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« on: July 18, 2017, 08:34:02 AM »
I've been reading this forum for a while thinking about my first purchase of a zero fx. I have been looking into the possibility of a snowbike set up. For those that don't know a snow bike is a kit that replaces the back wheel with basically a snowmobile track and the front wheel with a large snowmobile ski. It is becoming very popular and taking a huge dent into the snowmobile market share. Is anybody already doing this with a zero FX?
Advantages:
-No gears to shift. The biggest complaint of snowbike is loosing momentum from shifting gears.
-ability to remove the battery if you get stuck for less weight to lift it out.
-high torque motor which is important considering what you are turning compared to a wheel.
-silent operation, floating through cloud like powder at 30 mph.
Disadvantages:
-cold, will the cold kill the batteries? I don't plan to ride below 20 degrees. would this be a disadvantage if I keep the battery in a warm place until I ride then running it hard should generate heat? Or surround the battery with small hand warmers?
-Might be too hard to on the motor
-nobody makes a "fit kit" for it as of yet. Yeti said they would work with me if that's the direction I want to go. Timbersled's motto used to be "we build a fit kit for anything." Polaris bought them out, I asked them a few weeks ago if they would make a fit kit and they said, "no because it probably wouldn't be very good."
-range (of course) a gas snowbike gets about 1/2 the mpg at similar riding speed than a motorcycle. I could see not loosing momentum by shifting gears as a way to save fuel but lost again when you account for the cold weather operation.
Anybody have a guess on anticipated range? With a yeti snowbike 120" snowbike kit the bike ends up weighing about 30 lbs more than it would as a normal motorcycle. The combine range on a zero fx is 62 miles. Would 31 miles be a reasonable expectation?
