Greetings,
New here and looking to start work on a quad cargo bike with attachable trailer for doubling the cargo capacity when needed. Prior to joining up and posting I was poking around at other projects here and must say that lotharko's wooden quad project and Popshot's 4WS 4WD quad project both caught my attention. I'm thinking of a mixture of the two as I have a full woodworking shop at my disposal and don't have the means or skill to weld metal. I was originally looking at the Velove Armadillo with a trailer. But the price on that monster quickly ended that. $22,000 USD. Then looked into the Pony4 with a trailer and again the price was way too much for my liking. Nearly $7,000 for the bike and an undisclosed amount for the trailer. Years ago, I had a three wheeled rowing bike with lean tilt steering, and it didn't cost me over $1,200 USD. To be fair though it did have very little in terms of materials and most of the hardware was off the shelf bicycle parts. The ground clearance was little over three inches under main body and about two inches under the rowing arms when full vertical. Each arm provided power to the rear wheel on that side of the main frame. The seat frame was able to swing inside the main frame and a right-angle gear setup and small gear box to steer the standard front fork off a kid's bike. The front wheel was 12 inches, and the rear wheels were 20 inches. The row arms adjusted up and down in the pivot points to change the amount of pull on the chains around the single speed freewheel sprocket on each rear wheel and bungie cords pulled the chains and handles back to the default before row stroke. Back then I was living in Florida so very flat terrain and this kind of bike was ok. Where I live now, I wouldn't even strap my worst enemy in this kind of bike. Too many hills to climb in the mountains. For the last few years, I have been using a regular mountain bike with a modified two kid trailer. The trailer was stripped of the fabric covering and the seats for the kids. I bolted on a couple large totes to carry stuff in, and this was my main hauler. About a month ago during a large storm a tree toppled over and destroyed the trailer. This put me on the quest to replace it. But lately I've been needing to haul more than the trailer could handle so I started looking at dedicated cargo bicycles to do away with the standard bicycle and trailer combo. Plus, I'm looking for a more comfortable ride over long distances. Regular mountain bike is ok for short quick run to town and back for a few things that fit in the milk crate on the rear rack. But a full grocery run or going to get farm supplies you need more capacity.
Now looking at the DIY side of this all I want to stay as DIY as possible using off the shelf parts. Now I will splurge where needed for better parts for the job or in terms of safety. I do have Samagaga diffs, axles, and wheels on order. http://www.samagaga.com/ These would use disk brakes either mechanical or hydraulic. Also on order is a Shimano 11 speed internally geared hub and a Bafang 750-watt mid drive. The mid drive is for assistance on hills.
My budget for the project is limited to just $2,000 to $3,000 for parts and materials that I don't have on hand already. The already ordered parts have eaten a good chunk of that. But, if need be, I could add another paycheck or two over the course of the build. This isn't an over the weekend project and I expect it to take a few months.
Where I'm having issues are the suspension and steering geometry. I don't fully understand the needed angles on the front axle assembly. The suspension I'm at a loss on what kind to use. I can get the standard mountain bike rear suspension coil over damper style shocks easy enough. But the new bow arm suspension has my attention as does the torsion suspension that was on a strange 4WS bike linked in another post. Don't know where one would even get either suspension type for a bicycle project. They only appear to be on production bikes and not parts one can just buy. Also, the terms fiberglass and composite being used to describe the bow arm suspension automatically has me thinking they are expensive as hell.
So, any insight or pointers on the steering or suspension would be helpful.
New here and looking to start work on a quad cargo bike with attachable trailer for doubling the cargo capacity when needed. Prior to joining up and posting I was poking around at other projects here and must say that lotharko's wooden quad project and Popshot's 4WS 4WD quad project both caught my attention. I'm thinking of a mixture of the two as I have a full woodworking shop at my disposal and don't have the means or skill to weld metal. I was originally looking at the Velove Armadillo with a trailer. But the price on that monster quickly ended that. $22,000 USD. Then looked into the Pony4 with a trailer and again the price was way too much for my liking. Nearly $7,000 for the bike and an undisclosed amount for the trailer. Years ago, I had a three wheeled rowing bike with lean tilt steering, and it didn't cost me over $1,200 USD. To be fair though it did have very little in terms of materials and most of the hardware was off the shelf bicycle parts. The ground clearance was little over three inches under main body and about two inches under the rowing arms when full vertical. Each arm provided power to the rear wheel on that side of the main frame. The seat frame was able to swing inside the main frame and a right-angle gear setup and small gear box to steer the standard front fork off a kid's bike. The front wheel was 12 inches, and the rear wheels were 20 inches. The row arms adjusted up and down in the pivot points to change the amount of pull on the chains around the single speed freewheel sprocket on each rear wheel and bungie cords pulled the chains and handles back to the default before row stroke. Back then I was living in Florida so very flat terrain and this kind of bike was ok. Where I live now, I wouldn't even strap my worst enemy in this kind of bike. Too many hills to climb in the mountains. For the last few years, I have been using a regular mountain bike with a modified two kid trailer. The trailer was stripped of the fabric covering and the seats for the kids. I bolted on a couple large totes to carry stuff in, and this was my main hauler. About a month ago during a large storm a tree toppled over and destroyed the trailer. This put me on the quest to replace it. But lately I've been needing to haul more than the trailer could handle so I started looking at dedicated cargo bicycles to do away with the standard bicycle and trailer combo. Plus, I'm looking for a more comfortable ride over long distances. Regular mountain bike is ok for short quick run to town and back for a few things that fit in the milk crate on the rear rack. But a full grocery run or going to get farm supplies you need more capacity.
Now looking at the DIY side of this all I want to stay as DIY as possible using off the shelf parts. Now I will splurge where needed for better parts for the job or in terms of safety. I do have Samagaga diffs, axles, and wheels on order. http://www.samagaga.com/ These would use disk brakes either mechanical or hydraulic. Also on order is a Shimano 11 speed internally geared hub and a Bafang 750-watt mid drive. The mid drive is for assistance on hills.
My budget for the project is limited to just $2,000 to $3,000 for parts and materials that I don't have on hand already. The already ordered parts have eaten a good chunk of that. But, if need be, I could add another paycheck or two over the course of the build. This isn't an over the weekend project and I expect it to take a few months.
Where I'm having issues are the suspension and steering geometry. I don't fully understand the needed angles on the front axle assembly. The suspension I'm at a loss on what kind to use. I can get the standard mountain bike rear suspension coil over damper style shocks easy enough. But the new bow arm suspension has my attention as does the torsion suspension that was on a strange 4WS bike linked in another post. Don't know where one would even get either suspension type for a bicycle project. They only appear to be on production bikes and not parts one can just buy. Also, the terms fiberglass and composite being used to describe the bow arm suspension automatically has me thinking they are expensive as hell.
So, any insight or pointers on the steering or suspension would be helpful.