Looking for a winter electric fat trike

[Andy987]

Hi,

Apologies if this is a double post I didn't see my first attempt at posting on the post thread,

I'm looking for a winter trike fat bike to do small commutes between home and work (3km to go, 3km to get back), I'm based in Montreal, we can have a lot of snow and cold weather (minus 10C on average in winter, sometimes colder but I think I will go for cabs subway and car when it gets to minus 15 or minus 20) It needs to meet the max power allowed on bike paths in Canada: 500w, 32km top speed. Needs to be heavily weather resistant. I did read that a huge advantage in snow and ice patches is front wheel traction.

Did anyone here or try the cargo trike from etrikes Canada?
Link: https://etrikescanada.com/collections/frontpage/products/etc-cargo-etrike

It seems to have all the winter requirements, front motor which apparently makes a huge difference, and I do find the 24 inch front wheel makes it look better. It's quite heavy though, around 100pounds but I don't know if it accounts for the battery or not.

Any thoughts or recommendations? Thank you very much for your input!

Andy987

 

[rich c]

You know you can't lean a trike like that, so you really have to slow in the curves. I'd hate to make that my commuting vehicle. Black ice or any ice is going to be miserable. Front tire spinning out and then rear tires spinning out from the pedals. Going to be interesting to keep it straight. That derailleur is really hanging low. Being in the center like that, it's going to plug up with snow on the ride and freeze up when sitting. Very hard to take that thing inside on days during a blizzard. I would only winter commute on studded tires. Fat tires are horrible on frozen foot prints, frozen bike tire tracks, and it's tripled with the 3 tires. I could barely ride over 5mph with my fat bike on frozen tracks, that trike will rattle your teeth on frozen foot prints! Edit; I have to admit I am very biased against winter riding. Fat bikes are touted as being a dream on snow. Well not snow around me. If you get out the first day on powder snow, it's a blast. After that it is all miserable. The fat tires tend to push slush and also cover the rider if the fenders are lacking. Then all that misery of frozen tracks and footprints. And finally throw in a broken collarbone fall on black ice and I just park every 2 wheeler I have when the snow falls.

 

[JRA]

I have to agree that front hub motors make sense on winter use Fat Bikes. However there is nothing other than a studded tire and some common sense and luck involved with ice involved.

On the other hand if you follow the winter car Rallye scene at all you might notice that they go with a narrower tire in winter racing environments. Fat tires go about as well as possible on non packed down snow but I have ridden my 45c tired bike in 10" deep snow over hard ground and other than the derailleur getting clogged up with snow it went just fine. In a city environment usually you will be riding on packed snow so a narrower tire should be fine. Try and find a bike that doesn't weigh 100lbs. also.....

 

[Andy987]

Thank you so much for prompt reply, it seems you know much more about this than me. I thought this looked perfect actually ha ha!

If I can pick your brain one last time:

Well, a bigger enterprise because he is based in Poland is "modding" this trike with tilting frame as you turn (like those toddler 3-wheel foot scooters) with the two wheels in front one in back, he could do a 500W 32km top speed, and modify the tires to wider, 2.5 inches at the back, but interesting how you mention that a narrower wheel is sometimes better for grip, I guess it's because weight is concentrated on one spot hence better grip?

This guy is pretty tech savvy he even implemented individual suspension on each front wheel.

Here it is: http://ev4.pl/en/bike.html
so again it has a slanting body to compensate in turns. Video shows that they are pretty comfortable in turns but who knows.

I do find this one quite cool. It is rear traction however.

 

[rich c]

A smaller tire gets to the pavement, fat tire stays on top of snow. In states like Wisconsin and Michigan they groom snow trails for fat tire bikes. They make riders lower the tire pressure to stay on top of the snow and not cut grooves.

 

[widlifeexplorer]

I have tried all of them but decided with the FT-1900X fat tire trike. It has all the goodies that I needed, and maybe they are still offering them at discount at https://mobilityscootrike.com/