MOPED ARMY

I have done this, but there is a bit of work involved.

I am using a 5 speed IRD freewheel. To get it to work I did the following:

1. Widen the swingarm 1/2" at the dropouts.

2. Fabricate new shock mounts so the shocks are in the original position.

3. Have new spacers made to center the wheel (20mm wide and 7mm wide I think)

4. Carve a bit of material off the top of the swingarm for chain clearance.

5. Reinforce the inside of the swingarm.

6. Mounted a Shimano friction shifter to a Paul Thumbies adapter.

7. Weld on a derailleur hanger to the dropout or as I did, weld on a 3/16" piece of steel then drill and tap it for 10mm x 1mm threads.

The wheels are built with Alex DX32 BMX rims (light and extremely strong), and 16 x 2.25 Sava MC2 tires (OEM Tomos). The rear wheel was built by the "Wheelmaster" in Auburn, Washington using 9 ga spokes and a Puch hub. I built the front wheel using a Shimano disc brake hub and 14 ga spokes.

I bolted on a larger sprocket to my original and found a small freewheel for the rear. It's totally ghetto compared to a derailleur.

If you don't have much experience with older/shittier 10 speeds, there are some freewheels that will just spin on to where the 1 speed freewheel used to be... Just work a lot more to make it that nice.

Looks awesome! How well does it work?

Someone needs to do that for the engine side :D

haha nice! you were telling me about this during the Kitty ride a few weeks ago.

so whats the verdict... how fast can you pedal that thing?

The 5 speed freewheel works very well. I use the large cog to start the engine and drop to the smallest cog after its running. I can pedal-assist up to 20 mph.

The front sprocket is a Salsa 32 tooth aluminum mountain bike chainring. I attached it with #8 allen screws tapped into the original sprocket. I have also done the larger chainring mod using a steel bicycle chainring welded to an original sprocket.

The larger front chainring / smaller freewheel combination is an effective and inexpensive method to improve acceleration. The 5 speed freewheel just takes it to the extreme.

i put a 15th freewheel in replace of the 22th or whatever came stock, but honestly... with the weight of the bike and the engine, it doesn't make too much of a difference, pedaling still sucks.

How about a few more (a lot more) pix of the ped!

Would it be possible to put a derauiler on the engine drive side? Anyone done it?

Why do you think it would fail? Finding a deruailer that would fit the bigger chain might be hard (or it might not exist), but bicycles accelerate almost as fast as a stock moped and can get to about the same speed - I don't see why it would fail.

how cool would it be to put a derailleur system on the engine driven side! always wanted to do it, someday... think about it though, a moped with more than 2 gears?!! Somebody please do this!

A derailleur system for the motor side would be a disaster. You'll notice that multi speed bicycles run very narrow chains to allow this sort of setup to work. If you had a moped sized chain the gear cluster would have to be be so wide that it would be impractical. It would be easier to just install a variator.

i cant wait to see photos of your setup!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! please post them ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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OP brought about a good question but Wow, can you tell us a bit more about how you built ped wheels with bmx components?