My names Lionel, first post here.
There might be the odd one or two on here that remembers me from working at the likes of OnYourBike Birmingham, Redkite Cycles or even Evans, I'm talking 2008-2015ish. Used to race the RSL4X, NPS 4X and BMX Nationals too for Yeti UK/UMF.
I walked away from Cycling to pursue a career in Engineering via an Apprenticeship at GE that I ended up having to drop out of in my second year, thankfully I'd gained some certificates beforehand and went off to work in Sweden. Fast forward six years later and I've just arrived back in the UK after working as a CAD/CAM/CNC/CMM and Robotics programmer and technician at Spuhr for three plus years followed by working as a Prototyping Technician at Heart Aerospace (Helped build the Heart X1 from start to finish).
During that entire time I had wanted to start my own company building EV's or rather, the most car-like pedelec cycle that I could. Ended up calling it SliikOne and eventually after all kinds of failed prototypes (Sheet aluminium, tubular steel etc). I wound up using 30x30 profile and a lot of manually and CNC machined parts that all bolted together into something that actually worked.
I struggled the entire six years to find wheels that would be appropriate so I ended up designing my own. I couldn't get a mid drive unit from anywhere except Bafang but after a bad experience with a BBS01 on a cargo bike, I wasn't going back to that. That led to me using an industrial 48V BLDC 220W motor and an Electrmen OY controller (And blew through a bunch with over current). Turns out the peak loads can get pretty extreme in the few milliseconds of movement... Caved in and upgraded to a VESC controller which is absolutely epic from both the software and programming side to the actual hardware, Benjamin Vedder actually worked at Heart and left before I started, he made some seriously beefed up motor controllers compared to what you can find for sale generally (think 250kW+)
Anyway, this cycle that worked got used, a lot, riding around the epic Cycle lanes in Gothenburg, I'd put about 1000 miles through it without any major failures and made a point to hit the cobble stones to really shake things up.
But I learned a lot, there was a list of things that needed improving and I began designing the next iteration, shortly after I started that (beginning of this year) I was told I could use the 5-axis mill that was essentially part of my toolkit at work, nobody else wanted to/could operate it at all but I was always programming/running one offs. So in my own time (Lunch breaks and early mornings/late evenings) I began designing and machining my own parts for the second version. I was able to drop the part count down and really start designing things in a more robust and simplified way, there aren't exactly a lot of parts for 4-wheeled cycles out there (none, actually...).
So here I am, back in Birmingham having quit my job in Sweden a few months ago, attempting to launch my own Cargobike (that is something I'm still designing) and finish off this two-seater as a demonstrator/portfolio piece.
I'm terrible at writing so if you made it this far, thank you!