I could have simply threw you fine folks into the MB forums pool and let you swim. I avoid sending potential customers to the online forums, there is way too much information to absorb. Now that you all have reached Part 7, armed with some knowledge, it is time to show how "you will NOT be alone", regardless of which system you choose.
I had to take a break from the series, do a flash flood recovery and some major fence repair, to greet the arrival of 107 baby goats (so far), tweak my new recumbent ride, start planning an April Adventure, plus do a couple of bike builds.
When someone calls I don't send them to online forums lest they drown, prefer they take a demo ride. 15 minutes later, and after climbing what I call "Eureka Hill", (a steep grade 1/2 mile from the driveway), a lot of their questions have answered themselves.
Heart patients and stroke victims have taken Eureka Hill like Lance Armstrong on steroids.
UPDATE ON THE RECUMBENT PROJECT
Rucio is purring along, getting those important first 500 break-in miles on the engine. I'm still trying to figure out how to carry as much gear as I normally do on my cruiser, Rocinante, because the seat precludes wearing a backpack.
The pup tent fits snug, and yes, those ARE two painted Pringles cans on the back of the seat, both stuffed with road repair items. That IS a Parmesan Cheese bottle behind the windshield, for eyeglasses, pens and loose change. A small trailer may be the best answer for long distance adventures, unless I can pare down my traveling gear to 50 pounds, and the air-mattress is a luxury looking for a spot to fit into. I'm searching for STRANDED WIND'S parachute hammock locally.
All the shake-down testing is in preparation for the first 2009 adventure, 1,000-1,500 round trip miles in April. A friend in North Carolina has my Grateful Dead ticket to the Greensboro show, and supposedly there is another ticket waiting up in Charlottesville, VA the following week.
Such a trip is the only way to see if a recumbent is "long distance worthy", or is best ridden locally.
MEANWHILE, HERE IS THE LATEST BUILD
Using a different kit supplier, Staton, Inc., in Oklahoma City, this $250 Schwinn Meridian Tricycle now tops out at about 18 miles per hour. It can go faster, but the customer is 78 years old, is happy as can be with the way it pulls up hills, where it GAINS speed on Eureka Hill.
The customer lives an hour south, bought the single speed trike before asking around to see who could motorize it, and beefing it up is coming right along.
According to Dave Staton, nobody had built on this model before. The customer is bringing it back for a small axle adjustment and switching out those "cheapest back 16 gauge wheels Schwinn could find" with a pair my bike shop assures me is top notch, equivalent to 12 gauge. With the wheel upgrade, I think the Schwinn will nearly equal trikes priced in the $4-500 range.
TIME TO JUMP INTO THE POOL OF POSSIBILITIES
In my previous diary comment sections, G2geek envisions working "truckbikes", dkistner wants to know more about e-trikes, and a lot of folks expressed interest in the commuting and traveling aspects of this hobby.
To recap, I started buying kits and building bikes in 2005, having NEVER seen one on the road. All my early lessons came the old fashioned way, trial and error. I got really lucky with some of my earliest customers, drag racers, motorcyclists and tinkerers. Locally, we were in the midst of a soon to be fad.
Then I hit the road, doing a Florida (Amelia Island) run in March 2006, the "Denver and Back" ride in May/June '06. Spreading the word in small town newspapers was my Johnny Appleseed strategy.
By the time I ended my lilliputian "Internet Boycott" in August 2006, with a lot of bikes and thousands of miles under my belt, I started looking for other builders and riders online.
I was severely disappointed. What "existed" was primarily Yahoo.groups, full of SPAMbots, very little interaction, and the majority of the groups I joined used Chinese engines. Plus Golden Eagle was having potential customers e-mail me, I needed a place to put all my experiences in public, just to get out of that time consuming chore.
But the same timeliness, (gas going over $3 post Katrina, From Part II), that got my bike building jump started, in August 2006 a 20 year old programmer from San Luis Obispo named TOM changed MBhistory.
Tom could not get good information about problems with his Chinese engine, was feeling the same sense of ghost towns and tumbleweeds online, so using free phpBB software (since May '07 Powered by vBulletin), he started MotoredBikes.com.
Mission Statement
MotoredBikes.com was created with the vision of creating a community of motorized bicycle enthusiasts, and providing a means to communicate and convey ideas, thoughts and opinions to one another to help spread the word on this alternative mode of transportation.
At the end of August '06 he had 4 members, then some All-Stars started showing up September thru December. Slowly vendors started sending customers to this forum, as the fountain of information.
Young Tom defeated those dreaded SpamBots by requiring members to post an introduction, while us 30-70 year old early members tried to quash bogus information, promote some MB "truths", minimal-ize the discussion religion and politics.
Herding cats, in other words. There are few other forum I've seen that run the gamut of characters. Lately there is an influx of motorcyclists, intrigued by the speeds we are getting out of small engines.
Tom brought in an experienced forum moderator from the Pacific NW, "augidog" to watch day to day postings, it was he who coined the name "Happy Time" for the Chinese engine. I also had an early stint as the third moderator when the Japanese engines, specifically Golden Eagles kits, started trickling into the forum.
Strong "chapters" of real time riders have sprung up everywhere, the Canadians and Australians have been especially informative. There are hotbeds of MB's, like Arizona, Washington, and California, while Dixie still suffers from automobile addiction, and my own customers ride bikes a lot more than they surf the net.
Anyway, the MotoredBike forum grew by leaps and bounds, the interest areas kept expanding. It is SO flexible I asked the current moderators to break out a TRIKE category in early Feb...a tinkering wizard named SRDAVO had it done in an hour.
Yesterday augidog asked that a special "Tools & Equipment" section be started, as more and more folks are starting to build bikes as hobby businesses, it will probably happen today.
MotoredBike.com is the older National League of MBforums, a pie fight erupted in early 2008 between the Happy Time Chinese riders and the elitist Japanese engine users (don't blame ME, I was too busy building bikes and spreading Obamaluv in my 70% GOP area to even have time to post much).
So, a second forum was borne, a younger American League, Motorbicycling.com. Calmer minds prevailed eventually, as those same older hands started posting in both forums, so you will see a lot of the same names in both.
ORIENTATION
My other uid "theghostofkarlafayetucker" arrived at dKos after my boycott ended, directed here by Phreindly Jaime who found me causing havoc in the RW forums.
DailyKos was a great place to be a liberal. Kossacks like peace voter caught me early on breaching some posting rules (identical cuttings/pastings), which got me on the right track.
I can assure you that in registering at either MB forum your information goes nowhere else. Most folks register just to use the enhanced search feature, I think there are 5 times as many read-onlys as posters.
There is a common area, a product review section and a technical/mechanical section, threads attempt to stay on topic, but bumping up a thread with a new question is always the best method.
Early on I could read a lot of the posts, but no longer. I don't have time to organize a picture album section nor join groups, prefer the questions get posted in the open threads rather than answer private messages.
The forum is able to collectively assist a newbie online with a build. We have walked teenagers in the Dakotas and old farts in New England step-by-step to glorious first rides.
When the forum got handed off to a whole new generation of moderators, an important section was started at the bottom of the page:
New Members-Ask A Question, Get an MBc Link
let's try this and see what happens. any new members who are having a hard time finding what they need are welcome to post a "new thread" and get the links that will hopefully get them going. to be extra-helpful when replying, include the keywords you used to get your result.
NO actual tech/mech discussions are allowed in here, post only MBc-links to where the discussion should be taking place.
Once you get comfortable with the forum, a LOT of other information can be obtained. For instance, SRDAVO showed us how to build a metal chop saw for the price of a metal cutting blade ($3-5) and a hinge.
Heres mine:
I got all my Digital Television tips in the "White Zone", and put up a thread about antenna art:
DAWN APPROACHETH, barnyard calleth, time to post my MOJO maker, Gizmo.