Woody the Electric Four Passenger Bicycle

The rear axle assembly was tack welded and checked for alignment. I used 5/8" square tubing in side the 3/4" 16ga. tubing to make slip joints. I mounted the wheel, and bolted 6 foot boards to each tire and set toe in to 0. I then tack welded the slip joints. Hopefully this stays in alignment!

I set the rear aside and moved to the front section. To get the bends right I printed out the design at 1:1 scale, and glue-sticked it to a piece of plywood. 

The head tubes were aligned at the right angle, and thoroughly braced into place, and the rear assembly is mounted to the table with annealed wire and wood screws. Wooden blocks of the right dimension hold the rear assembly at the correct elevations with respect to the front tubes.

Turns out my ability to do compound bends is terrible. All these front tubes have a splice somewhere

With all the major alignment pieces at least tack welded, the frame is removed from the table

 Prior to removing from the table, a pair of pivots are added at the front and back to facilitate welding and painting. These may be removed later, but I am not sure at this time.

The flat table is now removed from the stand, and Woody's frame is bolted to the stand. The stand base length was shortened by 16" to accommodate the mounting pivots. I can now get to all the joints to complete the welding.

First I had to make the head tubes (tube which forks go through). Matching the bearing diameters to available tubing meant buying 2" diameter tubing with 1/4" thick walls. These should be strong.

The raw material, with a Sharpie for reference

Turned both, one has bearing pressed in.  While I had them on the lathe I sanded them a bit too.

One of the elements of the previous bike which failed were the dropouts. I had considered an epic effort with saw, grinder, and drill etc. to make my own, but decided to give SendCutSend a try. I designed the dropouts in Visio, exported to DXF, and uploaded to SCS. About a week later I had exactly what I wanted:

In upper left is the disc side dropout. The disc tab is a separate piece, allowing attachment after the frame is built to ensure correct alignment. This is an IS mount disc, and will utilize adapters to the post mount brakes from the donor bike. There is also a torque arm, with 5 holes to allow bolting to the dropout.

In lower left is the derailleur side dropout, shown on inside. Holes were added for lightening , and the two screw eyes are for a derailleur guard. Below is the screw eyes after tapping.

Also shown are some dummy axles, hand ground with 10mm flats. These will be used during welding to ensure better alignment of the dropouts.

As previously mentioned, the stock tires on the donor bike were somewhat loud, intended for on/off road use.

I bought some 20x4" Whitewall tires with folding beads which look much snappier!

Professional (not me) bicycle frame builders have very sophisticated table, jigs and tools to ensure their frame is perfectly aligned. Me, well, I have some plywood.

A table with pivots was built, with adjustable height

And then covered with white paper. I drew lines for the major build points, and checked everything for square and level.

When I go to sensitive alignment elements, I added 4 legs to ensure the table was level so that a level could be used on frame elements.

Woody was conceived even before 2020, but that is when the first actions began, and real progress began in June 2023. Below is an attempt at chronological order

Two Rad Minis were procured. These were selected for

• 20" heavy duty dual wall wide rims
• Dual geared hub motors Bafang 750W
• Front suspension forks

The RAD Minis were ordered in Spring 2020, as it seemed a pandemic would be a good time to work on this in earnest. But alas, life intervened. They were delivered in June 2020. We rode them a couple times, they had good acceleration, but were a bit squirrely due to the short wheel base and high rider position. Also, we learned the stock tires made lots of noise!

To address issues with parts of the frame breaking I decided to make the head tubes my self, and thus had to buy a lathe! I found a nice Atlas/Craftsman from 1969 actually NOS, still strapped to the small palette on which it was originally shipped!

Various sketches were done, as two passenger and as four passenger , with various design approaches considered. in June 2023 I decided to act, this bike ain't gonna build itself! Below is the finalized sketch going into the build

This is a pic of the donor bike, a pair of 2020 Rad Minis, 750W 48V

Below is from an email with teammates back in November 2020 detailing the objectives for Woody. As an explanation here, Woody is the 3rd gen bike we will have made.

Betsy - A quad bike made by welding two 24" beach cruisers together, adding a bench seat, and awning, and steering linkage. Betsy was exhibited at Bay Area Maker Faire 2014. Betsy had two passengers only, and a single Magic Pie front wheel motor

Trixie - A three wheeled bike with scratch built frame with four passenger capability. The Magic Pie motor was taken from Betsy for front wheel drive. Trixie was a Delta trike ( one wheel in front, two in back)

And of course as I read some of the objectives have changed. Especially Amazon audio, it used to be my go to but now have Apple Music subscription!

From 2020 .......

• o Pros
  •  Very small
  •  Good range
  •  Decent storage
  •  Audio was awesome, under seat placement worked well
  •  No middle tube allowed child to tag along
• o Cons – in order of severity
  •  Design was brutal on wheels and tires
  •  Design was marginally stable due to narrow track and negative camber
  •  Severe steering shimmy above 15mph
  •  Coaster brakes not reliable, and require passenger intervention
  •  Single speed w high gear only
  •  Seat was uncomfortable and did not hold rider in place
  •  Only 2 passengers
• o Non Issues
  •  Folding was not used
  •  Convertible not used much
•  Trixie
  • o Pros
    •  Four passengers
    •  Very stable, great handling
    •  No steering shimmy
    •  Tires lasted much longer
    •  Jack shaft was reliable
    •  Disc brake on front improvement over Betsy
    •  Tons of storage
  • o Cons – in order of severity
    •  Single speed w low gear only
    •  Design caused stress point at fork tube, cracking
    •  Coaster brakes not reliable, and require passenger intervention
    •  Range suffered due to older battery and increased load
    •  Seat was uncomfortable and did not hold rider in place (still!)
    •  Many rattles and squeaks on cobblestones
    •  Headlights and taillights never implemented well
    •  Audio did not work well with newer iPhones
    •  Audio cables were problematic, no Bluetooth
  • 
  • o Non Issues
    •  More storage than needed

•  Brakes
  •  Rad Mini offers 4-wheel disc brakes
  •  All brakes controlled by driver
•  Gears
  •  Rad Mini has 7 speeds
  •  Passenger will select their own gearing
•  Lights
  •  Rad mini has headlights, taillights, AND brake light!
  •  Lights powered from bike battery
•  Safety
  •  Add arm rest which folds down on sides
•  Comfort
  •  Rad mini has suspension fork
  •  Adding springs to seat frame
  •  Seats will be like director’s chair, i.e. hammock. Conforming to rider
  • o This will help with both comfort and safety
•  Integration / implementation
  •  All required systems designed prior to beginning construction
    • o i.e., not figure out where to put lights later
  •  Eliminate / Reduce sources of rattling
  •  Where possible, make cables go inside frame
  •  Where possible, add cable guides to frame
  •  Reduce / Eliminate zip ties as a construction element
•  Audio
  •  Audio system will be driven by Echo Dot using WiFi hotspot
  •  Alexa allows Amazon music, pandora, etc by voice command
  •  Audio amps will be powered by bike battery
  •  Will add charging ports for phones
•  Range
  •  Dual batteries from Rad Mini should be better
  • o 2 x 14Ah vs single 10Ah original Betsy battery
  • o Trixie aux battery added 20Ah
  • o Trixie never ran out of juice with new battery
  •  Optional 3rd battery
• o Things to not break
  •  Must look like a “bicycle”
  •  Must have handing as good as Trixie
  •  Must have decent storage
  •  Must have good audio
• o Elements under Consideration – in order of likelihood
  
  •  Center front Charlie basket
  •  On board charger
  •  Backup power system for lights
  •  Rear tow hitch
  •  Tie downs for skateboards, etc.
  •  Front basket converts to child seat
  •  4 passenger option
  •  Solar Charge assist
•  Woody Design Elements / Aesthetics
  • o Will have mahogany/maple wooden
  •  fenders
    •  Not sure if multi-layer or thin and fiber glassed.
  •  running boards (chain guard)
  •  Awning
    •  Will be luan ply and clear pine to save weight
• o Storage
  •  Design
  •  May be wooden boxes
  •  May be painted boxes similar to Retro lunch box from Sinclair
  •  May be fabric?
  •  May be wicker? Not likely
  •  Definitely not steel
  •  Quantity
  •  At least 1 under seat type storage
  •  Need a “glove box” accessible while riding
• o Frame
  •  Small square tubing as much as possible
• o Paint
•  Black with Red and White highlights
•  see Black Phantom pic below
•  Much of white can be done with tape
•  Using black will:
• o Complement
•  Brake Cables, Electrical wires
•  Handlebars and brakes
•  Forks, wheels, tires
• o Deemphasize frame and make wood and upholstery pop
• o Help hide features such as speakers, etc.
• o Allow us to easily add design flair with vinyl
•  Jennie has a Cricut
•  Candy Apple
•  Red looks OK
•  Copper clashes with wood
•  Could not find good looking image of a CA green woody
•  Antique White with black and red highlights
• Figure 1 Rad Mini, Keep in GREEN, Remove in RED