more on...... Rear Forward Design RFD

RFD started on the X-bike project by selecting the rear wheel system. The rim is a 16" steel Harley Davidson 240mm wide. I had it bead blasted and flat black (my favorite) powder coated. The hub is a modified '80's era Honda CB750 'old-skool' drum brake which I custom spoked. In order to spoke and tune the RIM I built a strain gage based spoke tension sensor. I wrote a quick LabView program to record and provide an audible beep when each spoke tension was met. This sensor was simple to construct. It is comprised of 2 strain gages mounted on a 1/4" open end wrench handle to measure bending and then calibrated as a cantilever beam with incremental weights. In the photos attached you can see the stand I bilt from an old exercising bench to hold the RIM while tuning, a shot of the tensioner wrench sensor, and a picture of the labview GUI I wrote called, "Spoke Tuner". After spoking I had "Cool Ridez" in Herdon, VA mount a Metzler ME880 240/50R to the custom RIM. I modified the hub with an extended right side to account for the oversized rubber (240mm) and attached a 32 tooth 530 rear sprocket to the hub extension. After finishing the extension on the hub the full width of the rear hub is at 11 7/8" approximately 15 7/8" from earth to axle centerline. Next time I'll cover CAD design of the swingarm and frame.