Bike Forums - Lafree Sport

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Hey, nice!

By any luck, have you tried adding one of your fairings to an ebike see if you can up the range/speed or reduce watt consumtion if you have a watt-meter? Because it's a topic that seems to keep popping up, "Type5MilitaryPoliceBike.jpg" on page4, that's one of yours, isn't it?
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=788

Yes, that's one of my bikes, thanks for pointing that out to me. I'm glad someone liked the picture enough to use it in his post.

The LaFree Sport is really hampered by it's built in speed governor.

The motor just cuts out as the bike reaches 20 MPH, as per federal regulations.
So there would be no gain in speed.
It might reduce watt consumption, but I would want to disconnect the speed governor first.

I can't find anyone who is is "Scientifically Minded" to work as my assistant.
You know, for a scientific test to be valid, only one condition can be changed. The "control group" has to be identical.

If I'm testing a bicycle with a windshield (fairing), It should be another bicycle with the same high gear, and tire pressure without the fairing that is the "Control".

And it would be nice if someone could be found who knows how to use a stopwatch.

Nice bike. I'm curious, does the motor drive the chain? It looks like there's a rear derailleur as well. How does the controller check for the 20MPH limit?

PS: There are smaller slow moving vehicle signs out there. I'd like to see a cager come up with the excuse: "I didn't see you!" They'd have to be blind to not see that!

Yes, the motor drives the chain, and the chain drives the rear wheel thru the deraileur.

The speed sensor is a disk with three magnets on the rear hub, left side.
I tried disconnecting the magentic sensor from the frame , but then the motor did nothing, so I put it back.
I theorize that if I could change it to two magnets, the bike would go 50% faster.

Yeah, it's a shame when a motorist doesn't see on of those "farm triangles". And it's a horror for the EMS people who have to pry the motorist's decapitated body out of the wreckage of his car.

See also: "Darwin Award"...

How about one magnet? 100% boost in speed?

It's strange that they use 3 magnets when just about every standalone cycling speedo (cycle-computer) uses only one magnet.

It almost looks like they engineered the thing to be beaten. Perhaps a Police pursuit model would only have one magnet?
Are those magnets easily to remove and install?
Can't you just replace the disc with magnets by a simple cycle-computer "mounted on a spoke" magnet instead?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeuser

Thank you for your suggestion. I had not thought of using a spoke-mounted magnet from a speedometer.

I'm not sure of the math, maybe removing one magnet would give a 33% increase and removing two would give a 66% increase?

At some point , air resistance would limit the top speed.

Right now, the Lafree needs a new battery, but I think I will try the spoke-mounted-magnet, when I get the new battery.

Air resistance: JeanCoutu is right, the type 5 is one of mine. Thanks, Jean, for clueing me in that my photo was posted on endless-sphere.com

I was holding off on putting a fairing on the LaFree because it is limited to 20 MPH.
Remove one magnet, that's 20 times two/thirds = 30
remove second magnet is 30 times one/half = 60 MPH

Hmmmm...

Let me give a rundown of the fairings , or fairing designs I have in my arsenal:

Type 5:
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q...hPassenger.jpg
Type 6:
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q...mobile1990.jpg
Type 7:
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q...e/photo003.jpg
Type 9:
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q...9inthepark.jpg
Type 10 (Actually a Suzuki GS fairing from 1982):
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q...e/photo021.jpg

Types 1&2 were aluminum , and I took them to the scrap dealer for recycling , Type 3 is in my backyard, but I have not uploaded a photo, Type 8 is going to be "the eight ball", therefore I will do that one last, i.e. I still haven't built the type 8.

hot bike do you have any pics with the cover off? i wonder if the motor could be upgraded to a 600 watt
how is it mounted? i like the giant LA frame mounted design too bad they went with the hub suede

Quote:

Originally Posted by kisshu (Post 4878628)

No, I didn't photograph the motor while I had the cover off. I didn't want to leave the cover off because it was getting late in the year, and there weren't enough warm days left to spray paint. (I painted the cover Yellow).

How is the Motor mounted? The motor is in a casting which also has the bottom bracket going through it.
I don't think it's posible to put a different motor in the bike.
Yes , I like the chain drive, and it helps me up the hills.

Hi - That looks to be a Panasonic drive unit. Very popular in Japan but limited over here in USA. I have a Japanese model in a National frame with internal 3spd hub - amazing efficiency, smooth power delivery but only pedal 1st operation. My version doesn't have the speed sensor though - it's governed by sensing crankwheel speed. I dropped the rear cog down a few teeth and it now moves right along!

I'd love to find some transalations to the Japanese Panasonic technical information and learn if some reasonable hacks exist for this drive/controller? For maximum efficiency, it doesn't get much better than that.

Thanks for the photos - good look with those projects!

best