Silverbear: Thanks for the compliments and for taking the time to peruse the site. And I agree, spending one's time creatively, focusing on the interesting rather than the easy, is a good way to live.
And yes, those Fat Franks are wonderful tires. Those are my first pair, but I plan to use them more often in the future. Both comfortable, and easy rolling. As for the gearbox arrangement, it's fairly straightforward. Basically, it drives a left side chainring (a tandem crank) transferring power to the standard right side triple crank, which then delivers power to the rear wheel through a regular bicycle drivetrain.
The upside is a lot of powered gears, the downside is that whenever the motor is engaged, you have to pedal since the motor spins the cranks. It sounds scary, but between the staton gearbox and the gearing to the crank, the engine is geared down so that at max rpm, the cranks are only spinning at 100 rpm, and I usually ride with a pedal cadence of 90-100 rpm. That means that the engine is geared to work well in power-assist mode, with the rider's pedaling being well-matched to the engine output. That is, the engine can't spin the pedals any faster than i can pedal them, so engine and rider are always adding power to the system.
It works well, but sometimes I do wish I could freewheel the pedals while the engine did all the work. But then again, forced pedaling means I get ~300 mpg instead of the 120-150 people usually seem to get with the Eh035 engine.
And yes, those Fat Franks are wonderful tires. Those are my first pair, but I plan to use them more often in the future. Both comfortable, and easy rolling. As for the gearbox arrangement, it's fairly straightforward. Basically, it drives a left side chainring (a tandem crank) transferring power to the standard right side triple crank, which then delivers power to the rear wheel through a regular bicycle drivetrain.
The upside is a lot of powered gears, the downside is that whenever the motor is engaged, you have to pedal since the motor spins the cranks. It sounds scary, but between the staton gearbox and the gearing to the crank, the engine is geared down so that at max rpm, the cranks are only spinning at 100 rpm, and I usually ride with a pedal cadence of 90-100 rpm. That means that the engine is geared to work well in power-assist mode, with the rider's pedaling being well-matched to the engine output. That is, the engine can't spin the pedals any faster than i can pedal them, so engine and rider are always adding power to the system.
It works well, but sometimes I do wish I could freewheel the pedals while the engine did all the work. But then again, forced pedaling means I get ~300 mpg instead of the 120-150 people usually seem to get with the Eh035 engine.
