Supercharged trike!

Some weeks ago we were contacted by a man who uses a disabled trike, he pedals it with his hands because he is unable to pedal with his legs.

Despite his physical handicap he is full of life and wants to get out and enjoy his life. But it’s just too hard to pedal a long way using just his hands to turn the pedals. So he turned to us to ask if we can add an electric motor to assist him, to turn it into an electric trike.

He lives in Scotland and contacted many places to ask if they could do it for him but none had the ability or the willingness to help him. However when he contacted us and explained his problem, after a meeting and lengthy discussion with our technical manager we were delighted to tell him that we will do this for him.

After a few emails going back and forth to agree exactly what he wanted and what was possible, the Trike was sent to us from Scotland for us to begin the work.

When it arrived in our workshop we could see that the magnesium framed trike was amazing, designed and made in America it was fantastic, just take a look at the picture.

So we set about turning it into an electrically assisted trike and our main objective was to do it as seamlessly as we could without compromising the striking looks and fantastic mechanicals of the original trike. Many of the parts had to be specially made in our work shop including all the electrical cable systems as the distance from battery and controller to motor was significantly longer than normal.

The pedals operated the front wheel so the motor also had to be put in the front wheel. The bike was fitted with a ten speed cassette, and the front wheel had two independent braking systems, so it was quite complicated compared to a normal conversion.

We began the project making all the special parts in our own workshop. We have mounted and tested the motor , installed the pedal assist sensor , changed the gearing and are now at the stage of fitting the cables and the battery.

We have kept a diary on the progress and will write more as this exciting project nears completion.