One of the great things about Norway is the abundant cycle paths around the country. Pretty much you can get to where you want to go without ever touching a car filled road, which is a good thing considering that the average Norwegian driver isn't much better than the Russian drivers I had experienced whilst six years in Siberia. It's not that they are actually bad; they just seem completely ignorant about roundabouts and the use of turn signals. And of course there is the insane "give way to cars coming out of smaller roads on your right rule", which really messes with your reflexes for a few weeks until you get used to slowing down for every small road which may hold a exiting VW Polo at 60kmph. (The exception being if you are on a road marked with yellow triangles, which means you have the right of way. Still, it pays to keep your danger awareness in the high alert status.)
My transportation needs are taken care of by a company provider car; this little black (of course) Toyota Corolla is the perfect size for zipping back and forth to work, and weekly shopping runs to the greengrocer and supermarket. For the first few weeks Elsa was happy to get around on foot; she loves to explore new places, therefore give her a good map and she won't be back until she has gotten lost at least once and walked twice as far as planned. But with the beginning of her language school approaching in January we had to find something a little quicker to get her across town. Dropping Cam off at her bus stop at 8:09am, to arriving at class for 8:30am, wasn't really feasible on foot.
We looked at bikes at various cycle shops in Stavanger, yet despite seeing lots of beautiful machines; none really jumped out and said, "Buy me!" As usual, we resorted to the World Wide Web to increase our purchasing options and it wasn't long before Elsa has decided that she wanted some a little out of the ordinary.
KMX Karts is a British firm that specializes in making recumbent trikes. The owners are a couple of aerospace engineers who originally designed the karts, as they call them, for their children (click here for cool YouTube Video of the kid's version) but it wasn't long before it turned into a business and now they offer three versions of their original creation. Elsa decided on the ST class, and after a little while on the phone to the UK, she secured one close to where my Mum stays in Scotland: since we were planning on visiting her for Christmas it was logical to pick up the KMX ourselves and save a bunch on shipping and taxes.
The day before Christmas and we were in the UK, on our way to pick up the KMX. The dealer, an industrial supplies store, had promised not to build it up for us and leave everything nicely packed for our journey home. But when we got there we were told it had not arrived yet.... "Christmas Shipping Delays", they said. Disappointed we left our cellphone numbers just in case it turned up, and left to attend to some last minute shopping.
Ironically enough we were in a bicycle store looking at racks and panniers when they called and said it arrived, albeit at a different store some 50 miles away! Santa Claus came through at the last moment, and within an hour we had the KMX safely in the back of our rental car.
Of course, we were fooling ourselves thinking that it would stay all nicely boxed up till we got back to Norway. On Christmas Eve we opened everyone's presents, then on my mother's hall floor we pulled it out of the box and carefully put it together. Even standing still the KMX looks like it is fun fun fun to ride.
After a quick test ride the following morning (resulting in a series of extra wide approving grins from Elsa) we carefully disassembled 'Yessie', the KMX's new name, and put everything back in the box; perhaps not quite as neatly as before.
Of course the story isn't quite finished here.
The ride from Cam's school busstop to the Language school is a little hilly in places, and so while we were researching recumbent bikes I stumbled upon electrified recumbent bikes, and the little gears in my head started turning...
There is a company in Canada called Bionx, who makes this super cool electric assistance kit for bicycles of all shapes and sizes. The heart of the matter is replacing your back wheel with theirs which has a powerful hub motor installed. Coupled together with a sizeable NiMh battery pack, and a smart electronic controller you get varying levels of assistance depending on what you enter on the console mounted on the handlebars. Say for instance you feel particularly lazy one morning, you can tell it to boost your pedal power by 300% (or 25%, 50%, 100%). The sensors in the hub motor measure how much force you are pedaling with and then compensate by adding the extra power from the hub motor.
The really neat thing is if you are feeling particularly virtuous another morning and feel like a workout you can ask the Bionx console to apply an increased level of resistance to your pedaling, thus giving you a harder workout than usual and recharging the battery at the same time! (this same regenerative charging occurs when you apply the brakes on the bike, and can account for 10-15% extra charge returned to the battery pack.)
So we ordered the kit from a store in New York and it arrived about a week after we got the KMX. In order to make it fit within the frame of Yessie we had to do some minor modifications: the battery pack and controller was stripped out of it's origninal containers and resealed in electrical tape. We then mounted the battery pack to the frame of he KMX by drilling and mounting two right angle bracket, then using some straightened duct clamps, secured it in place. Conviently enough the controller fit snuggly in behind the webbing of the seat, and all the cable were neatly tie wrapped in place.
We had a tricky situation trying to mount the console on the KMX 'handlebars', but as luck would have it, the placement worked perfectly below the gearshift. We had opted for the console with the throttle, which allows you to bypass the assistance monitoring and just use the motor when you really need it: steep steep hills or just for fun. (The console is set to only deliver assistance or boost up to 20kmph, but that is more than enough when you are only 15cm from the ground. And there is actually a software crack available on the web to remove the speed limit if you so desire.)
At full right hand turn the throttle hits the side of your thighs and you end up going a little faster than you expected as the boost kicks in, so we had to get a bit brutal with the hacksaw and trimmed about half of it off. It's still perfectly functional, and much safer now.
So there you have it, the KMX conversion to Bionx electric assistance took about 3 hours to complete, with minimal effort and materials. And the end result has made the KMX that little bit more practical on the hills, and a lot more fun on the flats. We added a rack and panniers, lights/reflectors, security lock and a neat trip computer, so Yessie is fully functional mode of transport for Elsa. Everyday they go back and forth to school, come rain or shine... which given that we are in Norway, usually means in the rain more often than not. :(
(UPDATE: Yessie will be a film star! Last week on her way home Elsa and Yessie were stopped by a movie producer, and it turns out he has been searching for this sort of vehicle to be in a short film. Elsa and Yessie will be working for two days this February somewhere in Stavanger, so look out for Yessie at a Norwegian movie theatre near you!)
Leave a comment