Klaus is in mojo with building his
Liberator Jägermeister and he is currently finishing rear mudguard.
At first he was trying to find
solution using different “donors” and prefabricated details, but at one point
he understood, that it’s not the right way. So he decided to make mudguard from
scratch to meet his needs.
I’ll add pictures of the building
process, starting with model, rolling, making the curves, welding and
finishing. He used special 2 mm aluminum that stretched nicely with bends, but
in final form is strong and stable. Klaus’s goal was to make this mudguard in
top quality, and he managed that. Powder coating is going straight on; there
will be no messing with filler.
Weight of mudguard is 1,6 kg what
seems to be reasonable, considering how big it is. And as it’s handcrafted,
then price of this mudguard reaches around 500€, if anyone is interested. There
is possibility to make other shapes too and price would depend on shape, size
and complexity.
Two things that are certain – when
riding in rain, back will stay clean and this bicycle starts to look more like
a motorcycle :)
Vol.2 will be about finished and
installed mudguard and first impressions of it.
Here are pictures of building process
and how it looks on Liberator Jägermeister.
Couple days ago I did little ride with Chilly. On flat
ground 350W mid-drive motor is good for cruising. With thumb-throttle only I
got speed up to 33 km/h and with pedaling 36 km/h. Don’t forget, this bike is
heavy.
And suspension … It’s hard to find right words to
explain or describe it. Probably on next ride with my regular bike, I’ll hurt
my butt as I’ll forget to lift it from saddle on side curbs and potholes :)
Chilly’s suspension smoothed smaller curbstones so that I heard, but didn’t feel
riding over them. Even riding on old town’s cobblestone streets was okay.
I made some
photos and now overlooking them it seems that I’ve just photoshoped the
background on them :)
I also made videos:
Update!
After spending nighthours to upload those pictures and two videos with slow wi-fi internet and finding in the morning that uploaded video quality is very poor, I decided, that I'll upload those two and other videos I made from this cruise, when I find a way to upload them in right resolution. Hopefully it doesn't take very long.
Klaus is building his new Liberator, this time Jäägermeister.
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 :)
