What's the best drive roller?

I have no idea. Some of the others might.

I think they use very small drive rollers... The goped that I have has a clutch and gears on it. They are about one step above a weedwhacker or chainsaw IMO of course depending on the model. Some of those little gopeds with aftermarket parts can haul some tail and I don't think it would be that hard to modify one of those engines for a rack mount. I haven't looked at the goped that closely but I think it would be a pretty simple switch for the gears. The only issue with them is that they are wide and wouldn't fit in a frame.

Hey Deacon, The Lock Tite I used to get back in the early '60 (the original formula?) had to be warmed up or you could not take it apart, just good and warm not cherry red. Try that on that stuck roller/peg.

If I really need to take it off I'll keep the heating it up in mind. I think I can take the whole peg off I was trying to get the pipe nipple out of the end cap which is bolted to the engine. I mostly think I'm going to leave it alone.

Hey One thing I did learn is when you don't have enough tension on the engine, the jb weld wear right off. I have no idea why but it does.

I rode the 42cc bike with the inch and a half drive roller, I rode the china bike with the chain drive standard rear sprocket, and I rode the 33cc chainsaw bike with the approx 1" drive roller.

Here is my opinion.

over all the china bike has them beat... no surprise there.

The 42cc with the 1 1/2 inch wheel would give it a run for the money on a flat road. I could top out the china bike and the 42cc today and they both felt about the same. The 33 is a bit slower on the flat which is fine with me since there isn't that much flat here.

The 42 is good on moderate hills of all length. It eats up small short hills. It will climb a steep short hill by bleeding off speed. It will not climb a long steep hill of which there are a few in my town.

The 33cc with the smaller drive wheel approx 1" will climb all the hills that the 42cc will do and do them better. It does not bog down like the 42. It will just keep on pulling.

The difference in the bikes could be the tension or the size of the roller. I can't measure the tension so I don't know about that, but the wheel I do know is 1/2" smaller. I am trying to find a 10m left hand threaded nut now so I can change the wheel on the 42bike. I don't need a speedy bike I need one that will climb the big hills.

I think that the difference is the size of the roller- the size of the roller affects your top speeds just like differences in sprocket sizes. I find that the 1 inch roller doesn't give me enough speed around here but will climb hills (more power) than the larger 1.5 inch drive wheel. The 1.5 inch drive wheel tops me out at 22mph on the flats where the 1 inch topped me out at 18mph on the flats. I have to pedal a little more with the larger roller to get up to speed but that's good for me anyway. I'd like to try the 2 inch roller I have and see what I get from that now that I've tighten the engine frame and pumped the tire up. I bet that would top me out above 25 miles per hour.

Towards the tail end of my ride today I noticed that my tire is wearing thin- the threads are showing in a few spots where I've had to slam on my brakes and stop fast. I suspect that I've gotten close to 150miles on this tire. I was hoping for 300.

I also noticed that where I tightened things up on the frame and engine that the spindle is sitting more level on the tire. It's now wearing pretty evenly across the whole tire instead of one side. I suspect that is where I've gotten a bit of my jump in speed from too. Between that and pumping the tire up properly and good tension that thing cruises right along.

I picked up a new tire from WallyWorld today, god that place stinks on a Sunday afternoon, last time I do that... I picked up a cruiser tire with lozenge shaped tread. We'll see how it works. It was only $13

I bought four 26 inch 2.125 tires on ebay for 38bucks including shipping.

Then I bought four 20" x195 for under forty same deal. I am ready for the next year or so.

Oh I also found out that the thread on the tire doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. I had always heard that it did, but I have run a knobby on the 31cc and it seems to do well.

I ran the ryobi bike since my last post. There is some difference between it and the 33cc chainsaw but not enough to make an engine decision based on performance. The chainsaw mounts up a little more securely is about the only thing I would give it and it pulls hills just a little behind the 33 on the hills. The 33 still tops them both I think.

I would love to have the 42 cc bike somewhere with no hills. It would be ideal. I have no idea how fast it goes but it steps right out.

I'm going to take the 33 bike to the lake and see how it does on those killer hills. Then the 31cc. The 42 might be strung too tight causing it to bog down at slow speed. I think I need to slack off the tension.

I need to get some finer sand. the coarse sand I'm using now is eating tires faster than I like. I love the trouble free cruising but d@mn I'd like to not spend the $$$ I'm saving on gas on a new tire, especially as I'm cruising town more and more. I"m not sure how i"M going to knock all that JB weld and sand off though- it looks just like it did when I first put it on.

SO sometime next week I'll head to the art supply place and see what kind of fine sand they have there. I can also check out the beach too...

I took mine off with a razor knife and a file for the parts that wouldn't come off easily. I put fine sand it the stuff then add more coats that way it is sand paper all the way through. My only real tire wear so far is when I let the darn thing grind on a tire while I was trying to shut it down.

i see some people dont get much milage from tires on a friction drive. ive got one on a 20" bmx bike, 43cc and 1 3/8" knurreled steel roller, 400 miles or so, aint checked odometer lately, and cant even tell if its wearing yet gotta get a new one do to a sidewall cut. ill put it back on a non mototized bike. i hope the new one dont wear like i read about.

I'm thinking it's a combination of things- old and cheap tires- I think the madwagon came with just about the cheapest tires you could put on a bike and the really gritty sand I put in the JB Weld. I'm confident that if I used finer sand that it wouldn't wear the tire away like the coarse sand did. The mad wagon was made around 2004 and it was never riden much, so the tires on it were original. While I've ridden on older tires without an engine I'm sure that the rubber wasn't as sound as it could have been. The tire also felt very soft in comparison to the new tires I just bought. SO we'll see how a new tire fairs. But first I'm going to swap the front and back tires. The tire is okay just not good for the friction anymore.

The one I need to change will be trash. It has a spot about the size of a quarter worn right down to the fabric. I bought three at the bike store and they are trash. No tread at all on them when I got them but everyone said that was best. I have one knobby and it seems to do just as well so I'm going with raised tread from now on.

Looks like he had a blower engine because of the long shaft but regardless the easiest way to do it for that kind of engine is to find an axle peg and slide that down over the long shaft then use a bunch of washers as filler then put a nut on the end. A weed eater type engine has either a 3/8 fine thread or a 5/16 fine thread so just get a nut that fits and run it down on there,

It's the easiest way. and for a short shaft drill a hole in a pipe end cap either 3/4 or 1/2 galvanized. use the adapter or a nut to hold it to the flywheel, then run a pipe into the end cap and that is your drive wheel. Either of those gets the pipe centered and it won't slip out of center like his will.

Hi -

My tire never wears out, I must have 500+ miles on it. It is an OLD cruiser tire, I think it is made out of nylon, not just nylon cords but the actual material ? When I moved my tire roller unit to my Moon Dog it ate up the tire in about 40 miles or less.

My problem with the nylon tire, is that my rollers wear out. These are steel stock rollers from livefastmotors. I read somewhere that aluminum holds up better. What I am going to try is some Kevlar mesh fabric, i guess they use it for canoes. It is hard to cut, but I was going to paint epoxy on the roller, wrap a turn of the fabric, then paint over the wrap with more epoxy, wrap another layer, maybe 3 total I don't know.

After reading your stuff, I am thinking about replacing epoxy with gorilla glue. Hey, kevlar should hold up, and protect the glue, right ? I'll let you know. Just waiting for the Kevlar to come, 3oz of 3" wide - only 3 bucks at Mrfiberglass.com. Not sure if it is the right stuff, have seen some samples where it is actually a plastic sheet with the kevlar imbedded. i am looking for raw kevlar fabric, woven, and preferably double wove on the edges.

Have a center mount and a rear mount. On my third engine with the centermount, while my rear mount keeps going and going and going (other than the tire rollers). Pretty sure it is combination of residual sand on the road (we have a lot of it in NH) in combination with damp road surface it GRINDS away the roller.

Anyone know if they still make nylon tires, if I am even right about this ?

Ride safe

cb