Designing process took some time and at the end of January visions formed into renders:
Final design of the Jäägermeister will be a little different from standard Liberator.
Frame is a bit wider and longer to fit 20” 100 mm rear wheel with big brake disc and mudguard.
Motor will be 1 kW hub motor, which could be overloaded to 4 kW, with 1:5 ratios.
Hub motors typically have problems with cooling, so we rebuilt engine with bringing under the winding part out of the motor and connected directly with radiator. Hopefully it improves cooling.
We also removed from engine “freeride” clutch and installed “screw” clutch. It’s useful in case of empty battery or technical failure and you have to continue your ride with just pedaling. Then you just turn the “screw” and release motor from drive train. It also allows using recuperative brake system what you usually can’t use with free ride clutch hub motors.
Pictures from May:
If all this engine modification works, we find out on testing and if it does, then we use same system on Der Hammer, only that bike will have two motors:
First pictures of bike on wheels in the beginning of June:
It took a while, but yesterday, on 25th of September, Klaus finally had a chance to do first test ride with Jäägermeeister. It’s far from finished, but desire to ride was bigger than fear about not having brakes :)
Klaus first expressions after test ride:
“What can I say, there were no brakes, controller needs adjusting. Test track was short, so it didn’t give real feel, but compared to my old bike, that had direct-drive, new bike has much better acceleration. Built-in lock didn’t brake on first rides and even under load allowed some off-roading. Seems that there is also hope for descent top speed. It’s hard to add something else, as bike is still too raw. But those first tests are times to live and carry on for, it makes your knees tremble and heart beat faster, like on old motorcycle times … “
So I hope Klaus got great motivation burst to carry on, and hopefully soon we can write and share pictures and impressions of finished bike :)
