get me into cagro bikes

vermiculite chat interrupted

I’m interested in selling my Edgerunner, PM me if you want to talk turkey. Deal doen’t have to go down right away

resume vermiculite chat

Is there a front geometry that works best for the cycle truck style cargo bike? I’m considering doing my own conversion a la Cyclefab, but can’t find much info on the preferred head angle/fork offset/trail for this style.

Might be able to dig around in some GoogleGroups to see if that has been discussed

Look around for posts on the web authored by Alex Wetmore or Fred. IIRC Soma pretty much got it right, the OG Schwinn cycletruck got it wrong and doesn’t handle very well.

http://alexwetmore.org/archives/category/cycle-truck.html
http://alexwetmore.org/archives/category/cycletruck.html

Oh sweet, I thought Alex powered down the server that hosted “Alex Wetmore is always busy with something…”

I thought the same. Thanks for those links. I found a post by Alex on some forum or other saying that 72deg/40mm offset with a 20 inch wheel was working well for him. Probably start there

Drill bit question.
I got the thumbs up from Cyclefab to drill and tap the dropout plate for the torque arm.
Can anyone confirm that these numbers seem correct?
M5 (0.8 thread pitch) drill size diameter prior to tapping into steel plate = 4.5 mm or #16 Imperial (0.177")

My drill bits are all looking pretty shabby these days so I was going to try and buy a nice 4.5mm or #16 bit.
Should I look for a HSCO bit?

I’m a little underwhelmed with how loose the Grin Tech torque arm is on the eZee axle but dropout is nice a snug so this will just be a security measure. Going for first option here, directly attached instead of using the fender eyelet as designed.

4.2mm or #19 according to the tap drill charts

I’d recommend 4.2 also
4.5 is like 50% thread engagement, which some charts recommend for steel, but this is a thin plate so a little more would be prudent

you realistically probably aren’t gonna use this drill often enough for it to matter how nice it is. Any HSS or Cobalt drill will be enough. Same for the tap atmo.
Probably more important is punching the hole location so you don’t miss

Thank you so much! Which tap drill charts do ya’ll use? I must have picked a random one off the internet.
I’d love to bookmark one for next time I need to tap an M6.

Any recommendations for the best way to punch the hole to get it started.
Have one of these but not sure how I would get it perfectly centered

I also have a step bit that might be useful

any random one off the internet, really
I had a nice greasy pocket reference for a while but idk where I got it and idk where it is now

that punch will get you close enough. If you wanna use that, I’d start by marking the center with a sharpie or something first, then punching. Eyeballing will be fine. It’s way easier to eyeball a punch than a spinning wandering drill.

The best way would really be to use a transfer punch, but I’m not gonna talk you into spending more money just to drill one hole in a dropout.

Oh neat, never heard of transfer punches before.
Looks like HF has imperial but no metric for 11 bucks: https://www.harborfreight.com/28-piece-transfer-punch-set-3577.html

I see where I was confused on the 75% vs 50% engagement.
I was using this chart and it didn’t list steel under the 75% : https://littlemachineshop.com/images/gallery/PDF/TapDrillSizes.pdf

At the metal shop we kept an old copy of Machinery’s Handbook (with the tap size page bookmarked) right on top of the drill / tap cabinet.

Good for random lunchtime reading too

I’m sure that tap chart is fine
for thicker stuff and hand tools, 4.5mm would really be best
but for the thin plate a little more thread is prudent
with better cutters and more rigid machines, you can get even more than 75% thread in steel if you need to
and goodness knows how many different types and hardnesses of steel there are
either way it’s kinda splitting hairs for a hole in a dropout

That’s great to hear, thanks for answering all my noob questions

[quote=Andrew_Squirrel]Any recommendations for the best way to punch the hole to get it started.
Have one of these but not sure how I would get it perfectly centered

I also have a step bit that might be useful[/quote]
Come by I have a set of transfer.punches you can borrow

I’m missing something? What’s the point of all those different size punches? They all seem like they have the same size point?