Trike Talk - Ep 5 - Motorizing Your Recumbent Trike MADE EASY

Harold: Hi everyone I'm Harold

Brayden: And I'm Brayden

Harold: And we're here to talk trikes! Today we're going to be talking about motors

Brayden: Well more specifically motors and batteries.

Harold: That's a good point. A lot of times when people are coming to us to order a motor kit, they'll say they want to get a battery on their trike. We typically know what you mean, but just to clarify, a battery, if you think of it in terms of a car, is it going to be your gas tank or your engine.

Brayden: Just to get the terminology straight, we get it. We get asked all the time, and we know what you're talking about, but just to clarify, your battery is what charges the motor.

Harold: Right, exactly. You don't run everything off of just a battery, right? It's a motor.

Brayden: Why would you want a motor?

Harold: Well, a motor is the great equalizer, like we've talked about plenty of times in Trike Talk here before. I wouldn't be riding a trike if I didn't have a motor. It is the absolute worst feeling ever when you go out 15 miles and then you are exhausted, and then you have to go home exhausted and ride 15 miles back. A motor makes it so that it makes it easier the whole time around. So, for big guys like me, it makes it an enjoyable ride, not a penance.

Brayden: It's not just you. You know, I wouldn't be riding if I didn't have a motor. Sure, I'm a big guy too, similar boat. But you don't just have to be big to have a motor, If you don't want to overexert yourself, you have health conditions that restrict that, you are worried about, like say you have chronic pain and can ride for a little bit, but I don't want to ride the whole time, or I'm going to get out there too far and I don't want to worry about getting back, the motors are fantastic.

Harold: Right. I mean, I've had plenty of people that they had severe- they're either coming from knee surgery or they're um, walking is impaired in some way or some form getting a motor is just going to assist you in continuing to move and exercise and just enjoy your ride without having to worry about the pain.

Brayden: Absolutely. I mean, to sneak in like a personal anecdote, I was in a mountain biking group in my youth. I flew off a cliff side, um, about 20 ft. Thought I broke my legs. I didn't, thank goodness. But to make a long story short, I had to hike back another 20 miles back to the truck. If I had had a motor, I wouldn't have been worried about getting back on that bike and using the throttle to get me at least back to the car. I didn't need it the whole ride, but once something happened, man, it would have been really helpful to get back.

Harold: It's like the Boy Scouts: it's better to be prepared for the worst outcome than to not be prepared at all and then have fallen off a cliff.

Brayden: Be prepared is my favorite way to—that's awesome.

Harold: There you go.

Harold: Pretty often enough, we see a lot of people come in to get a trike, and we mention a motor, and at that mention, we get sneers. We get all sorts of angry remarks that it's cheating, it makes the ride not fun anymore. What do you think about that, Brayden?

Brayden: To tie it back to everything we have said in Trike Talk, it is the great equalizer. What that means is, is it cheating in the pure form of, yes, I am doing something extra to get to the speed? Sure, I'll give you that. But if you are the slowest person in the group, say you're group riding, that person that's in the furthest back is now going to be able to keep up with the guy in the front. That's important. If you are using them as a daily commute, you can now not just go the two miles you were going before. I can go 20 miles. I can get to my destination. Cheating is a, forgive me, a childish way, to explain I don't want a motor.

Harold: I mean, not even childish. I get the mentality. You're in the competitive biking scene. You come from being as fast as you can on your own, and you deserve to be fast. It's not all about the competition. You know, a lot of people that we have that are getting motors, or even just are trying to continue to ride, is because they need it. They want to keep riding. This is their way to get some sort of freedom, which is what riding bikes and getting out in nature is all about.

Brayden: It's just about getting outside and enjoying it. Not everything needs to be a struggle, right? If a motor is what gets you outside the door, it did its job.

Harold: Greater feeling than going out on your trike in any way, shape, or form on a nice spring, summer, fall day and riding. Doesn't matter if you have a motor, doesn't matter what kind of gearing you have. Get out and ride in any way, shape, or form.

Brayden: If the motor is what helps you get out there, then thank God you got it.

Harold: Absolutely.

Brayden: Adding a motor does not restrict your exercise in any capacity. You are still going to be able to push as hard as you want, get the exercise, build that sweat that you need, lose that weight you're trying to lose. That motor isn't the limiting factor here. If anything, it's just going to help you get quicker speeds, get you out further, but right, it's entirely on you on how much exercise you want to get.

Harold: Right. You know, even with those motors that have throttles and whatnot, the cheating part of the bike—you are still in full control of when you want to pedal, how you want to pedal. Even with the pedal assist options on there, it just gives you more freedom.

Brayden: Does having a motor limit my areas I can ride my trike or bike in?

Harold: It's going to depend on where you're at, um, and you could, poke around in your local trail services to see what they allow. A lot of trails do allow motors. A lot of them have restrictions on the motors, motor class that you're going to be using. In general, I'm not going to recommend that you ride a trike with a motor anywhere you wouldn't ride your trike normally. Don't ride it on a highway, don't ride it on a freeway. It is still a bike. You need to act like you're invisible and do all the safety precautions to make sure you're as visible as you can be. And, of course, if you're writing in a group, don't be an ass. In general, you want to make sure that you're being mindful of everyone, um, and you know, not try and crashing to other people.

Brayden: I mean, all this to say, we are not encouraging or condoning riding an e-bike recklessly or in a trail that isn't designated. Specifically not to ride an e-bike on a trail that says not too, don't take that out there.

Harold: Stay legal, people.

Motor Classes Explained

Brayden: Find a different alternative way to get out there, right? You brought up earlier the class of a motor, a class one, class two, class three. Will you explain what those mean?

Harold: In the simplest terms, the motor classes are: class one is going to be any motor that has up to a limit of 750 watts and has a speed limit of 20 mph and is motor assist only. Class three—and there's a reason why I'm jumping to that—class three is very similar to class one. It's up to a limit of 750 watts, but it's a motor that can go up to 28 mph on pedal assist only. Class two is the only class that allows you to have a throttle, and you have to have that limit of 20 mph and below and still the 750 W motor and below.

Brayden: It can get confusing. If you have questions or have restrictions, call us, email, let us know. I mean, we've got—we've got a couple options.

Harold: There's a lot of technical jargon that is tossed around and e-bikes and everything. We're helpful. We hope we try to be. We have the resources. Ask us or watch this video or leave a comment.

Brayden: So you mentioned a couple of things there. You mentioned pedal assist. You also brought up in class two having a throttle, right? What does pedal assist mean?

Harold: It means that when you activate the motor as you are pedaling, you are being assisted by the motor. All motors that we carry come with some form of pedal assistance, and they're going to have various different levels in which they assist you that you can select in a display. At the lowest level, it's just going to be assisting you a little bit, and then in the highest level, you're going to be having a lot more assistance from that motor.

Brayden: So what does that mean? I mean, just to keep it real simple, a level one assistance is going to help you minimally, whereas a higher level is going to...

Harold: It's going to make you feel like Superman, pretty much. You're really going to be able to go to those higher speeds, being able to climb a lot more as the motor is going to be doing more work and driving the trike with you and for you.

Brayden: While we're talking about pedal assist, there are two different ways that the motor will help provide that power assist, one of them being torque sensing, one of them being cadence sensing. That's right. What do you think about those?

Harold: I mean, the main thing to consider when going to a cadence and torque-based motor is different motors are going to be torque sensor, different motors are going to only have a cadence sensor. Generally, torque sensor motors are going to be more expensive, so that's something to consider as well when you're trying to select a motor option.

Brayden: Do you have a preference on the two? What does it mean to be torque sensing or cadence sensing?

Harold: I don't have a preference between the torque-based motors and the cadence sensor motors. To clarify what they actually do, torque motors are going to help you based on how hard you push. That's the best way to remember it. The harder you push on those cranks, the harder the motor is going to help you, and the more assistance you're going to get. So, if you're going uphill and you're fighting to climb up that hill, the harder you push, the easier that hill is going to be, up until you get to that 20 mph limit, and then it's just going to cut off, and then you're just... Cadence motors depend on how fast you spin your cranks is how much they're going to assist you and how hard. So, you could think of it this way, torque motors are how hard, and then cadence motors are how much spin I'm giving it.

Brayden: That's a pretty good way of putting it there.

Harold: There you go. So, if you want to have something that can go to those higher speeds, be aware with cadence motors that's typically going to be the case, like with Bafang. You're going to be spinning a little bit more, but you are going to be going a little bit faster.

Brayden: The way I have explained it to customers in the past, the torque sensing motors they've got try their hardest to pretend like they are not there. Not in the way that they don't help you pedal—they're doing as much as they can, they do a lot already, right?—but they want to feel natural. It wants to be invisible, whereas a cadence, I know it's there. And I think that some of that is because the cadence motors we have tend to be a lot more powerful than the torque sensing motors we've got.

Harold: Right, yeah, you're definitely going to be feeling it, especially when you have a 1000 watts strapped on again.

Brayden: All this being said, you will notice the difference at that higher end speed, right? At those lower ends, you'll feel it somewhat. But so, we've talked quite a bit about class one and class three motors being those cadence torque sensing pedal assist motors.

Brayden: Let's get into class two a little bit. What makes our class two motor so special?

Harold: Throttles, of course.

Brayden: Absolutely. I mean, it's the motors we've got on our systems. Explain why they're awesome.

Harold: Throttles are awesome because they will drive and add power based on how far you push down a lever, which is great for those instances that we've talked about a little bit earlier where you can no longer pedal, you just need to get home. You can press on that throttle, and then the motor will drive the trike for you without pedaling. Or, if you just need help getting into your cadence, you can ease on that throttle and then start pedaling, and then let pedal assist take over as you're starting to get the feel for the bike.

Brayden: And generally speaking, the throttles we've got, if you've ever been on a four-wheeler, are very akin to them, just that thumb throttle. The harder you push down on that throttle, the more power that motor is going to try to output and deliver to you. So, keeping a light thumb will get you lower speeds, putting a heavy thumb down is going to get you those higher speeds. All of the class two motors that we have with throttle do come with that pedal assist. You get the best of both worlds when it comes to our class two motors. The throttle works intermittently with that power assist, so you can use them interchangeably whenever you want. You want the throttle, you want the power assist, you can use them at the same time, even. They work really well at like intersections. We have customers using them all the time at like a stop sign. They're waiting to get across that street. If you don't have the pedaling in you to get to that speed across the street as quick as you can, that throttle will get you there, or at least get you up to a speed where you can continue where you can continue pedaling, right? And push a little harder.

Harold: One issue that comes up a lot when selecting a motor is, of course, going to be the price. In general, motor prices are going to average anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000, and that is in addition to the price of the bike already. That's a lot of money we're talking about. So, we have a lot of people wondering, is it better to get the motor from the get-go, get the trike that I want from the start, and then get a motor later? What's it look like to retrofit a motor on? And, you know, what should I go about doing there?

Brayden: I mean, of course, if you already have a trike and would like to motorize it, we have kits available. Some of them are more friendly than others, depending on the model of trike that you've got. The kit's going to be easier to install, right? There are a handful of trikes that I would recommend bringing to a shop or having us install them exclusively. A lot of custom brackets that need to be made for specific models.

Harold: There are some motors out there that are going to be OEM factory install only. A good example of that would be the ICE Trikes and their Shimano Step systems. ICE installs the Shimano Step systems at their factory, and they ship it to us as a complete kit with the trike. They do not sell retrofit kits for that. So, if you are in the mindset that you're going to want a Shimano Steps motor on the trike eventually, and you know that for sure, we recommend getting that from the get-go. Otherwise, you're just frankly out of luck.

Brayden: If you're going for a motor, and ICE being this good - you brought up ICE - they do have a 250 -watt limit on their brand. Otherwise, it starts voiding the warranty. So, not that we don't have options available in that 250 -watt range, right? But if you wanted a Shimano, that is a trike and motor system you have to buy at purchase, right? Rather than adding later, right? We're...

Harold: Talking about retrofitting motors onto trikes. What retrofit motor options are available?

Brayden: The brand of trike that you were looking at does come from the factory with specific motors. ICE, as you mentioned before, being Shimano. HP shares the same thing. Funnily enough, HP's been using some of the Bafang motors, which are what you see on a lot of the Sunseeker models.

Brayden: The brand of trike that you were looking at does come from the factory with specific motors. ICE, as you mentioned before, being Shimano. HP shares the same thing. Funnily enough, HP's been using some of the Bafang motors, which are what you see on a lot of the Sunseeker models.

Harold: Right, and they use that on their Delta trike.

Brayden: The Delta-style trike being the one I'm referring to. And then Azub recently just started siding with Bosch. Fantastic. But none of these, to say, are better than the other in any way. Again, I don't... I have a preference personally, but they're all great. They all serve the purpose they need to. Generally speaking, if we're talking a retrofit kit, we have specific kits made for Bosch and Bafang that go on a handful of different models.

Harold: Specifically, the motors that we're talking about today are mid-drive motors. Mid-drive motors are motors that are integrated into the crankset. We have another motor system that we don't talk about too much, which are hub motors. Did you want to talk about that for a little bit?

Brayden: Yeah, we haven't done hub motors for a handful of years now, really. They're good, but really, at this place and time where we're at right now, all of the manufacturers are moving towards a mid-drive unit for various reasons, and we can get into it more in a little bit. But generally speaking, a mid-drive unit is going to be more reliable, and if you think about it like a car—you were talking cars earlier—you have your engine in the front that puts out a specific amount of power, and it is amplified by the gearing in the rear, your transmission. This combo just works better. You're going to get more torque, more power out of a mid-drive unit just simply in the way that it is, without getting further into detail about it.

Harold: We used to carry hub motors. I know there are a lot of videos here that we have people refer to. The main reason that we stopped carrying hub motors is that most trikes that we carry have aluminum rear ends and swing arms, and most of them are going to have the dropouts welded on. That's not great for a 1000-watt system that is putting out 1000-watt torque levels.

Brayden: The issue with the aluminum dropouts and your hub motor: all it would really take was one tire change—flat tire, take the wheel off. I'm out on the side of the road, I'm not paying attention, I put it back in, I don't put it in straight, and it tears apart my dropouts, right? I mean, effectively ruining the frame of my trike.

Harold: I mean, you talked about even having to take off the wheel is a special procedure to do there. If you don't do that right, catastrophe can happen. You, I'm sure, ruin your swing arm. Worst-case scenarios that we've seen: you pull out your hub, you don't be mindful of those wires, you rip out your wires, and then your motor is toast.

Brayden: And just to even dig into it a little further, some of these hub drive motors had different sized dropouts. I mean, they didn't sit in the dropout the same way, so you'd have to shave out the arm to fit a different size, right? Again, drilling holes in your trike, modifying the frame, is not what we recommend ever.

Harold: Don't do it, please.

Brayden: The factory doesn't like it. The warranties are going to hate it. Don't do it.

Harold: It makes our service manager Yann cry when he sees it.

Brayden: It makes us cry. I don't want you to ruin your trike, and then when you call me and say, "Hey, this motor really damaged my trike, I need this to be fixed," I really don't have a lot of solutions other than replacing the frame of the trike, right? I don't want to do that.

Harold: You don't want to do that.

Brayden: Now, we do have a lot of customers and dealers that do prefer hub motors. I'm not bashing them at all. If you are looking for my recommendation, get a trike that is either steel frame that can handle a little bit more abuse in those dropouts, or get a trike frame that has detachable dropouts, right? Azub comes to mind. Their rears are bolt-on, so if you were to wear them out, you can take them off, replace them without having to replace the whole frame of the trike. We do have those through-axle adapters which are very beneficial for hub motors. They are going to be bolt-on. You can fill them in the back into the trikes and build a little stuffer made for them, and we use them for rolloffs as well, right? But they work really well with hub motors if you were going that route.

Harold: Right, and that's not to say we don't carry any hub motors. We carry the Sunseeker e-Fat Tad, which has a 500-watt hub motor, and that works great. We also fabricate the Not-a-Wheelchair, which comes with a 1000-watt hub motor built into the frame. Of course, we have our four-wheel drive Big Rig e-Quad that has big hub motors in each and every wheel. So, we do use hub motors, but just if you're going to be doing a retrofit, those are just some things to keep in mind. Generally, don't do it on an aluminum frame. You want to have it on a detachable dropout or on a steel frame rear end.

Brayden: Just to clarify, we do not have any hub motor retrofit kits, right? All of our retrofit kits are going to be mid-drive units.

Harold: Exactly.

Brayden: What is our most powerful motor?

Harold: I mean, before we get into that, to keep you guys in suspense a little bit, let's talk about what motors we have and why you want that motor. If you're looking for a street legal, no problems, a class one or class three system, Bosch motors are going to be the way to go. They can either be a 20 mph limit or 28 mph limit. If you're looking for a class two motor, the Bafang 750-watt, which is going to come with a throttle, is going to be in that range, and we can hard limit that to be underneath that 20 mph limit, and we can even take away the throttle so it can be a class one motor. Our most popular motor system is the Bafang 1000-watt, which is going to have a lot of torque, a lot of energy going into it. So, if you're going to be doing a lot of hill climbing and you just need to be going as fast as you can—I mean, depending on some gearing setups—the Bafang 1000-watt can get up to 30 mph. That also comes with a throttle. So, for those mountaineers out there, consider the 1000-watt. That's going to have all the juice you need.

Brayden: Yeah, you don't have to be a mountaineer. This is the most popular motor we've got.

Harold: But, yeah, that's probably why I would get it if I'm going to be doing big hill climbing, but it's still a general all-use. It can cover all of those areas. You want high power, or you just want good climbing, or if you just want something that's fun to ride. Now, you said�c

Brayden: 1000-watt, obviously that's not going to be a class one, two, or three motor.

Harold: That's right. This is, by definition, going to be an off-road motor. What I mean by that is you can still ride this on the road if you are legally allowed to ride on that road. I'd recommend if you're going to be getting 1000-watt, before you get that motor, check the legality of where you're going to be able to ride this. What trails are very class-specific, and, you know, of course, all those other things. Because it is a high-speed motor, be careful on it.

Brayden: Now, you've effectively dodged my first question. What is our most powerful motor?

Harold: Our most powerful motor is the Bafang Ultra. It's also our most feature-complete motor. It has a 1000-watt continuous output and a 1400-watt peak. It is a torque sensor motor. It is a huge motor and also going to be the fastest, most powerful system that we have. We're only going to be able to install this on the Azub Ti-Fly or on the Catrikes just due to that boom diameter. We actually have to go in and make a custom boom cradle to hold it. It is peak.

Brayden: It is a monster.

Harold: Peak.

Brayden: It's fantastic, and it works well if you're looking for a fast, strong motor. This is it. That's it, but know that there are limiting factors for that motor.

Harold: Yeah, the same thing that I mentioned about the Bafang and trail legality is, of course, going to apply to the Ultra. Just be mindful of where you're going to be riding it.

Brayden: We've talked about our kits before. Can you get the Ultra motor in a retrofit kit?

Harold: Absolutely, you can, the same with Bosch and other Bafang motors. With the Ultra specifically, and the Bosch motors, we do recommend you get that from the get-go with the trike. If you're getting a new trike, that does require a custom boom, custom boom brackets, and a lot more intricate electronics that have to be worked around. You can do that, but of course, it's going to be more of a headache if you have to.

Brayden: Cost-effective, right? That's what I come down to. It requires me to buy an additional boom and cradle for that motor to sit in. Now I have two booms, just costs me more money.

Harold: Exactly. Of course, the Bafang you can just integrate that into an existing bottom bracket without having to modify it in any substantial way. So, if you're looking for an easy-to-install motor, the other Bafang motors, the 750 and the 1,000 watt, are what I would recommend.

Brayden: They tend to be a lot more friendly. Absolutely. We do have YouTube videos also that go over the Bafang install specifically.

Harold: They're great. A big concern that we get initially is, of course, the speed, how fast can I go? But one thing that I want to address that is even more important: what's the range I can get on a motor?

Brayden: Thinking about what we said earlier, your battery is going to be your gas tank. There are plenty of battery options depending on the model you're looking at. Generally, they're classified as watt-hours or amp-hours. Bosch specifically, they have the Power Pack 400, you go all the way to the Power Pack 800. That's specifically speaking about your watt-hours. The more watt-hours, the larger the battery, the bigger the fuel tank.

Harold: Right, and that 800 watt-hour battery is only available on the Bosch Smart System, pretty new.

Brayden: It's a fairly new motor. If you're looking at the older motors and you're looking for retrofit, they had the Power Pack 400 and the Power Pack 500, but that's really specific. The Bafang system we've got uses a 48V 17 amp-hour battery. What that translates to in watt-hours is about 860, so big batteries. We've got options. There are a couple of things you can do speaking about Bosch. Yes, you can do a bigger battery, but if you are looking to get a maximum range, adding another fuel tank is the best way to go about it. So, with our Bafang units, we can really put as many batteries as you want on most things, within reason. They do take up space, they can be heavy, so take that into consideration. With the new Bosch motor, there currently isn't a retrofit kit for multiple batteries and not a factory kit for multiple batteries, so going to that larger battery really is your only option.

Harold: Right, the easiest way to extend your range out on a Bafang motor specifically, just slap on another battery. On our website, you're going to see a lot of trikes with dual batteries, even some quads and trikes up to eight batteries that we've done, and I'm sure we could do more if we wanted to. But if you're looking for a set range right now, I can't give you one. It depends on a lot of different factors: your weight, where you're riding, and of course, what pedal assist option that you're using. In the most general terms, this is not a set number, so do not take this as gospel. The minimum that you can get if you are riding with only your throttle on a Bafang is 20 miles, and with your pedal assist options, if you're pedaling, it could be up to four times that, and if you get another battery, it's going to be double that.

Brayden: I mean, you're effectively doubling everything, just to clarify, so everyone knows those are not ironclad. 20 miles is a general statement we are giving you with throttle. It depends on a lot of factors.

Harold: Like I said, it's not gospel. Generally, it's going to be those, but don't hold us to it. We don't know everything that you're going to be doing with it.

Brayden: Right, I don't know the trail, I don't know how much weight you're carrying, I don't know what tires you've got on, I don't know the model of trike or quad you've got sometimes.

Harold: There's so much that goes into it, but just be aware if you're going to be riding outside of those parameters, maybe get another battery.

Brayden: So, talking about adding the additional batteries on there, of course, there are other ways to get longer range out of those systems.

Harold: Right, I mean, like we've seen people go absolutely nuts with it. We've seen people add generators onto their trikes that they pull with a trailer. We've seen people add solar cell canopies onto it, but we're not going to do that for you.

Brayden: Guys, I love seeing what you guys do with your trike. I insist, please modify it, do what you want with it. Add those solar panels, add that gas generator, figure out how to do regenerative braking. I want to see it, send it to me.

Harold: Right, and once the trike is yours, it's yours to customize to your heart's content. We don't do solar cells, we do not do gas motors that we will add on. Do it yourself, send us pictures, we love it.

Brayden: So, Harold, as we're wrapping things up here, I have one last question for you. Oh, this is—preface, this is a real question I get asked. I got asked this recently, that's why I'm bringing it up. In the event that we get a solar flare or an EMP blast that shuts off all electricity, what are you going to do?

Harold: You know, I'm going to answer this in the most general way. You have a lot more to be concerned about if there is an EMP blast, solar flare, invasion of aliens situation than is my motor still going to work. No, they are not EMP resistant. No electronics really are. But of course, you can still ride it as a regular bike, just with a little bit extra weight.

Brayden: We should have mentioned earlier, you can ride these trikes with the motor system completely off if you want, right? The EMP blast is going to shut off your electronics, but that does not mean it is inoperable.

Harold: You still have a trike that you can pedal. You're just going to have to fight the aliens another way.

Brayden: So, just to clarify, in an apocalyptic event, yes, these are going to be more useful. Arguably, gas will go out long before we get an electronic EMP blast. So, for nuclear fallout shelter people, buy as many of these trikes as you can get them for your whole family. Throw our electric motors on there, I promise they will be more useful.

Harold: Put on your solar cells, put on your trailer gas generators.

Brayden: They are going to be more useful in the end times. As always, guys, please remember to spin fast, relax, and ride trikes.