I built a Side Kick Pedal Car. I've got several problems with it which keep it from being a truely reliable machine. #1 The brakes that come with the kit are nearly impossible to adjust I'll have to take it to a bike shop. #2 The chain is constantly slipping, again I'll have to take it to a bike shop. #3 It's almost impossible to fill the tires that come with the kit and not get bulges. So I'll have to see a bike shop again. #4 Now the most insurmountable problem of all. The Side Kick itself is about 100 pounds. Add me at 180 and a friend at about the same and you've got a lot of weight on the 2 rear wheels. Plus side to side motion that you get with a 4 wheeled car and I've got spokes breaking all over the place. (Plus a whinning Wife that complains I've spent too much money on that usless car!)
What can be done, about the wheels I mean. (The Wife is another Matter!)
I have a simple idea if anyone can suggest something that'd be Super!
My idea is this, Take the wheel to a metal fabrication place. Have a solid peice of metal, (probably Aluminum), Spot welded around the wheel from the point where the spokes meet the rim to the point where the spokes meet the hub. Solid spot welded all the way around with a slot cut to alow a curve. And the same thing done on the other side. Thus forming a solid wheel with the spokes enclosed between two sheets of metal. Using Aluminum I don't think it would be much heavier but would probably be Much Stonger and able to withstand the side to side stress of 4 wheel operation.
How does that sound? Experts please respond here or at my e-mail address. stevelogicstupiddoes@yahoo.com
What can be done, about the wheels I mean. (The Wife is another Matter!)
I have a simple idea if anyone can suggest something that'd be Super!
My idea is this, Take the wheel to a metal fabrication place. Have a solid peice of metal, (probably Aluminum), Spot welded around the wheel from the point where the spokes meet the rim to the point where the spokes meet the hub. Solid spot welded all the way around with a slot cut to alow a curve. And the same thing done on the other side. Thus forming a solid wheel with the spokes enclosed between two sheets of metal. Using Aluminum I don't think it would be much heavier but would probably be Much Stonger and able to withstand the side to side stress of 4 wheel operation.
How does that sound? Experts please respond here or at my e-mail address. stevelogicstupiddoes@yahoo.com
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sat, June 14, 2008 - 9:33 PMSteve,
If spokes are breaking, it sounds as though your kit was badly engineered. Did the wheels actually come with the kit, or were they simply specified? You may just need heavier duty spokes and different tires. If all else fails, replace everything that breaks with motorcycle parts. Who provided the kit? Do you have a link to a URL? I'd like to see the literature. -
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sat, June 14, 2008 - 10:52 PM
-
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sun, June 15, 2008 - 9:00 AM100 pound vehicle
360 pounds of rider
460 pounds total: Over two wheels in the back, that shouldn't be an issue. I've seen touring tandems and Xtra-Cycles loaded up with that much weight, and they only have a single wheel in the back.
It sounds like the wheels aren't built properly (poorly tensioned, I'm guessing). I'm also interested in seeing the designs for this vehicle to determine if you can swap out the wheels for something better, or at least build a better wheel around the existing hubs. For a high load situation like yours, with the considerable side-to-side movement (I don't know why) you mention, I'd use a setup like a Velocity Dyad or a Mavic T520 rim, 40 or 48 spokes, laced 4x with straight 14ga spokes.
I've got a buddy who weighs 320 pounds and commutes on a Trek 520 loaded with up to 50 pounds of gear, and on his 40h Mavic T520 rims he's never even put them out of true. -
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sun, June 15, 2008 - 11:48 AMAre the wheels half or entirely radially spoked? Are they cross 3 spoked? -
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sun, June 15, 2008 - 12:51 PMthe sidekick pedal car is like the rhodes car- a kit that you buy PVC and make a frame out of. the parts are not high end at all- Steel rims and hubs, but at least they are 3 cross laced spokes. the spokes are galvanaized, but galvanized spokes are not necessarly crap. Lately, stainless spokes from china ended up breaking.
The steel rims are crap singlewall. Relacing the hubs into a better alloy rim, like the Velocity dyad or rhyno lite might be an improvement, but there may be something else going on. Could it be the stresses of a traditionally dished wheel overloading the spokes in the wrong direction? Wheelchairs are dished differently than bike wheels, same thing with tadpole recumbents. Also, maybe the caster and camber of the wheels aren't designed properly for that pedal car. Bike trailersand tricycles without caster or camber tend to scrub and wobble behind the bike. Maybe this is contributing to the spokes breaking.
A definite non solution would be to weld steel plates in place of spokes.
so, check to see if you have the wheels on the correct side of the pedal car, make sure the front left is on the front left, etc. If all the wheels are dished and cambered the same, then maybe it's a poorly engineered design, or maybe the factory put the wrong wheels in the box. -
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Thu, June 26, 2008 - 7:59 AMI'd go with solid Composit Spoked Wheels and just replace all of them.
A buddy of mine did that on his decent quality GIANT Cross bike becuase he weighs 300 pounds and that ammount of weight is higher than most crossed-spoke wheels are meant to handle so the spokes were breaking at a record rate.
Solid Composit wheels rarely break apart unless you put them on a Mt Bike and go off 8 foot jumps or hit a huge deep pothole with your Road Bike. -
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Thu, June 26, 2008 - 7:02 PM**he weighs 300 pounds and that ammount of weight is higher than most crossed-spoke wheels are meant to handle so the spokes were breaking at a record rate.**
A quality handbuilt wheel can easily be spec'd out to handle that kind of weight. That's actually pretty light when looking at the realm of heavy-duty wheels.
36h Ultegra, 3 crossed with 14ga spokes to a deep section rim like a Deep V or a CxP33 will hold up just fine under 300 pounds. I've seen those same wheels on a tandem.
If that's still not enough, 40 or 48 hole touring/tandem hubs laced to a rim like a Dyad or a T520 should do it. -
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sat, June 28, 2008 - 9:09 PMCliff that is not exactly accurate
I had exactly the Wheelset you mentioned here Mavic CXP 36h-33 Aero(deep-V) three-crossed to Ultegra Hubs built by Wheelsmith using Swiss-DT Double-butted Stainless Steel Spokes on my GIANT TCR-3 and they required constant re-truing under my weight of 165 total lbs every two to four Months. a 300 pound rider could cave that wheelset by hitting a single small 2 inch deep Pothole dead-on at high speed.
The suggested weight limit for that Wheelset according to Mavic is 220 pounds Max. -
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sat, June 28, 2008 - 10:46 PMIf the total weight on the bike is only 165 pounds and your wheels require truing every 4 months, the initial build quality was bad unless you're riding 1000 miles/month on nothing but unpaved roads.
I weigh 240 pounds; throw in a 32 pound bike and 20 pounds worth of stuff for work and I start nearing that 300 pound mark. I ride 32h Alex DA-16 rims laced 3x with DT Champion 2.0 spokes to Deore hubs. I de/re-tensioned them since they were machine built wheels, and they were true to 300 miles (about 2.5 weeks.) I trued them up around 300 miles and they haven't needed a single adjustment over the last 1900 miles.
That's daily commuting and weekend long distance riding with a crapton of hills, so I'm doing quite a bit of standing on the pedals and throwing the bike around.
As for caving the wheel on a 2" deep pothole at high speed... A 300 pound rider is going to crumple anything short of a DH mountain bike rim on a long travel fork if they just ride willy-nilly into gaping craters in the street. The key to keeping your wheels from going to hell quickly is "riding light".
- Avoid slamming into potholes and curbs and speedbumps
- Get off the saddle and let the bike 'float' over them underneath you
- If you can't 'float' the bike, ride slowly over unavoidable things like speedbumps.
Most of the guys I ride with are Clydesdales, and we're all putting in some heavy climbing centuries and doubles. I seem to be the oddball of the group, running *gasp* as many as 32 spokes per wheel. Quite a few of the guys are riding 28h sets, or boutique wheels like Aksium or Ksyrium Equipes which are 24r/20f sets. I've never seen anybody break a spoke.
The one friend of mine who busted a rim broke a 36h Sun RhinoLyte OSB (which is a garbage rim anyhow), but he weighed 330 pounds at the time. He switched to 40h Mavic T520s (replacement for the old MA3 touring) and hasn't had a problem since.
I tried to find a Mavic spec sheet, but I couldn't locate one. Where can I find weight limits for their rims, because I'm curious how the Open Pro compares with the Open Pro CD vs the DT Swiss RR1.1 I'm building my new wheels with. -
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sun, June 29, 2008 - 7:55 AMall this talk of road wheels is going to thorougly confuse the original poster- he's got 20" BMX steel rims laced onto steel wheelchair hubs with UCP spokes. What does an open pro or a CXP33 have to do with his setup?
The Great Wheel Debate will rage on for eons between bike geeks and mechanics. And all yall are 'right'. The OP needs some advice on what do with his setup.
Any idears that haven't been discussed? -
-
This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sun, June 29, 2008 - 8:12 AM**Any idears that haven't been discussed?**
Nothing new, but I agree with Jake's suggestion for a solid composite wheel if nothing else works for fixing the spoked wheels. Back in my tri-racing days I had a pair of Aerospokes on my racing bike, and those things are SOLID. They're heavy as bricks, but I don't think that's a concern with a pedal car.
I'm not sure if they make a 20" Aerospoke for the rear, though. -
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sun, June 29, 2008 - 8:21 AMThey do make a 20" Aerospoke rear for Shimano cassettes.
I looked over the sidekick plans and I can't tell what the rear wheel spacing is on it.
The A.S. 20" rear is 135mm spaced (like a MTB hub).
-
Re: Bicycle spokes breaking and puncturing your tubes
Sun, June 29, 2008 - 8:23 AMYOu can prolly find SPIN's for cheap, but there might be an issue with the axles. wheelchair wheels are usu 24" so he's gonna find it hard no matter what, unless he's really into fabbing stuff to make it work. SPIN wheels will look kinda cool on that quad.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
