Friday, August 23, 2013

Best cruiser motorcycle for new female rider?

top 10 best electric bikes on Full Size Folding Bike - informed is forearmed
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Carrie P


I'm tall (5'10) but can't handle a lot of weight. I laid down a Harley sportster 883 and broke my clutch hand and cracked some ribs, so I'm nervous about getting anything over 500 cc until I have more practice time. Like the look of the Virago 535 but hear they have too many problems and I'm really looking for a starter bike without the need for a lot of maintenance. I like the Honda shadow series but don't want to go to a 750 yet.


Answer
You want a cruiser.
You want light and easy to ride
You want reliable, easy to maintain, late model, less than 5 years old.

You can get one of the three Japanese 250cc class cruisers, all about 330 pounds, all capable of 65 mph on the freeway, all topping out at about 75.

You can get a heavier cruiser, a 500+ cc twin, starting at a 470 pound 500LTD with most as heavy as the Sportster.

Or you can get an S40, a 652cc single, just 380 pounds wet, simple, easy to work on, and has a good forum of other riders to help you. And it uses a electric starter, no kick available

upgrading an electric scooter any advice?




darkstar11


I drive a 500 watt TaoTao ATE 501 and it only has a top speed of 20 to 21 miles per hour and only drives 10 miles per charge(I think) Is there any upgrade parts I can get for this scooter so that it can drive 30 maybe 35 miles per hour and get better battery life? I'm tired of being on a street legal scooter/moped and not being able to keep up with average city traffic flow. I hate being tailgated because I'm driving slower. I think it runs on 48 volt batteries and uses three of them. Not sure about the control box because its kinda hard to get to.


Answer
First you have to realize that those 500 watt electric scooters are really just heavy cheap electric assisted bikes. The TaoTao ATE 501 weighs about 200 lbs and that's why it's so slow. If you want any reasonable performance, you use the fold out pedals at least for acceleration, it also recharges the batteries slightly.

I suspect you have a 36 volt system with three 12 v lead acid batteries wired in series. It would be a good idea to have each of those batteries checked out separately. Lead acid batteries can be tricky and it only takes one to be in poor shape for the whole bike to suffer.

The most obvious upgrade you could do is wire in another three lead acid batteries in parallel. Nothing else would need changing but you would have to find a location to put the batteries.

The next possible upgrade is to replace the batteries with expensive lithium ion or lithium polymer batteries which are convenient because they are available in similar voltage levels. Their charging procedures are similar but not identical so you may be able to get away with not changing any of the charging mechanisms. The biggest problem with this is the cost.

A larger motor probably won't do you much good and may require custom fabrication of the motor mounts but you may be able to find a more powerful motor in the same form factor. In general, most electric motors can be operated at higher voltages with the only consequence being overheating of the motor and wires, the wires can be increased to thicker wires and you could try to get more cooling to the motor but this would really only allow you to have short bursts with the possibility of burning something out. Of course doing so means changing the battery layout and adding more batteries.

The best solution would be to upgrade to a proper light weight electric assisted bike but they run about $2,000 or more, roughly double what the scooters cost. Maybe find a used bike and put in a 500 watt conversion kit... At least with the bikes, everyone expects you to be slow.

The 500 watt scooters are not what I would call street legal, just exempt from regulations. It takes a 150 cc scooter to be freeway legal and a 250 cc scooter to actually be safe at freeway speeds and any scooter with more than 50 cc's must be licensed and registered as a motor vehicle. Those I would call street legal once licensed. You might be better off with a 50 cc gasoline scooter, those are usually exempt from regulation too. The old smoky two cylinder ones had a lot of power, about double what the new four cylinder ones have but even the new 4 cylinder ones would be four times the power of the 500 watt electric scooter. If you want to be environmentally friendly, make ethanol from rotten fruits that you get from the grocers for free.




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Title Post: Best cruiser motorcycle for new female rider?
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