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Second hand GT16, interesting mix of highs and lows


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3 hours ago, Scatcat said:

I fail to see how pedals that are long enough to support my foot and broad enough but no broader than my feet would worsen the snagging on sidewalks or branches? My feet is that broad, so the bloody sidewalk would be hit anyways, just by my foot rather than by the pedal...

It's funny, but until now I had assumed that Carlos's concerns about bigger pedals hitting/scraping in turns was the carefully calculated reason the pedals for any given machine were a particular size and shape.  I had assumed someone had really done the math on the angles and how and when they would come into play while riding.

Then on reading what you said, I realized that at least some of that is inherently ridiculous.  Like you point out, If a turn can't take a foot-long pedal, it's not going to be able to take a foot-long foot either!   You can make a pedal as small as you want, but it's not going to make your foot any smaller.

So the turning radius they have to think about is not dependent just on the pedal's size and position.  Manufacturers need to bear in mind the size of the average foot.

And if they sell in Western markets, that's going to be a lot bigger than the foot size of the average Southern Chinese person.

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10 hours ago, Dingfelder said:

It's funny, but until now I had assumed that Carlos's concerns about bigger pedals hitting/scraping in turns was the carefully calculated reason the pedals for any given machine were a particular size and shape.  I had assumed someone had really done the math on the angles and how and when they would come into play while riding.

Then on reading what you said, I realized that at least some of that is inherently ridiculous.  Like you point out, If a turn can't take a foot-long pedal, it's not going to be able to take a foot-long foot either!   You can make a pedal as small as you want, but it's not going to make your foot any smaller.

So the turning radius they have to think about is not dependent just on the pedal's size and position.  Manufacturers need to bear in mind the size of the average foot.

And if they sell in Western markets, that's going to be a lot bigger than the foot size of the average Southern Chinese person.

Actually the pedal doesn't have to be as big as the foot, but it should be big enough to give almost full support for the heel, the balls of the feet and the outside of the foot-arch.

I don't know about the overleaning thing, I suspect that if you can overlean the wheel with pedals that are large enough, you can probably overlean it with pedals that are large but not really large enough. In my case for example, I have no problem at all pushing the wheel hard, the support is enough to give me a secure lever to lean as far forward as I want to. The only effects of the pedal not supporting the whole of the front and outside arch, is that it accentuates my pronation problems in my right foot, and cuts off some of the circulation in both of my feet. The result is cramps, first in my right foot with its weaker and shallower arch, then in both feet as the bad circulation makes itself known.

The tiredness in my feet, except for pain and lack of comfort, causes the stability in my feet to become less. I feel less "contact" with the wheel and tend to push my knees harder into the wheel to compensate. This makes me a more dangerous rider.

I suppose some of that is that I'm comparatively a noob. I am more relaxed than I used to be, but I still have a way to go before I become a true pro. When I'm comfortable enough to move around more on the pedals, I can probably alleviate some of the pain. But it doesn't solve the underlying problem, it just lessens the symtoms that are caused by it.

So I'm back at my original point: How hard can it be to make pedals for people with shoe-sizes bigger than 38-39? GW did it in the MSuper3, which I have tried briefly. Those pedals are awesome. I've even wondered if there's any way to adapt the MSuper3-pedal for the GT16, it would be well worth the money...

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Just FTR, my foot positioning is slightly more to the back than in your (nice) picture. With shoe size 45 and pedal size 21cm I feel that the pedal supports almost the entire area where I put weight on my feet. I can mount barefoot without getting hurt (still I never ride barefoot and wouldn't want to). I do agree that adding 2cm would be beneficial and a bit more comfortable.

Then, I find pedal width about as critical as length. I have only 1 out of three wheels, where I am not over the outside edge with my feet by quite some margin. I believe I find this maybe even more problematic. Judging from the picture, the GT16 pedal looks suspiciously narrow. On the other hand, I also do not like the pedal to be wider than my feet, because I like the wheel overall to be as narrow as possible. Catching an obstacle with the pedals or feet has lately become the main reason for unexpected falls. 

Speaking of catching obstacles with the pedal: I think most pedals are too low for a safe ride on uneven terrain (or if solid objects could be lying around). 145mm ground clearance as for the V8 seems OK, but 120mm I find already a safety hazard and I wouldn't buy another wheel with such low pedals. I am not aware to have seen any ground clearance value for the GT16 yet.

One point that might help to alleviate foot pain: it is worthwhile to realise that one can change the weight distribution on the feet without changing anything else. Putting more (or all) weight on the forefoot of one foot and at the same time more (or all) weight on the heel of the other foot doesn't do any change to the driving situation. That is, I can somewhat simulate the weight changes on the feet during walking while riding the wheel.

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2 hours ago, Mono said:

Just FTR, my foot positioning is slightly more to the back than in your (nice) picture. With shoe size 45 and pedal size 21cm I feel that the pedal supports almost the entire area where I put weight on my feet. I can mount barefoot without getting hurt (still I never ride barefoot and wouldn't want to). I do agree that adding 2cm would be beneficial and a bit more comfortable.

Then, I find pedal width about as critical as length. I have only 1 out of three wheels, where I am not over the outside edge with my feet by quite some margin. I believe I find this maybe even more problematic. Judging from the picture, the GT16 pedal looks suspiciously narrow. On the other hand, I also do not like the pedal to be wider than my feet, because I like the wheel overall to be as narrow as possible. Catching an obstacle with the pedals or feet has lately become the main reason for unexpected falls. 

Speaking of catching obstacles with the pedal: I think most pedals are too low for a safe ride on uneven terrain (or if solid objects could be lying around). 145mm ground clearance as for the V8 seems OK, but 120mm I find already a safety hazard and I wouldn't buy another wheel with such low pedals. I am not aware to have seen any ground clearance value for the GT16 yet.

One point that might help to alleviate foot pain: it is worthwhile to realise that one can change the weight distribution on the feet without changing anything else. Putting more (or all) weight on the forefoot of one foot and at the same time more (or all) weight on the heel of the other foot doesn't do any change to the driving situation. That is, I can somewhat simulate the weight changes on the feet during walking while riding the wheel.

I've started doing those weight shifts too, it helps.

As you I think the width is just as crucial as the length. The GT16-pedals are too narrow, not much, but enough. Especially if you, like me, have one or two feet with pronation-problems (feet leaning slightly inwards, soles getting more worn on the inside), or for that matter supination, the opposite. Feet with those problems are not as stable as neutral feet, which in turn means partial support have more serious stability consequences - as well as such problems leading to tenser feet, especially in situations where there's only partial support.

But using a hard-sole shoe, with an inlay supporting my arches, and a good gripping rubber sole has toned down the problem.

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Almost three hours in heavy rain today. Lot of stops as I was playing a game called Turf, where you stop for about 25 seconds to claim a zone via GPS and get points in an app. So I was zipping between these zones, sometimes trolleying sometimes going fast. The roads where an assortment of asphalt, cobble-stones, gravel, sand, some hills, puddles and dirt. Total distance around 25 km/15 miles, which took around 40% of the battery - I had about 95% going out, and about 55% coming in.

A was wet as a fish coming in, and so was the wheel. Wet and dirty.

out-of-the-rain.thumb.jpg.759b62138c4f7a0e1e24822dc28ee9bc.jpg

It almost looks clean in these pictures.

out-of-the-rain-2.jpg.4128c01820903cd0dc561c995c3a22d2.jpg

Well, maybe not.

drenched-GT16.jpg.202f18912b0d6ab0c4b868aef70f15db.jpg

The amount of water it withstood was pretty good.

where-shit-sticks.jpg.a131902f5631ec0a63d58b00a1976417.jpg

But parts of the design are nothing more than dirt-traps...

useless-mud-flap.jpg.da4288cdc1a82e67bad49d79b2c193c1.jpg

The most useless mud-flap imaginable. Here it looks almost clean, but that is only because I took it off outside and knocked the gravel off it. Those holes are gravel-traps!

Overall I was impressed by how it handled the adverse weather, but the mud-flap is a bloody joke. Stones, sand, dirt, whatever I ran over stuck in the mud-flap and made the tyre grind on it. If I didn't know the mud-flap where to blame, I would have been worried my wheel was broken. The sounds of grinding gravel was awesome. And of course retracted the mud-flap into the out-of-use position, leaving me with no protection whatsoever. I have to find a better solution, or the wheel will be "sunshine only"...

Seriously Rockwheel, is that mud-flap just some bling design item? Did you EVER test it?

Conclusion: While it was not my intention to go scuba-diving on the EUC, I can report that my wheel can handle bad weather just fine.

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Sounds like you had a good time!

It sounds like they didn't think much about the mudflap design, but also like you could make it workable extremely easily, by putting some duct tape on the inside of the flap.  It probably would be pretty hard for passersby to even notice there was tape in there, so it wouldn't be an ugly solution, either.

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44 minutes ago, Dingfelder said:

Sounds like you had a good time!

It sounds like they didn't think much about the mudflap design, but also like you could make it workable extremely easily, by putting some duct tape on the inside of the flap.  It probably would be pretty hard for passersby to even notice there was tape in there, so it wouldn't be an ugly solution, either.

Yeah, I had a good time. The duct tape idea would be swell, if there was even three more millimeters of space between the flap and the tyre. As it is, there is like one or two positions where the flap doesn't touch the wheel, dirty or not.

They really, really didn't think that one through, nor test it. It looks cool, but is utterly useless.

I'll probably buy a mud-flap looking something like this, mod it and find a way to fix it in place.

Cavo-mudguard.jpg.f810cbc32993d41db54dc269c1393fe1.jpg

 

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43 minutes ago, Scatcat said:

Yeah, I had a good time. The duct tape idea would be swell, if there was even three more millimeters of space between the flap and the tyre. As it is, there is like one or two positions where the flap doesn't touch the wheel, dirty or not.

They really, really didn't think that one through, nor test it. It looks cool, but is utterly useless.

I'll probably buy a mud-flap looking something like this, mod it and find a way to fix it in place.

Cavo-mudguard.jpg.f810cbc32993d41db54dc269c1393fe1.jpg

 

What kind of plastic is the shell made out of?

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5 hours ago, Dingfelder said:

Well if the mudflap is already touching, would the tape also touching really be a downgrade?

Maybe not, but I'm looking for an upgrade :)

4 hours ago, Carlos E Rodriguez said:

What kind of plastic is the shell made out of?

I would guess ABS PC or something similar.

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I bought a mud-flap for a MTB today, cut it in half  and taped it to the EUC with strong weave tape. If this works out right, I'll look into making the bond more permanent. This solution at least won't scratch on the tire.

new-mud-flap.jpg

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35 minutes ago, Mono said:

Looks like the mud flaps on my bike, only that in my case the Zefal part is shaped from tape as well :)

I have some black self-adhesive vinyl, I might tape over the whole thing with that to get an even surface and a more permanent look.

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20 hours ago, Scatcat said:

I bought a mud-flap for a MTB today, cut it in half  and taped it to the EUC with strong weave tape. If this works out right, I'll look into making the bond more permanent. This solution at least won't scratch on the tire.

new-mud-flap.jpg

In the auto store, you can find small black plastic ribet expansion pins instead of the tape. I would put black silicon under also.

 

door clips 001.PNG

door clips 002.PNG

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@陈小杰 I have an interesting "problem" with my wheel. I can't show you any really good pictures yet, as to show it I would have to rig a camera and the wheel to get the exact angle needed. I might do that eventually, but wanted to ask this question first.

It seems the wheel is a few millimeters (somwhere between 3 and 5mm) to the "right" in the shell. As if the pedal assembly on the "left" side, the side with the wiring, is a few millimeters further out on the axle. As far as I can tell without total disassembly, the axle seems straight. But the asymmetry might well explain why the wheel touches the shell whenever I stand on the wheel with my right foot only.

from-front-asymmetry.jpg.160e19911fed16dff3b63fc67d516579.jpg

You can almost see what I mean in the picture above. where the centerline of the wheel and the chassi don't line up totally. But the angle is not really straight on, which makes it hard to judge.

My biggest worry is that the screws holding the left pedal-assembly to the axle is not tight enough, so that the assembly has worked itself out a few millimeters. The suspicion is heightened by very small intermittent noises sometimes when I shift my left foot to the back of the pedal. As if there is a small movement between two pieces of metal. There are no cracks in the pedal or the assembly that I can see. And the wheel feels entirely solid if I go off a curb or over a bump, with no strange noises at all, which makes me think it is not a damaged axle.

If the assembly needs tightening, I suspect the only thing to do would be to dismantle the shell totally? Is that correct? Are there any stopping washers or something like that to hinder the bolts holding the assembly from loosening up? If there are, I might just let the situation be unless it gets worse.

Since this is a second hand wheel which means I have no warranty, and since there are no local servicing technicians for Rockwheel in Sweden as far as I know, I will probably have to do this myself. Are there any service manuals translated to english? And if so, can I get hold of them? It would really simplify the work if I find that I have to disassemble the wheel. I would like to avoid stupid mistakes caused by not knowing in which order to do things, or missing a step on the way...

Thanks for your attention. /Marcus

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39 minutes ago, Scatcat said:

@陈小杰 I have an interesting "problem" with my wheel. I can't show you any really good pictures yet, as to show it I would have to rig a camera and the wheel to get the exact angle needed. I might do that eventually, but wanted to ask this question first.

It seems the wheel is a few millimeters (somwhere between 3 and 5mm) to the "right" in the shell. As if the pedal assembly on the "left" side, the side with the wiring, is a few millimeters further out on the axle. As far as I can tell without total disassembly, the axle seems straight. But the asymmetry might well explain why the wheel touches the shell whenever I stand on the wheel with my right foot only.

from-front-asymmetry.jpg.160e19911fed16dff3b63fc67d516579.jpg

You can almost see what I mean in the picture above. where the centerline of the wheel and the chassi don't line up totally. But the angle is not really straight on, which makes it hard to judge.

My biggest worry is that the screws holding the left pedal-assembly to the axle is not tight enough, so that the assembly has worked itself out a few millimeters. The suspicion is heightened by very small intermittent noises sometimes when I shift my left foot to the back of the pedal. As if there is a small movement between two pieces of metal. There are no cracks in the pedal or the assembly that I can see. And the wheel feels entirely solid if I go off a curb or over a bump, with no strange noises at all, which makes me think it is not a damaged axle.

If the assembly needs tightening, I suspect the only thing to do would be to dismantle the shell totally? Is that correct? Are there any stopping washers or something like that to hinder the bolts holding the assembly from loosening up? If there are, I might just let the situation be unless it gets worse.

Since this is a second hand wheel which means I have no warranty, and since there are no local servicing technicians for Rockwheel in Sweden as far as I know, I will probably have to do this myself. Are there any service manuals translated to english? And if so, can I get hold of them? It would really simplify the work if I find that I have to disassemble the wheel. I would like to avoid stupid mistakes caused by not knowing in which order to do things, or missing a step on the way...

Thanks for your attention. /Marcus

On KS and Gotway you can dissasemble the wheel as follows:

- Get to the Motorconnection between Board and Axle hole and unclip the motorconnector and sensor wiring coming out of the wheel

- After that prodecure go and loose all pedalarm screws -both side-that hold the pedalarms to the shell

- then you can normally pull out the complete wheel under the Shell (if done correct, you Shell should still be more or less in one Piece)

This way it works on KS16, GW V3 etc to Change a flat tire....no Need to disassemble the complete shell

- you should now have the Wheel with only the pedalarms connected to it. Then you can better see whats the Problem.

I would guess the pedalarms are a bit loose to the axle, not thighten enough...or that one pedalarm got a bit crooked by a fall/crash

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43 minutes ago, KingSong69 said:

On KS and Gotway you can dissasemble the wheel as follows:

- Get to the Motorconnection between Board and Axle hole and unclip the motorconnector and sensor wiring coming out of the wheel

- After that prodecure go and loose all pedalarm screws -both side-that hold the pedalarms to the shell

- then you can normally pull out the complete wheel under the Shell (if done correct, you Shell should still be more or less in one Piece)

This way it works on KS16, GW V3 etc to Change a flat tire....no Need to disassemble the complete shell

- you should now have the Wheel with only the pedalarms connected to it. Then you can better see whats the Problem.

I would guess the pedalarms are a bit loose to the axle, not thighten enough...or that one pedalarm got a bit crooked by a fall/crash

I've tried that before. It seems the tolerances are too tight to get the wheel out that way. I should be possible, but when I tried is was stuck like it was glued in place.

On the GT16 there are two screws inside the shell that holds the pedal arm, two that go through the shell from the outside, and two that holds the bottom of the arm to the shell. I've loosened them all, but without being able to move the wheel a single millimeter. If anyone knows a method that doesn't mean I have to disassemble the shell I would be grateful.

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2 hours ago, Scatcat said:

Since this is a second hand wheel which means I have no warranty

I don't think that second hand usage voids your (legal) warranty.

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55 minutes ago, Mono said:

I don't think that second hand usage voids your (legal) warranty.

I'm in Sweden, the previous owner was Polish, the sell was through eBay. I suppose there is still warranty, but to actually use it would be a "very interesting" experience. I suppose that if something really bad happens, like an axle breaking or some such, I'll look into it.

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Okay, took it apart. It turned out the wheel loosens just like in Gotway, it's just stuck a bit harder because of the pedal assembly geometry.

The axle is straight as an arrow, no problem there, and there are no loose bolts or anything.

What I found was that there are a couple of missing screws, which make the chassi a bit more flexible than it should be.

I also found the culprit for the tire-against-chassi-sounds. It turns out the distance between the heatsink and the tire on top of the wheel is really, really small. You could see exactly where the tire had scraped against it, and I took a file and filed those parts down a millimeter or so. Don't want to actually carve too much from the heatsink, just enough to minimise those sounds - we'll see if it was enough.

It was a good thing I took it apart though, one of the wires between the battery packs had gotten loose. Must have happened recently, because I have not noticed anything really amiss, except today I felt I had less power to play with...

Now I'm topping it up, to make sure the cells are in balance.

Just my idiotic self, to forget taking pictures of the disassembled wheel. The wheel/pedal setup is really cool, and looks very sturdy. The axle is 18mm as far as I could estimate without taking of the pedal arms. My respect for the design overall jumped up a notch or two. There are mistakes made, but now I get why they were made.

Another thing about taking it apart, is that I found out I just thought I cleaned it... The amount of gunk inside the chassi was awesome. But then I was out in the terrain this sunday and it rained - go figure :D

 

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13 hours ago, Scatcat said:

Okay, took it apart. It turned out the wheel loosens just like in Gotway, it's just stuck a bit harder because of the pedal assembly geometry.

The axle is straight as an arrow, no problem there, and there are no loose bolts or anything.

What I found was that there are a couple of missing screws, which make the chassi a bit more flexible than it should be.

I also found the culprit for the tire-against-chassi-sounds. It turns out the distance between the heatsink and the tire on top of the wheel is really, really small. You could see exactly where the tire had scraped against it, and I took a file and filed those parts down a millimeter or so. Don't want to actually carve too much from the heatsink, just enough to minimise those sounds - we'll see if it was enough.

It was a good thing I took it apart though, one of the wires between the battery packs had gotten loose. Must have happened recently, because I have not noticed anything really amiss, except today I felt I had less power to play with...

Now I'm topping it up, to make sure the cells are in balance.

Just my idiotic self, to forget taking pictures of the disassembled wheel. The wheel/pedal setup is really cool, and looks very sturdy. The axle is 18mm as far as I could estimate without taking of the pedal arms. My respect for the design overall jumped up a notch or two. There are mistakes made, but now I get why they were made.

Another thing about taking it apart, is that I found out I just thought I cleaned it... The amount of gunk inside the chassi was awesome. But then I was out in the terrain this sunday and it rained - go figure :D

 

I can report that the filing I did eliminated about 90% of the problem. When I change position off one of my feet, the top of the pad which connects to the part with the heatsink leans rather heavily on the remaining leg. When that happens there is still some noise, but maybe a fifth of how it was.

That is now the only time I have the problem at all, which I can live with.

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