a pedicab is (re)born....now with photos

SimonAH

Well, picked the monstrosity up in London this morning...

It's a heap, been cabbed to death, but the basis is there. It will be delivered tomorrow by truck - pictures and progress to follow!

Pufftmw

Er.... Why?

Paul E

This thread is worthless without pics...

SimonAH

Pics will be forthcoming, but the why is harder to answer.

Partly because it will be a hoot, and partly as I intend taking off the cab section and building on a.... well I could tell you but I'd have to shoot you (if my plans were finalised, which they're not)

corshamjim

O. M. G. You're not planning to build one of these are you?

SimonAH

Oh I love it! But no, not.quite that mad! All will be revealed....

redvee

Bring it along to a BIH bash!

mudcow007

corshamjim wrote:

O. M. G. You're not planning to build one of these are you?

thats awesome (in a american accent)

imagine hitting a headwind with that

asprilla

mudcow007 wrote:

corshamjim wrote:

O. M. G. You're not planning to build one of these are you?

thats awesome (in a american accent)

imagine hitting a headwind with that

It's the crosswinds that would worry me.

jonny_trousers

Please tell me you're not resurrecting your paedocab idea?

CyclingBantam

Jonny_Trousers wrote:

Please tell me you're not resurrecting your paedocab idea?

jonnyboy77

Paul E wrote:

This thread is worthless without pics...

maybe not worthless, but a little frustrating

SimonAH

OK, sorry for the delay in doing this....

This is what she looked like when delivered on Thursday to my office;



I had to shoot home from the office and steal the front wheel from the MiniAH's Islabike to ride it home - the rim on there had a good half inch flatspot that made the tyre hit the (completely shagged) brake pads and a bearing wobble that let it flap a quarter of an inch side to side. This is the scary thing folks...this bike was taking paying customers around central london in this condition. One brake that didn't, an entirely dice-roll of a chance that it would head in the direction you aimed it in, and a body attached to the frame by one, loose, bolt and one nutless bolt.

Oh yes, further immediate issues are / were;
Rear axle should be a diff, but is cut and one wheel drive
Rear tyres are see-through
Forks are bent rearward through impact (anything to do with the non-brakes you reckon?)
Contact points were foul (sticky black-hand grips, NASTY saddle on busted clamp, totally worn flat pedals)

But good points are decent bodywork, sound frame and drivetrain (at least up to the axle) and cheap, very cheap.

With the purloined wheel in place and a lot of bravado I muscled it the 3 mostly uphill miles. Many smiles, toots, waves and photos taken by passers by and cars. At the Co-op halfway I had to go in to buy a drink (hot day) and came out to find it surrounded by gawpers.

So, back at base;

Job one was apply LOTS of heat to the bend in the steerer (pig-iron BMX item and apply directional force (for this read clamp it and then pound with a lump hammer via a block of teak) until it was straightened. Worked a treat.

Job two was replacement front wheel and tyre (Halfrauds ~ £40), at the same time I raided the parts bin for a saddle, grips, cable and cartridge brake pads. Good job too - despite the fact that there was no rubber on one of the pads (seriously, metal backing plate showing through) any attempt to haul on the brake would have snapped the cable anyway as it was badly frayed (and housed inside two short lengths of outer rather than one run from lever to caliper). A drill through the stripped hole in the seat clamp and a temporary bolt applied now also meant that the saddle stayed put. Yay! I also fitted spds to get rid of those horrible pedals - remember the recalcitrant pedal thread? The LH came off like a goodun' but the RH required me to use so much force on a nine inch pedal spanner that the blood pressure in my arm made blood weep from a graze on the back of my hand :shock: Tru fact dat. Funny thing is that it's left me with a half-inch scab dead in the centre of the back of my right hand in the shape of a love heart, miniAH thinks that is hilarious!

Took it out and got to the bottom of the hill. Psst. Flat nearside rear tyre. Turns out the rimtape was pretty much not there and I'd flatted via spoke nut.

Important note. You may have a pump, you may have levers, you may have patches (I did). With a pedicab you should also carry an axle stand. :evil: Got the tyre fixed by cocking the whole machine over against a garden wall (to much chav hilarity) and wound it slowly back up the hill. The good news is that it went where it was aimed, and stopped when asked. Compared to ride one this was nirvana.

Stage three back at base. Tipped it up onto its back and got the cab properly bolted to the chassis (no more lurch), gave the whole thing a once over (including peeling off all the blue film), and gave in to the MiniAH's demands for a ride (Sunday)

Got down to the park where there was an event going on (bouncy castles etc). Massive grins all round and goodwill to all men.

Pssssss

Same tyre goes again :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: Repaired at roadside.

Cranked it home. It is not going out again this side of new rear tyres.

Turns out that the tyres are 19 by 2.25" moped tyres (think Puch Maxi for the ones approching my venerable years) Local Motorcycle shop looked totally stumped (and I refuse to pay the sort of prices the pedicab companies want for them!!!! £55 a corner :shock: ) Fortunately found a tyre supplier to the vintage motorsports industry based at Beulieu that sells exactly the same tyre at less than half the price. And so booked myself an appointment with a customer around the corner from them for tomorrow. My job has it's perks

Next jobs are tyres (obviously), source a pair of mechanical disc calipers (the rotors are there, just not the calipers), re-upholster (it's not bad bad in the passenger area, but a couple of rips) in canary yellow vinyl and deco the cab out in an homage to an NYC chequer cab (unless anyone can prompt with a more fun theme??). It will then be done as a pedicab for play this summer.

Next stage involves taking off the pedicab body (it's modular, half an hour to swap) and building on a hot dog stand

I love this stuff!

New photos to come shortly.

And by the way....I'll say one thing about these things, I discovered that the road north from my house is a hill - seriously! I thought it was flat

Anyway, here's another shot mid-process, front end sorted out, rear end fixed solid but not yet peeled.

jonnyboy77

fantastic

DonDaddyD

Wha... why? Why?

Weirdly look cool.

jonnyboy77

also - it makes me want to try 'riding' one of these again:



last ridden >15 years ago at a Butlins, and we managed some pace (with hangovers) and entertainment. I have no idea where you can ride them these days, let alone buy one!

It would make for an interesting commute.

Any plans to commute on the Pedicab?

SimonAH

jonnyboy77 wrote:

Any plans to commute on the Pedicab?

Mais naturellement! (at least once, especially when I sort out some form of electrical assistance!)

......hmmm,

Thought experiment,

If one attached a 240V electric motor, and a small genny to power it, would it still be an electrically assisted vehicle? In hotdog guise it will need a little genny.....

UndercoverElephant

SimonAH wrote:

jonnyboy77 wrote:

Any plans to commute on the Pedicab?

Mais naturellement! (at least once, especially when I sort out some form of electrical assistance!)

......hmmm,

Thought experiment,

If one attached a 240V electric motor, and a small genny to power it, would it still be an electrically assisted vehicle? In hotdog guise it will need a little genny.....

Hmmm, big-ass electric motor, Embankment at 8:30 am, couple of laps of Richmond Park and there's a thousand roadies weeping into their wrap-arounds.

notsoblue

Cool!

But.....why?

kelsen

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Hmmm, big-ass electric motor, Embankment at 8:30 am, couple of laps of Richmond Park and there's a thousand roadies weeping into their wrap-arounds.

A sleeper pedicab. I like it!

SimonAH

Re-upholstered the seats in red leather and took it out for a pootle round town. Hi-jacked by the owner of Frankie and Benny's in Cwmbran town centre and spent half an hour riding her and one of her waitresses dressed up in Pink Ladies jackets* (the girl gang from Grease) around the shopping area while they handed out leaflets. Fully comped lunch for the wife, blighter and I as payment afterwards :-D And jolly nice it was too! They took my number with a view to hiring me properly for future events and stored it as 'Bike Guy' .... I may have to get some cards made!



* The ladies, not me I hasten to add.

DrLex

Nice!
Bet they'll try & get you to dress up as Danny / Fonzie (delete as age-appropriate) - surely Castelli do a black leather jacket?

Paul E

Looking good, what's the gearing on it like?

symo

Simon, if you interested in electric assist it may be worth having a chat with Practical Cycles, they sell the Yuba Mundo with electric assist, which if I had the funds for a workhorse would be my choice.
http://www.practicalcycles.com/

redvee

Why am I thinking Simon piloting the Pedicab with a passnegr will be something akin to this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La70eV1mTe0

SimonAH

Ha, gettin' me some of them spikey hubcaps :-D Seriously, as there is no parking brake I carry a length of rubber tubing for winding around the brake lever so that it doesn't roll off when parked up. MiniAH has taken to whipping this from the back seat and shouting "Yah! Yah!" and exhorting me with "Pretend you're in a bike race Daddy!" much to the amusement of onlookers.

Took her down to the park on it and a couple of laps of the lake, when we got back (and the Mrs returned from work) I thought I'd take one of the proper bikes out for a hammer - expecting the resistance training to offer acceleration akin to an exocet. It did. But the underlying ripped off legs from earlier in the day also made me drop the intended twenty five to five miles :roll:

SimonAH

@PaulE, At the moment five gears - haven't done a tooth count but low enough for traction on the drive wheel to be an issue in lower ratios and an estimated 15mph top. I anticipate monkeying around with this and putting the hollowtech twin ring set up from my Carrera Vanquish pub hack on there to spread out the ratios. Am going to need to re-build the rear wheels as the hoops are definitely not radially true (and although I've tried, untrueable). This is causing some interesting wiggling at full chat!

@Symo. Nice thinking, but being an engineer under the skin I reckon I'm going to be playing. I reckon a starter motor of a Rover V8 (got one in the garage :-D) and a car battery will be a fun start!

optimisticbiker

SimonAH wrote:

@Symo. Nice thinking, but being an engineer under the skin I reckon I'm going to be playing. I reckon a starter motor of a Rover V8 (got one in the garage :-D) and a car battery will be a fun start!

Could do, but a starter motor is too inefficient and heavy for the job and will overheat rapidly. What you need is something like an ex-wheelchair motor such as this or thisand some form of centrifugal clutch so it only assists when necessary (ebay idea for example only, needs more thinking about/research - for example the clutch takes a motorcycle chain not a bike chain)

symo

OptimisticBiker wrote:

SimonAH wrote:

@Symo. Nice thinking, but being an engineer under the skin I reckon I'm going to be playing. I reckon a starter motor of a Rover V8 (got one in the garage :-D) and a car battery will be a fun start!

Could do, but a starter motor is too inefficient and heavy for the job and will overheat rapidly. What you need is something like an ex-wheelchair motor such as this or thisand some form of centrifugal clutch so it only assists when necessary (ebay idea for example only, needs more thinking about/research - for example the clutch takes a motorcycle chain not a bike chain)

+1, wheelchair motors also tend to be a bit more heftier in terms of output, another option could be a motability scooter.

redvee

SCR is possible with a Rickshaw, just don't get caught.

CENTRAL LONDON; EAST HAM, EAST LONDON A rickshaw driver caught racing a competitor through heavy traffic has been fined £245 for putting his passengers and other road users in danger. Md (COR) Islam, 21, was seen weaving between cars in central London, last month as he battled against a fellow rickshaw. Islam pleaded guilty to putting road users and pedestrians in danger as a result of 'furiously racing another rickshaw'. Westminster Magistrates' Court heard Islam was arrested after the race along Shaftesbury Avenue on March 23.