Hauraki Rail Trail ride

Start of the ride

Well what a neat day today, we got up early and made lots of food for the ride and set off to Waikino, which was an old gold mining town in the early part of last century. 
Some walked while some rode bikes and with Mum and Dad as support crew we were off. 
We took turns to ride bikes then sit in the car. Lunch was at the end of the long tunnel, fortunately then have now got lights in the tunnel. When I last was in there many years ago then were none and it sure was dark. 
10km further along we got to Paeora for a nice hot cuppa, then pretty much at 10km intervals we stopped at Hikutaia, Puriri, Matatoki and at each stopped checked in with our service team of Mum and Dad. 
Then it was left up to Aaron and I to complete the ride right through Thames and onto Mum and Dads house.
What a fantastic day with amazing scenery and great riding surface. The rail trails are a great experience and great for NZ !! 
If you would like to know more about the Hauraki Rail Trail take a look at this website - http://www.haurakirailtrail.co.nz/

On the river bank at Paeroa

Motorized Mountain bike on car roof

I am not sure how many people have put a moped on a car roof rack but today we gave it a try and it seemed to work just great.
We are planning some rides next week so wanted to try it out and make sure if we could put all the bikes on the little Toyota Starlet. It looks like it should all work.


I have been in the process of getting the bike registered as a moped. Well it is quite a challenge as all the regulations changed a year ago. The Transport dept implemented a new set of rules for mopeds. The problem is no one seems to know what they are. I have been told to contact a number of people and none of which seem to know. Several people have said to me "just ride it and dont bother to register it". I have however been wanting to do the right thing, so more investigation I think is required !!

Tawharanui Regional Park ride

Today it has been a beautifully fine winters day, in fact you would think that it was summer, although the temperature gauge doesnt lie, it read only 15 deg C as we drove up to Tawharanui Regional park.


We researched about the bike ride before we went and it said that the ride was great for bikes. Well it wasnt quite what we expected it was more of a 4x4 track through a very hilly farm, but we loved it and the last part was really beautiful through some native bush. We were to discover later that we were not supposed to ride through there.... too late.

The start of the ride

Adam making his way up a long hill

Going on holiday

Packing the bike down for travelling

 Disassembly and packing the bike into a bag for transporting on a plane !

Bikes technical speciafications

Here is a run down on the spec's of the bike -

• Engine - 35cc Honda 4 stroke mounted vertically 
• Transmission - Honda rotary tiller, 35.1 ratio
• Drive sprockets - Modified Staton drive kit
• Hub - Rohloff 14 speed internal geared hub
• Shocks - Front - Fox float 32mm, Rear Fox 
• Brakes - Front - Avid juicy, Rear Hayes
• Gas tank - Integral 2 litre 
• Frame - Hand made fabricated stainless steel
• Mudguards - Front - THE

Features -

• Engine is designed to be taken on and off very quickly and easily so that it can be used as a normal mountain bike or motorized.
• Bike is designed to fold up and go into a bag for easy transportation. The motor unbolts, the frame folds up into its self
• One tank of gas (2 litres) gets the bike 120km
• The bike rides comfortably at 40kmph
• Weight - 29kg including engine. 23kg without engine

Future ideas

• I plan to modify the engine to get more speed out of it
• Sometime in the future I have a much more power but lighter and smaller engine to fit into it
• One day an aluminium bike and then a carbon fibre bike

Last ride in Kolkata for a while

 These are some photos taken today on my last ride around the streets of Kolkata for a while. I am returning to NZ for a few months and plan on doing some Mountain bike riding with my boys over the coming months on some of New Zealands amazing bike trails, sure looking forward to it 

This mornings ride

Development continues and I have ironed out some small issues lately. still need to make some torsion bars for the engine as it seem to be torquing too much but now the bike is fine to pedal and I enjoyed a really good ride this morning, here are some shots from today.

Finished bike

Well this is the finished bike although testing hasn't even started yet and no doubt there will need to be a lot of refining through trial and error.
That will begin soon

More innovation

These photos are of the car manufacturer Audi, they have dabbled into bicycle creativity by producing a concept bike. It is a mountain bike equipped with an electric motor and it's capable of an amazing 80kph and a charge will even get you 70km. Not bad! It's light and looks stunning! It even has a mode so that you can pull wheelies !

Trial and error

In the past week I have taken the bike on a couple of test runs, unfortunately I have had a few teething problems mainly to do with the front steerer but hope to have this sorted out this week.
It is always a hard balance when you are on a tight budget to get the best result. I had bought a top quality front shock at an extremely cheap price knowing I would have to do a few repairs to it. Those repairs have been a little more challenging than I hoped.
I still haven't got the engine working so far just been using it with just pedaling it. I am very happy with the Rohloff hub. It is outstanding to use.

From browsing the Internet I noticed the photo below. It is quote an amazing concept. It is called a Velomobile ! Basically that is a enclosed bicycle which are quite common in some countries and there are many variations of them. I first saw one of these in Switzerland 12 years ago called a Twike, that one was pedal power and also electric power. This one is both pedal powered and electric and it floats and has a propeller on it, quite ingenious

Brillance

Have done a little more on the bike lately and now have the pedals on. 


I have been getting some items made locally here in Kolkata by a trademan who has a little engineering business hidden away in a back lane just a short walk from home.
I am blown away by how cost effective it is to get him to make things. I got him to machine down a sprocket for me the other day, something that would have cost $60-70 but here it cost me 150 rupees, yep that is a total of $3.55 ......amazing !


Today just want to pay tribute to some amazing German engineering. I was fortunate enough to purchase a second hand Rohloff gear hub for my bike. I managed to purchase it in Canada and then get it shipped to Tennessee, USA in time for a team to bring it over here to India.
This is a hub is the internal part of the rear wheel and has 14 gears, it is quite a piece of engineering, I am told they are indestructible and can handle the power I intend to put through it.
It means I do not need to have a de railer on the front or the back and suits the gearing I have chosen for the bike.

Bike without engine

This is what the bike looks like without the engine.
It weighs 17kg without the engine. Not bad for a bike made of stainless steel.

Ganges

Just a neat shot of the Ganges down the road from our house

Mudguard

Yesterday was a public holiday, "May Day". Was nice to have a day off work but more importantly a day to work on my bike.
Spent most of the day making the rear mudguard but can't say I am really happy with it. I think I might have to remake it.
Itching to get this finished !

Legal

I am actually wanting this bike to be completely road legal, yep for those that know me this might seem a bit strange. A bicycle with an engine on it does it really have to be legalised ....well yes actually. 

If it has less than 300kw power (just to let you know thats very little power) then you would not need to make it legal. Its got a lot more than that so will need to "do the right thing".

It is actually not that complex, although I am yet to go through the process. I have researched the internet and emailed the good people at NZTA and got a very fast clear response. 

The bike will require being registered as a moped, that is provided it is less than 50cc and does not exceed 50kph. I my view that means that you are not allowed to drive it any more than 50kph but that doesn't mean that you can get up to 50kph really fast and have the potential to go much faster, not that I would ever drive exceedingly fast (although my 14 years as motor racing driver might cloud your thinking).

The bike will require a few things, lights, reflector and horn and be relatively road worth, which I am sure I can manage. 

Here is the fact sheet if you are interested - http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/factsheets/43/mopeds.html

Once I have got through the process I will update you on just how arduous the process is ! 

Still more progress

Well it seems I have put countless hours into the bike over the past weeks, yet if you look at it there probably doesn't look like much progress and I hate to say it, there is still heaps of work yet to do!
I must say that I am really enjoying building the bike but I sure wish I could just get it finished. My deadline is to have it done by the end of June when we leave to go back to NZ for a few months. I am very keen to do some of the NZ bike trails and there sure are some beauties. 
Here are just a few of websites but there are some other really good websites - 
http://www.nzcycletrail.com/waikato-river-trails
http://www.otagorailtrail.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=57
http://aucklandmtb.co.nz/trails/
http://www.arc.govt.nz/parks/whats-on-in-parks/activities/mountain-bike-tracks.cfm
http://www.newzealand.com/travel/media/features/recreation-&-sport/cycling_north-island-mountain-bike-trails_feature.cfm

Am rather keen to have a go at some of these with the new bike.
Just to explain the engine just clips in and out so in just a minute or two the engine can be taken out and put in your back pack. Ideal if you want to drive from home up to a mountain bike trail using the engine and then just unclip it and ride the trail like all the other mountain bikers. Note to self - mountain bikers just don't like people using engine on trails designed for bicycles.


Or the bike is ideal for boarder crossings. Yep it is very difficult to take a motorcycle through a boarder crossing as you just need lots of paper work but not for a bicycle. Just put the engine in your back pack and pedal your way through the crossing, once on the other side put you engine back in and you are away !!!

Todays ride

Been working hard on the new bike, but today was a great day for a ride on the old bike !!

The beauty of Kolkata -

Innovation

Just recently I have purchased a new engine for maybe another bike project that I will do in the future or maybe later on for the bike I am building now.
I have done a lot of investigating into other options for an engine that would perform better than what I already have.
I came across an engine again used in the remote controlled plane industry whereby they got an engine from a Stihl leaf blower and converted it to work in their planes.
Recently I purchased a second hand leaf blower off ebay and thanks to Lorin and Walter Lindsay they took it apart for me and then sent it to a friend of ours that is coming to Kolkata shortly so I am very excited to get my hands on this engine and do some testing.
The engine uses a new concept called 4 mix. This means it is halfway between a 4 stroke and a 2 stroke. 
This engine is two thirds of the size of my current engine and two thirds of its weight so that in itself is a benefit but then it has three times the horse power.
Although I have never heard of anyone trying to use it for what I am going to use it for I am confident that it has potential.
Its going to be fun fiddling around trying to get it to perform how I want it to.
Here is a photo of one of these engines mounted as a RC plane engine

This is what it looked like before Lorin and Walter took it apart 

Progress

Well it has been ages since I posted anything on this blog as my bike project sort of went on hold. At the end of 2011 I was just too busy to be able to do anything to the bike and then a trip to NZ meant I couldn't work on the bike but managed to pick up some really good parts for the project.
The last few weeks I have been able to find a bit of time to get back into it and with a new welder at work, a special AC/DC tig welder it has helped to motivate me to get this finished.

As you can see the Honda engine is mounted in a weird position for any engine, yes it is vertical, espeically strange for a 4 stroke engine to be sitting up on its nose, but then this is a very special engine which is used in radio controlled planes and they do acrobatics with them so it can be run in any position.


As you can see the main strut of the bike is also the gas tank, holds 2 litres which should be good for 120km range.
I have just ordered some parts for the pedals, sprockets etc so hopefully they will be on their way soon.


Keep you posted on progress