it was described as full suspension when it has none.

My picture was from FB he did mention wishbones IIRC , though there may have been something on the rear however not discern-able from the pictures ?

Paul

 

[Popshot]

It seemed quite a useable start to a project, just not as described.

 

[Emiel]

WW1 English aircraft ! The front goes through a couple of nationalities

Yes DannyC and I were discussing how much we over build these projects , although dynamic forces are harder to gauge than straight weight.

How is your shorter quad going ?

This is for sale in UK for £300:-

Looks to be good value should you want a vehicle like this , however neither DannyC nor I have any use/space for it

Paul

The quad is going good. 37cm shorter ad the back.
I keep the longer wheel base because my chair that i take with me on holiday, fitted perfectly. Extra storage space.

Working on the trikes is a hobby.
I am already thinking what to build as my quad is ready. Also as my caravan is ready.
Building and riding.

The quad has no suspension and now i have that, i don't want it without anymore. My next trike will get a similar front suspension.
It is just great to ride.

 

[stormbird]

OK weight watchers for home built Pythons:-

First up front seat mount , original on table and new one welded on.

Replacement welded on , not bad welds although need to fill hole in the corner next time welder out.
Not a huge saving yet however ....

There will be at the back So where the 2 holes are visible under the little red clamp lies a big heavy 8" long lump of angle and box allowing the part with the holes in to unbolt. The plan is to replace the whole of that part including the axle mount with a piece of 1.25" box shown by the lower piece of wood shaded in green. Then the whole seat mount will be replaced with another piece of box shown as the piece of wood with the 90' written on it.So 2 pieces of box and a 3mm plate for the rear seat belts will replace all the steel from infront of the rear seat mount to the axle. A new axle is being made from 1.5mm wall steel instead of 3mm , sadly this way we will still have threaded rod on the ends for the wheels so no weigh saved there.

The culmination of all the previous work WC2024 build resulted in this innocuous badge of honour , picked up by one other AZ builder with Prototad.

There was another home build amongst the non 2 wheel stream liners :-

Like me another ' oldtimer ' it was interesting as it had full suspension and mainly ali so probably quite light.

Off now as the dog is taking me out for breakfast after a chat with DannyC of this parish , what a life eh ?

Paul

 

[Popshot]

Interesting use of elastic bands on the two wheeler and given the lack of weight over it's front the massive front end suspension travel looks to be more for getting the BB forward.

 

[stormbird]

Interesting use of elastic bands on the two wheeler and given the lack of weight over it's front the massive front end suspension travel looks to be more for getting the BB forward.

Do you want some bigger/more detailed pictures of it ?

Paul

 

[Popshot]

No thanks Paul. Everything is visible in that picture.

 

[stormbird]

So LowRacer going on a diet [ like I should ! ] below is the rear end.

I cut the old axle off and one of the long seat stays after tack welding the other to the frame to keep the seat position whilst the bolts in the way of marking out the new joint were removed.
I have since made the cut freed the other seat stay and cut a 20" piece to go in , next up drill some 22mm holes for the new axle.

To lighten it further I need a new front end , either 20" wheel or as shown a 16" wheel.
This is the rear frame from a bike I found this morning with the rubbish in a local nature reserve after is was recovered from the river.
Most of it is pants however I wanted a BMX frame like this to play with so great news.

Next to the existing rear frame , so I need some steel to join the pivot to this part and then the pedals , the plan [ if it works ] is to use some
1.25" square made to fit under the seat tube welded to the rear mudguard bracket on the left hand chain stays and the rear brake bridge
on the right hand seat stays and all the rest cut off. [ then the stays will also be welded to this tubing.]

It will be propped up again with this tube parallel to the floor [ touch of OCD rearing it's ugly head ] and the pedals attached in the same place as these on the yellow part . Then it will be on to the pivot , the hard part.

Whist these are supposedly weight saving measures I am unsure currently whether to go IGH [ I have a Nexus 7 and a NuVinci 320 however neither are in 16" wheels [ yet ]] or as shown 8 speed cassette , which ever is chosen will need 155 cranks and 2 rings up front.

Lots to do Paul

 

[Popshot]

The Nuvinci is no Kate Moss.

 

[stormbird]

The Nuvinci is no Kate Moss.

So true , however the main problem with going with 16" wheels is getting enough gearing , the easiest way ' maybe ' is to use a IGH hub and a very small sprocket coupled to a big ring up front. it sort of worked for the WC2024 LowRacer although I did not have enough time to try a 50T ring in place of the 48T nor a 36T in place of the 38T ? that had a 20" drive wheel.

Paul

 

[DannyC]

So true , however the main problem with going with 16" wheels is getting enough gearing , the easiest way ' maybe ' is to use a IGH hub and a very small sprocket coupled to a big ring up front. it sort of worked for the WC2024 LowRacer although I did not have enough time to try a 50T ring in place of the 48T nor a 36T in place of the 38T ? that had a 20" drive wheel.

Paul

It isn't easy to get a Nuvinci into a 16" rim as the flanges are HUGE and they do recommend 1 cross lacing for any wheel <24".
I would be tempted to run a spoke calculator to check if such short spokes are readily available.

 

[stormbird]

It isn't easy to get a Nuvinci into a 16" rim as the flanges are HUGE and they do recommend 1 cross lacing for any wheel <24".

The bigger problem is the rims only 2 flavours 20 hole and 28 hole , I have yet to find any un-drilled for sale.

I would be tempted to run a spoke calculator to check if such short spokes are readily available.

You are talking to a man with a spoke threading tool AND a plethora of spokes [ ALL the wrong size ]

Paul

 

[Popshot]

Are you robbing Peter to pay Paul here?
Moving to 16" saves weight but can you get any decent tyres for that size? 20" low rolling resistance are available. The Nutraks are pretty good at that. If you can't get low rolling resistance tyres the weight saved could be lost in making it move. At 16" you are mainly looking at kids tyres which themselves will be much heavier that the Nutraks despite the size.

 

[stormbird]

Are you robbing Peter to pay Paul here?
Moving to 16" saves weight but can you get any decent tyres for that size? 20" low rolling resistance are available. The Nutraks are pretty good at that. If you can't get low rolling resistance tyres the weight saved could be lost in making it move. At 16" you are mainly looking at kids tyres which themselves will be much heavier that the Nutraks despite the size.

Good question and the answer depends I suppose on where you are starting from and where you are going ?

I failed really to make the LowRacer light which prompted a discussion with DannyC about whether we over build our stuff ?
I currently have no ambitions to race again with the trike so it is not weight saving for racing.

However the LowRacer is a joy to ride despite it having a IGH and a very heavy front end [ old MK1 Python ] and only 1 brake :-( and my current Python compared to it is not.

Schwalbe do a tyre with green guard for 16" wheels the weapon of choice for my urban riding they wheel/tyre/inner tube weighs about 500gm less than the equivalent 20" so a trike with 3 saves enough weight to carry a Nexus 7/8 with almost no penalty ?

Again a Nexus 7/8 or Nuvinci are not racing choices however they are great in an urban setting.

Of course I still have ambitions to build a quad then with 16" wheels we save 2 kg .....

Paul

 

[stormbird]

Well yesterdays ride ended in a mechanical nightmare about 2 miles from home and 1/2 the way up a steep hill.
Suddenly I had no drive and the chain was skipping like mad over the cassette , what was wrong.

The wheel turned freely and the with no load the pedals could just turn the chain however the chain looked all wrong at the wheel end.

Changing my angle I realised I had no upper jockey wheel on the rear mech !

Looking back about 3 yards away were some mechanical looking pieces , so I found the wheel the inner bush the screw and one side plate.

So nice and easy fit them and back on my way ?

Well no things got really nasty real fast.

First off I only had a multi tool hex key to screw the bolt in and the bulk of the tool fouled on the mech pivot.

So move the mech , whilst I could twist it out of the way I then didn't have a free hand to insert the screw.

Now the easy solution was to break the chain and get it out the way ?

Err no I could see the quick link but no tool to break it and my pliers did not fit into the links.

So despite having 2kg worth of tools this was going south very quickly......

In the end I unscrewed the mech from the frame so I could get a better angle on it and get as much of the chain out the way as possible whilst I struggled with one hand to hold the mech fully stretched and tried to get the screw in with the other hand , then the hex key could only do about 1/8 of a turn and it took an age to get the bolt up tight.

Then the fight to get the M10 fine bolt back into the frame , usually there is no chain however because of the chain the mech was under considerable tension and the threads in the frame always seemed hard to start.

Lessons learnt [ I hope ]
1) maybe assemble the jockey wheels with grease and assemble with Locktite
2) have a normal length hex key set rather than rely on a multi tool [ on the Python I may only need 2 ]
3) carry chain breaker tool and spare quick links

Still no one was hurt and I finished the journey.

So far riding Pythons for over 10 years I have only been rescued 2 twice :-
Once had a puncture and for some reason I was not carrying my pump [ no idea why ]
Once had a frame failure due to poor building and material choice

Not a bad record Paul

 

[Popshot]

2kg of tools and no chain tool! I generally don't use split links and join chains without them. The chain splitter and joiner isn't the heaviest of tools. Iirc my toolkit consists of the chain tool, adjustable spanner and a lightweight multitool. I take your point about bulky allen keys and think I'll add a std set of them to mine.

That is indeed a good record. Better than mine and I do a lot less miles than you.