Hello all!
I put together my first motorized bicycle last summer, and found the collected knowledge on this quite an invaluable reference. The bike was an old English 3-speed, a Hercules; my research leads me to believe that it was built under the Hercules name after they were bought by Raleigh. The bike (which had been sitting in my father's shed for several years) was not well taken care of, so many repairs were necessary before I could even attach the 50cc motor kit to it. Due to the archaic design of the bike, some tweaking of the kit parts was also necessary. The whole thing was supposed to be a one-week project, but turned into an all-summer affair. In the end my efforts were relatively successful; see attached picture of the "finished" bike (they're never really done, are they?)
In any case, I have been reading through the forums again as I start on my project for this summer; due to several key parts of the 50-year-old bike failing (ie, the bolt that holds together the real cantilever brakes has stripped its threads and is not easily replaceable due to Raleigh's annoying non-standard threading), I am removing the motor from the Hercules and putting on a more modern bike, and doing some custom parts work as well. I have already constructed a set of custom fenders of fiberglass to fit my peculiar aesthetic sense (I heard my old bike referred to several times as "steampunk" while riding around the campus here at UConn), and am currently experimenting with adapting the three-speed Sturmey-Archer hub from the Hercules into a gearing system for the motor (and would appreciate any thoughts and input on that particular issue especially... should I create a post specifically for that idea in another section of the forum? I couldn't find any references to doing such a thing anywhere, but I could be looking in the wrong place).
I shall end my rather long-winded introductory post here before I bore everyone to tears. I look forward to your correspondence!
I put together my first motorized bicycle last summer, and found the collected knowledge on this quite an invaluable reference. The bike was an old English 3-speed, a Hercules; my research leads me to believe that it was built under the Hercules name after they were bought by Raleigh. The bike (which had been sitting in my father's shed for several years) was not well taken care of, so many repairs were necessary before I could even attach the 50cc motor kit to it. Due to the archaic design of the bike, some tweaking of the kit parts was also necessary. The whole thing was supposed to be a one-week project, but turned into an all-summer affair. In the end my efforts were relatively successful; see attached picture of the "finished" bike (they're never really done, are they?)
In any case, I have been reading through the forums again as I start on my project for this summer; due to several key parts of the 50-year-old bike failing (ie, the bolt that holds together the real cantilever brakes has stripped its threads and is not easily replaceable due to Raleigh's annoying non-standard threading), I am removing the motor from the Hercules and putting on a more modern bike, and doing some custom parts work as well. I have already constructed a set of custom fenders of fiberglass to fit my peculiar aesthetic sense (I heard my old bike referred to several times as "steampunk" while riding around the campus here at UConn), and am currently experimenting with adapting the three-speed Sturmey-Archer hub from the Hercules into a gearing system for the motor (and would appreciate any thoughts and input on that particular issue especially... should I create a post specifically for that idea in another section of the forum? I couldn't find any references to doing such a thing anywhere, but I could be looking in the wrong place).
I shall end my rather long-winded introductory post here before I bore everyone to tears. I look forward to your correspondence!
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