Here we are later at mid December and much has happened since my last post. I had the derailleur worked on (replaced) and chain repaired by a bike shop in Duluth, a hundred miles away which made the pedal coupe a rider. Which I did pedaling around my neighborhood in town. Interesting and fun, but pretty inept at chasing the gears. Along the way my partner Sue got interested in the recumbent for herself and a plan was made for her to use it and I would work on the two wheeler (American Flyer) for myself. And like many of my plans, that one changed, too.
Sue’s sister in Florida learned of what we were doing and offered her recently retired Terratrike Rover, a pretty cool recumbent tadpole. It was dismantled by a bike shop and arrived here in northern Minnesota via Fedex. I got it reassembled and we both tried it out and really liked it. I particularly liked the internally geared 8 speed rear wheel. Then a second Rover matching the first one was offered and accepted from her brother-in-law. Fedex again and assembling the second one went faster.
Researching electric options led to the purchase of two 750 watt Bafang mid drive motor kits and before winter fully arrived we had the opportunity to do some riding on both trikes with electric assist. Loved them… so much fun! Then our neighbors near our summer lake cabin saw what we were up to and found two used Rovers for themselves, one in Duluth and the other in Minneapolis, purchased them for $800.00 each with the understanding that I would electrify them in the same way as our tadpoles. I’m just now finishing up their trikes and should have them returned by Xmas. And now we are in the more bitter time of winter in Minnesota with temperatures dipping below zero and regular snowfall. No riding in other words until spring time. Hopefully when it is warm enough to fire up the wood stove in my tinker shop and get things warm enough I can get to work on the pedal coupe again. I’d like to have it and the two wheeled bike rideable by spring thaw around the beginning of May. In the mean time I intend
to do some serious hibernating and also put together several batteries.
If there’s any interest in the Rover conversions I can do a build thread with photos I took along the way and post it on it’s own thread. Anyone else wishing to do a Bafang Mid drive on a tadpole might find it informative. The kits are really designed for two wheelers, so some adapting is in order to make it work, but what a great ride it makes! Anyway, I’ll be back to this pedal coupe thread later on.
SB
