krantz

I am completely new to cycling and this is my first post. I don't really know any of the terminology so please try to make responses idiot proof.
I have an EZ-3 trike (the standard model) and would like to make several modifications. I am looking to find the cheapest components that will actually fit and function properly.

I would like to modify the chainrings and freewheel to be as close to 20-40-60 and 11-12-13-14-16-18-20-28 as reasonably possible.
It currently has a 7 speed freewheel.
This is the closest I have found to what I am looking for in the rear (I don't know if it would fit.) Amazon.com : DNP Epoch Freewheel 8spd 11-34 Nickel Plated : Bike Cassettes And Freewheels : Sports & Outdoors
I don't know if I would be able to modify the bike to accept a cassette instead to make customizing easier. Could I just get a freehub body?
Here is what I found for the front. Amazon.com : Vuelta SE Chainring : Bike Chainrings And Accessories : Sports & Outdoors
60t in the front is what I would like the most, so whatever the largest step able to be safety made, should be made from 60t down. (exp. 60-42-24 if 12 were the largest reasonable step to make.)

Ideally I would like to have a 26" x 3" front wheel with springer fork and 26" x 4" rear wheels.
Here is a fork I found, but I'm not sure how wide of a wheel it would support. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MALO58A/
If I needed to choose between having a springer fork with a skinnier wheel and having a standard fork with a wider wheel, I would choose the springer/skinny combo.
My best guess on the rear wheels is to make my own using my current hubs and these rims. Amazon.com : Weinmann DHL101 Alloy Rim - 26" x 4.0, 36H, Black : Cycling Equipment : Sports & Outdoors

I also have a set of longer handlebars to put on, but I currently have a stem with a 1 1/8 clamp diameter and the handlebars are 1". I'm not sure if a simple sleeve shim would be sturdy enough since the handlebars are so long (25in). If I needed to get a new stem I would like to get an adjustable one. Here is what I found, but once again I'm not certain it will fit. Amazon.com : XLC Adjustable Stem, 22.2, 120mm, 25.4, Black : Bike Stems And Parts : Sports & Outdoors


To anyone willing to help me so I don't need to return things when I find out they don't fit, I am very grateful.

On a side note, after I get this bike complete, I plan on manufacturing a bracket that allows me to hook up the front fork of a standard bike to the back of this in a manner that holds the rear bike's handlebars fixed in relation to the trike. I have a tandem bike that I plan on hooking up with to make a sort of bike train, where I have the trike in the front, followed by the tandem, followed by a children's trailer. I have a wife and two kids (12 and 5). May eventually put an electric hub on it as well.

Thanks

Andrew R Stewart 

I doubt you'll find a crank set with the ring sizes you wish. Certainly not without ending up with either a mix and match of odd/old parts or spending A LOT of $ on a modern TA crank (if they even offer a 60T ring any longer).

Your project will have other challenges. Being a trike expect some differences from standard bikes as parts get removed and new ones tried. The braking system is a specific concern if your "train" is realized. Andy.

fietsbob

this reads like you wishes may exceed your mechanical fabrication skills ,
an In Person discussion with a bike-fabricating shop would be a better approach, than ,

the cheap shortcuts of just ordering a few parts online..

But now that the summer sales and repair busy season is tapering off this is a good time to go seek the assistance on a project like this.

tell me about your shop tools and mechanical background.


Is there 2 chains on that freewheel ?, 1 driving the rear axle? the other one being driven by the cranks?

cycle_maven

A couple of notes I can add:

1) It's probably best to stay with 7-speed freewheel, rather than trying to upgrade to 8 speed or freehub.
a) 8-speed will require different shifters, and you mentioned cheap, and changing shifters for only one more gear would not be cheap.
b) It looks like the freewheel hub is a custom machined unit, and sourcing a freehub for that will also be expensive, maybe impossible. Freewheels and freehubs are *not* compatible.
2) 60-11 gearing is a higher gear than Chris Boardman pushed in the hour record. 50-15 is a cruising gear for flat roads for a strong rider on a racing bike. I doubt you'll need a 60 tooth crank, especially with 4" wheels! More likely, you'll want mountain bike gearing (42-32-22 crank and 12-34 in back)
3) That springer fork is for a 26" wheel, and the ez-trike has a 20" front wheel. This will make the steering geometry different, and will tilt the whole bike backwards. Plus the steering tube may be too short for the ez-trike's headtube.

AnkleWork

Springer fork: It looks like the fork matches your headset, but you should check the diameter and length of the fork's steerer for fit with your frame. Also, the fork appears to use different brakes than your existing.

There is a chance the eight speed freewheel will fit on your intermediate "hub" -- that's usually a standard thread. Ask the manufacturer or disassemble and measure.

dsbrantjr

"60-11 gearing is a higher gear than Chris Boardman pushed in the hour record."

Yeah, my calculator gives 144 gear inches with 26 X 2 1/2 tires and you want to go bigger. That would give something over 40 miles per hour at a cadence of 90, if any human could sustain it. Way overgeared in my opinion unless you are trying to set some kind of downhill speed record in the Alps.

cny-bikeman

What you want to do, what is possible, and what is practical to do are not the same.

• As noted a 60/12 gear is totally impractical even on a road bike. Any gear beyond about a 44/12 is not going to be of much use. On a trike you would be hard pressed to go over 25mph for any length of time on the flat, and high speed on a trike on a downhill is not a great idea on that upright a trike. The springer fork would make both high speed on the flat and stability on downhills even more problematic.
• There is no derailleur made that will handle anything near the tooth difference you are proposing (60-24) + (34-12) = 58. 45 teeth is pretty much the max available.
• Your "bike train" idea flat-out will not work.

krantz

Yeah, I was planning on putting together my own. The link was to individual rings. (specifically one with 60t)
For the brakes, I would be running all the cables to the front trike, using the double cable levers. (4 brakes all together)
I'm a little confused. My wishes are to buy these parts and have them installed at a bike shop. That part shouldn't really require any fabrication skills. I just need to know if they will be able to be installed on, specifically, an EZ-3.
Yeah, I sent a list of these parts to a local bike shop and haven't heard back yet. My guess, is that they will say, "You will have to bring in the bike and the parts for us to determine whether they will work or not."
I'm a mechanical engineer and have access to a full metal shop.
Yes, two chains.
1A)I am going to buy new shifters either way, so 7 or 8 speed makes no difference to me. If that is the only needed modification, I would rather go with the 8 speed. Is that the only modification?
1B)Ok, thanks
2)4" wheels?? The reason for the higher gears is the lack of need for gears that overlap. When I did the math, having a 20-40-60 and 11-12-13-14-16-18-20 was the best way to actually have 21 functional gears. I understand that the 60 to 11 is extreme, but if I put on an electric hub and want to casually pedal in parallel with it, 60-11 might feel nice..
This is something I was not aware of, thanks. What is the difference between the brakes?

I know it would fit thread wise. It's the width that I wasn't sure about.
Like I was saying before. I may end up throwing one or two hub motors on this thing. If I'm cruising along at 30-35mph, it might feel nice just casually assisting at a relaxed cadence..
Yeah, ok...
This is why I asked the question as to what the largest step able to be safely made from a 60t down would be. Do you know?
This one seemed to work out..

Thanks everyone.

cny-bikeman

"largest step able to be safely made..." As a mechanical engineer I'm sure you can subtract and add, as I did in the example. Google derailleur capacity.

"This one seemed to work out."
As a mechanical engineer I'm sure you are aware that a trike stays upright when turning and that a bicycle MUST lean to turn and also countersteers to initiate a turn. That presents a bit of a problem when you try to link the two, never mind the issue of braking multiple wheels, or the cantilevered force of a loaded one-wheeled tandem mounted to the rear of the trike.

Of course, I'm not a mechanical engineer, so go ahead, give it a shot and report back. If a shop agrees to do this expect to sign a liability waiver and don't expect any kind of guarantee.

As for "casually assisting" at 35mph: It seems unwise to go to great lengths and expense to gear for a relatively rare occurrence that will not materially affect your speed anyway.

Finally one BIG thing I forgot to mention is that no front derailleur can handle your proposed 40 tooth difference. 30 teeth is about the max.

Andrew R Stewart 

The problem with liability waivers is that they don't stop the customer from bad mouthing the shop. Which is the far more likely result of doing a repair that's far off the grid. I know no shop that will leave a potential safety issue that is directly involved with what they are servicing if they can help it. Sure ignorance and oversight do exist but by the time a repair is so off the beaten path it's rare that the least experienced guy is doing it.

So my concern with doing a repair that isn't within industry standards (and we could debate this but let's not, the OP already set that parameter) is more the damage that a customer who has paid a lot of $ (because this off standard stuff takes time and odd parts investments) can cause in the local market. These days with the many on line listings and their reviews one nasty person can create a wide path of dissatisfied destruction. It is hard for some to understand that they share in the results by the demands and expectations they bring into the shop. Andy.

cny-bikeman

All very true - I was primarily indicating another of the difficulties doing such a strange endeavor might come up against. Personally I would not accept such a project at all.

Delmarva

If you are going to have the work done at at a bike shop have them buy the parts. They should be able to determine if your project is doable.

Jeff Wills

That is two trikes linked together. The dynamics of that are very different from what you spoke of above.

You say you want to tow a bike behind your trike (and then another trailer bike behind that). The trouble with that arrangement is that it is going to put a lot of weight up high, well behind the trike's rear axle. Anything more than a mild turn will lever the inside wheel up and dump all of the riders on the ground. If you're "cruising" at 30-35mph, that's going to be a lot of road rash.

I suggest you look at what works in the recumbent and electric-assist community before you go any further. There are plenty of fast, stable E-assist recumbent trikes out there.

FWIW, here's a couple successful "trike trains":

krantz

I didn't really find too much from "derailleur capacity". If that is the difference between the largest and the smallest, and you say 30 is about the max, is that 15 and 15 or is it offset to be more of a maximum percentage for each step? Exp. 60-45-30 (two 15t steps) or 60-42-30 (two roughly 70% steps) I guess more specifically, what I am asking, is what is the smallest ring that can be attached directly next to a 60t? and then the smallest ring that could be next to that?
Yeah, I will take everything being said into consideration. Just a couple of points to mention. The bike shop would only be doing the modifications to the trike by itself. gearing, wheels, ect. I will be working on the project of connecting the bikes on my own. Also, I don't plan on ever going 30-35 in the "train" formation. The hub/high gearing would be when I'm out on the trike by myself. When the bikes are loaded, they will have about 250lb on the trike and less than 200lb together on the tandem. The trailer is also not a tag-along bike, but simply a two wheeled trailer.
Very very interesting. Do you have any more info on what parts where used to make those connections?

cny-bikeman

First result of Google rear derailleur capacity: How to calculate the capacity of a rear derailleur - Bicycles Stack Exchange
First result of Google front derailleur capacity: Determining front derailleur capacity?

As far as what you can attach to a 60 tooth - do the research, call suppliers, etc. If you aren't willing/able to do such basic ground work on an out of the norm project don't expect others to do the work for you.

The method of connecting trikes together (silly anyway) is irrelevant to your intent - not the same as connecting a bike to a trike, as two of us have pointed out. I'm sure the trike train was done for entertainment and publicity, not as a practical solution.

250 pounds cantilevered to the rear of your trike? Good luck with that. All you will accomplish is to slow way down the people behind you. Keep the tandem and trike separate, with the trailer on the tandem. Once the older child grows a bit more you'll be hard pressed to keep up with them.

I'm out of this thread, as you are not really interested in your beliefs being questioned by the realities of physics.

krantz

Yeah, neither of the links you put on here provide an answer to my question. I think it's a pretty simple straight forward question that a "professional bike mechanic" should be able to answer. So, the "ground work" that I am doing, is asking a question in a forum that has bike mechanics and is designed to talk about mechanical bike things. If you don't want to answer the question, then just don't reply.. You don't even need to read the thread if you don't want to.. I'm not sure why you seem so offended that I would ask such a simple question. I am just trying to find out what is the smallest (# of teeth wise) ring I could put next to a 110mm 60t ring..

I see that there are 110mm 60t rings and 110mm 40t rings. I would think those would take different chains?? I don't know, I don't work in a bicycle shop. If I could use the same chain on those, it seems like a 110mm to 110mm would be a pretty manageable step. I know that I can't put a 110mm next to a 58mm.. but I don't know at what point a single shift between two gears becomes too drastic. It seems like all of the replies so far are trying to put a limit between the largest and smallest rings. I guess that doesn't make sense to me, because I don't plan on shifting directly from the largest to the smallest gear, my plan is rather to shift one gear at a time.

fietsbob

if you intend to replace the 20" wheels with 26" ones why do you think you still need a oversize chainring?


an alternate concept.. manufacture a chainring to fit the hubshell spoke hole circle of a SRAM Hybrid dual drive rear wheel hub.

laser cutting CNC machine will handle it, using stainless steel 1/8" to 3/32" thick stock.

fixed to the spoke holes , it will be the final drive to the rear wheel.

the hub itself functions like a jack shaft the crank turns the cassette on the right end of the hub,

inside the hub there is 3 speeds .. 1 overdrive 1 reduction

The overdrive in a bigger wheel resolves the need to change the stock crank.



such transmission hubs in a simpler 3 speed, are common now in Adult upright trikes ..

having the hubshell drive the rear wheel indirectly rather than in a wheel

krantz

There is quite a bit of that terminology that I don't understand.. It sounds like you are recommending modifying the chainrings between the two axles?
I think the reason behind why I am wanting a 60-40-20 in the front might not be quite understood by everyone. I am not doing this to simply have a 60-11 gear if I need it. By setting up at 60-40-20 and 11-12-13-14-16-18-20, I would be creating more EFFECTIVE gears. (rather, more easily layed out and organized effective gears) I'm sure that most professional cyclist have the muscle memory built up to recognize the proper method of shifting between the abstract array of overlapping gears, but I think I would prefer truly having effective gears 1-7 on the first forward chainring, 8-14 on the second and 15-21 on the third. (while not using the 7th rear gear on the 40t ring and 6/7 on the 60t ring. For example;

60t 40t 20t
[TABLE="width: 195"]
[TR]
[TD]5.454545
[/TD]
[TD] 3.636364
[/TD]
[TD] 1.818182
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5
[/TD]
[TD] 3.333333
[/TD]
[TD] 1.666667
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4.615385
[/TD]
[TD] 3.076923
[/TD]
[TD] 1.538462
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4.285714
[/TD]
[TD] 2.857143
[/TD]
[TD] 1.428571
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3.75
[/TD]
[TD] 2.5
[/TD]
[TD] 1.25
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3.333333
[/TD]
[TD] 2.222222
[/TD]
[TD] 1.111111
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3
[/TD]
[TD] 2
[/TD]
[TD] 1
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

So, all in all, I probably won't use the 60-11 gear that much, but I would rather have that than an additional overlapping gear. If I were to change the gearing via the axle to axle rings, I would still be left with the current array of overlapping gears that I have.
thanks

fietsbob

Air Resistance slows even falling objects jumping or thrown Like Malaysian 777 Passengers, from Airplanes.

krantz

Is that your own version of "even George bush drives fast" or something. I don't get it.

fietsbob

It's called Terminal Velocity Terminal velocity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

krantz

Yeah, I'm aware of what terminal velocity is. I'm just not quite sure how that fit into what we were talking about.

krantz

Jeff,

I really am interested in the trike train configuration you posted. I would definitely consider trading in my tandem for a couple more EZ-3s if the method for connecting is simple enough. I have been searching for places that would sell something like that already manufactured, but haven't had any success. Did you need to manufacture your own brackets?

Thanks

cny-bikeman

OK, I'm coming back so that other readers understand some of the issues involved, which is most of why I posted to this thread in the first place, lest others think of following your lead.
I'm not offended but I am frustrated that you have not educated yourself a bit more. The problem here is that you don't understand some basic concepts when it comes to chainrings and derailleurs and, and it makes no sense for me to write paragraphs of explanation when there are multiple resources available. But briefly, 110mm is not the diameter of the chainring but rather the Bolt Circle Diameter (Google it) which determines what cranks the chainring can be attached to. ANY 110mm BCD chainring will mount to a 110mm BCD crank arm. Any given chainring may be designed specifically for a narrower chain, but BCD has nothing to do with the chain. A 110mm BCD, a 58mm BCD and a 130mm BCD chainring take the same chain

There is a limit on the TOTAL difference between the smallest and largest chainrings a derailleur can handle - its a matter of the shape and length of the cage needed to properly engage different sizes of chainring. it does not matter what's in between. There is however a 2nd complication if you have more than 2 chainrings, as it may be hard for the chain to handle certain differences without going right past the center chainring.


Again you are mixing what can be done and what you want to do with what works in the real world.

What happens if you are on a climb in the middle chainring and the large cog and realize you need a gear or two lower? Are you going to shift from the largest cog all the way down to the next to one of the smallest, and end up in a very high gear while you make the 20 tooth shift on the chainwheel? Or are you going to shift down to the small chainring and pedal like crazy in your very lowest gear while you attempt to shift to a small cog? What if you are on terrain that falls between two of your ranges? Overlapping gearing developed for a reason, not some irrational choice.

RaleighSport

I think krantz owes you a beer... very good break down of a lot of concepts concisely.