ADRENALINE: Recumbent bike rider is never going back ‘to an upright bike’ (La Crosse Tribune)

[Zebee Johnstone]

In alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent on Thu, 24 May 2007 19:24:48 -0500
gotbent <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> It sounds like you want a sportcar that has the capacity of a pickup truck.

I'm not the original poster

and he didn't want that. He was pointing out that you couldn't make
your sportscar do the job of a pickup truck no matter how much
sportcart fanatics were sure it was the best of all possible worlds.

> Maybe the best solution for you is to have the xtracycle whatsis and another
> bike for sport. Or for really big loads you could go Asian style and lash a
> huge amount of stuff on the bike and you walk along and push. Or you could
> do a diligent search for a wide-ish flat-ish trailer with lashing points for
> ropes.
>

That was the original poster's point, that the bent configuration was
not as versatile as the upright, specifically that it couldn't be setup
to do utility work. It might manage a small load, but not a serious
one without having to go to a trailer. I dunno you'd manage a trailer
to carry what Moz can carry on One Less Ute even.

Zebee

 

[DougC]

Zebee Johnstone wrote:
> What's the weight difference between 20" bmx wheels/tyres and the lawn
> equipment ones?
>
> IS there a difference in how they handle, as turning on fixed wheels
> requires the wheels to drag some? (I think...)
>
> Zebee

There's no scrub if both wheels have their own bearings and spin free on
a fixed axle. The wheels I'm talking about are small wheelbarrow, mower
and utility cart wheels.

I dunno if they'd handle differently. Lawn wheels are probably a bit
heavier than 16" bike wheels, but that's about the only disadvantage.
~

 

[DougC]

Lorenzo L. Love wrote:
>
> As for motorizing, I used to have a motor on my Tour Easy and I'm sure
> it could have run rings around a Worksman.

-Not in the rain...
The engine I have is a 35cc 4-cycle belt-drive.
4-cycles don't have as much power as 2-cycles, but 4-cycles don't
require mixing oil when refueling. /And/ don't pollute as much (I so
rarely get a good opportunity to take the ecological soapbox).

I had the motor on a RANS Fusion for a while but this motor setup
doesn't work well when tilted back too much, because of the way the fuel
tank on the engine is oriented. Any other recumbent would have the same
problem.

> Pics of BikeE utility bike, motorized Tour Easy and bucket panniers:
> http://home.thegrid.net/~lllove/bikes.htm
>
> Lorenzo L. Love
> http://home.thegrid.net/~lllove

Well here we're back to the point of bikes with too much "bling", bikes
held together by quick-releases, and attracting thieves and pesky
teenagers. My LWB and semi-recumbent are both fitted with a lot of fancy
parts and accessories and I'm very hesitant to leave them /anywhere/
unguarded.

For about $600 I can get a 7-speed hub coaster-brake Worksman with front
and rear baskets included. There's no recumbent I can get and outfit
comparably for anywhere near that price.
~

 

[Johnny Sunset aka Tom Sherman]

On May 24, 4:18 pm, Lorenzo L. Love wrote:
> ...A BikeE has been my utility bike for years. Using
> universal cargo capacity units, the underseat and rear panniers and seat
> bag hold 18 six packs of bottled beer and is still very stable. Another 16
> six packs fit in the BOB trailer, one of the smaller trailers around. If I
> drank that stuff in cans, I could probably do 50% more.

By definition, good beer does NOT come in cans.

> I want to see that
> in a handlebar basket. I've also carried buckets of cat litter, furniture,
> bags of manure, other bikes and wooden pallets. If you want cars to give
> you lots of room on the road, strap a 4 foot by 4 foot wooden pallet to
> the back of your bike.
>
> As for motorizing, I used to have a motor on my Tour Easy and I'm sure it
> could have run rings around a Worksman.
>
> Pics of BikeE utility bike, motorized Tour Easy and bucket panniers:http://home.thegrid.net/~lllove/bikes.htm

Have you considering selling the BikeE and Tour Easy and paying $3,900
to $4,600 for a BigHa: <http://www.bigha.com/buy/index_bike.php>?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

 

[Johnny Sunset aka Tom Sherman]

On May 24, 5:14 pm, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
> ...
> So, how do you carry big wide loads on a bent, not on an attachement?

Let's not go there, please.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

 

[Zebee Johnstone]

In alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent on Thu, 24 May 2007 20:39:47 -0500
DougC <[email protected]> wrote:
> Well here we're back to the point of bikes with too much "bling", bikes
> held together by quick-releases, and attracting thieves and pesky
> teenagers. My LWB and semi-recumbent are both fitted with a lot of fancy
> parts and accessories and I'm very hesitant to leave them /anywhere/
> unguarded.

BUt that's not required by law or anything.

It's a choice you make for one but not the other.
>
> For about $600 I can get a 7-speed hub coaster-brake Worksman with front
> and rear baskets included. There's no recumbent I can get and outfit
> comparably for anywhere near that price.

Which is because of economies of scale, not because of an inherent
flaw in the recumbent design.

Zebee

 

[Lorenzo L. Love]

On Thu, 24 May 2007 18:39:47 -0700, DougC <[email protected]> wrote:

> Lorenzo L. Love wrote:
>> As for motorizing, I used to have a motor on my Tour Easy and I'm sure
>> it could have run rings around a Worksman.
>
> -Not in the rain...
> The engine I have is a 35cc 4-cycle belt-drive.
> 4-cycles don't have as much power as 2-cycles, but 4-cycles don't
> require mixing oil when refueling. /And/ don't pollute as much (I so
> rarely get a good opportunity to take the ecological soapbox).

Modern designed two stroke engines with catalytic converters and mufflers
have lower emissions and lower noise then the half a century old designed
weedwacker motors that most uninformed people think of as two strokes.

>
> I had the motor on a RANS Fusion for a while but this motor setup
> doesn't work well when tilted back too much, because of the way the fuel
> tank on the engine is oriented. Any other recumbent would have the same
> problem.

Get a better motor. Or learn to mount it right.

>
>> Pics of BikeE utility bike, motorized Tour Easy and bucket panniers:
>> http://home.thegrid.net/~lllove/bikes.htm
>> Lorenzo L. Love
>> http://home.thegrid.net/~lllove
>
> Well here we're back to the point of bikes with too much "bling", bikes
> held together by quick-releases, and attracting thieves and pesky
> teenagers. My LWB and semi-recumbent are both fitted with a lot of fancy
> parts and accessories and I'm very hesitant to leave them /anywhere/
> unguarded.

Then take the bling off. You can make any bike attractive to thieves, even
a Worksman if it's dumb enough thief.

>
> For about $600 I can get a 7-speed hub coaster-brake Worksman with front
> and rear baskets included. There's no recumbent I can get and outfit
> comparably for anywhere near that price.
> ~

But then you have a coaster-brake Worksman. Is that a good thing? You get
what you pay for.


Lorenzo L. Love
http://home.thegrid.net/~lllove

"When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes
monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and
go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride
you are taking."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

[DougC]

Lorenzo L. Love wrote:
> ....
> Modern designed two stroke engines with catalytic converters...
>
When I searched online and asked at local repair shops a few months
back, I couldn't find any 4-strokes that had cat-mufflers, nor could I
find anywhere to buy separate cat-mufflers. I see now that some of the
2-stroke engines only come with cat-mufflers, but that don't helpm,e none.

> Get a better motor. Or learn to mount it right.
I didn't even consider the 2-cycles specifically because I didn't want
to deal with mixing gas and oil when refueling. And mounting the engine
to correct the fuel-tank issue would involve building a whole new mount.

> Then take the bling off. You can make any bike attractive to thieves,
> even a Worksman if it's dumb enough thief.
Take off the brakes and derailleurs? Please note that I /want/ a geared
hub with a coaster-brake. What recumbents have horizontal dropouts?...

> But then you have a coaster-brake Worksman. Is that a good thing?
Sometimes, yes.

> You get what you pay for.
Yea, and Worksman ain't hardly the cheapest brand around. They do have a
reputation among motor-bicycle enthusiasts as being generally overbuilt,
however.
~

 

[DougC]

If I was to build something, I would use wheels like these:
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_11992_11992

or here's knobbies for a bit less:
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_18845_18845


The smallest they go with fully-pneumatic tires seems to be 10" diameter.

There's some deck casters that are a bit lower at 9" tall, but they cost
more, they don't list a weight limit and I don't know if a regular bike
pump could reach the air stem:
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_35629_35629


Alternately if one began with something like this:
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_477_477
....it ain't free, but then you get a heavy-duty *mesh* deck already made
(easy to tie stuff to), and two spare tires. All there is to do is take
off the front axle assembly, move the rear wheel assembly forward a bit,
and make a hitch for it.
~

 

[Jon]

"Zebee Johnstone" <[email protected]> wrote

> [original poster was] pointing out that you couldn't make
> your sportscar do the job of a pickup truck no matter how much
> sportcart fanatics were sure it was the best of all possible worlds.

No one would likely consider a BikeE the sports car of recumbents. %^)

> [...] original poster's point, that the bent configuration was
> not as versatile as the upright, specifically that it couldn't be setup
> to do utility work. It might manage a small load, but not a serious
> one without having to go to a trailer.

To which a number of people have pointed out actual experiences
in using recumbent configurations in very versitile and utilitarian ways.

Questions of theft attractiveness may be largely a wash, in my opinion.
But clearly, existing motorization kits are probably targeted for upright
applications and could require adaptation for recumbent frames.

The issue of bike cost, as another poster pointed out, is not inherently
an issue of suitability of recumbent designs for a particular task. Costing
less is one of the things upright bikes currently do much better in general
than recumbents.

Jon

 

[DougC]

Jon wrote:
> No one would likely consider a BikeE the sports car of recumbents. %^)

Okay, how about the Fiero of recumbents?....

> Questions of theft attractiveness may be largely a wash, in my opinion.
You haven't seen what I've got planned.

But do note that the "engine" bike and the "utility" bike are two
separate bicycles. They'll both probably be Worksmans, but they won't be
fitted out the same.

> But clearly, existing motorization kits are probably targeted for upright
> applications and could require adaptation for recumbent frames.
This was the exact problem I had.
The engine kit fit the motor on a fork-mount over the rear wheel, and
the fuel tank (built into the engine) faced rearward on the engine. On
an upright bike the engine would be tilted slightly forwards but
mounting the engine on a recumbent required tilting the engine somewhat
backwards, losing fuel tank capacity. The fuel tank is only 22 oz (about
an hour of run time on level ground at 27 mph) and the carb is not
capable of drawing from an external tank.

> The issue of bike cost, as another poster pointed out, is not inherently
> an issue of suitability of recumbent designs for a particular task.
-Except where there is a good risk of theft.....

> Costing
> less is one of the things upright bikes currently do much better in general
> than recumbents.
-And in my opinion, it's not worth paying recumbent prices for
"long-distance recumbent comfort", for a bike that won't likely ever be
used for long-distance riding.
~

 

[Zebee Johnstone]

In alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent on Tue, 29 May 2007 07:13:31 -0500
DougC <[email protected]> wrote:
> Jon wrote:
>> The issue of bike cost, as another poster pointed out, is not inherently
>> an issue of suitability of recumbent designs for a particular task.
> -Except where there is a good risk of theft.....

HOw does that follow? What is it about the *design* that makes it at
high risk of theft?

Zebee

 

[Jon]

"DougC" <[email protected]> wrote
> Jon wrote:
>> No one would likely consider a BikeE the sports car of recumbents. %^)
>
> Okay, how about the Fiero of recumbents?....

Ouch! Well, okay, there were BikeE recalls. Unlike the Fieros, no
wide reports of any BikeE models catching fire, at least. %^)

Actually, to change the metaphor, the BikeE is more of the
Rodney Dangerfield of recumbents! "They don't get no respect!"

> Except where there is a good risk of theft.....

Technically, there's nothing inherent in recumbent geometry, design or
construction that makes them immune to economies of scale. Marketing,
is another issue, of course. But Rebikes were sold at Sears, weren't they?
%^)

>>Costing less is one of the things upright bikes currently do much better
>> in general than recumbents.
>
> -And in my opinion, it's not worth paying recumbent prices for
> "long-distance recumbent comfort", for a bike that won't likely ever be
> used for long-distance riding.

Used BikeE's (the only kind, unless there's NOS someplace) can
be relatively inexpensive to acquire. They are not generally thought
of as "long-distance recumbent comfort" bikes. %^)

Hey. If an upright bike get the job done for you, great! My BikeE
gets utility use several times a week, replaces short trips by car,
and is fun and comfortable for how I use it.

Jon

 

[Jon]

"Zebee Johnstone" <[email protected]> wrote
> Jon <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> To which a number of people have pointed out actual experiences
>> in using recumbent configurations in very versitile and utilitarian ways.
>
> Did they? All I saw was "panniers". Perhaps my server is missing
> posts?

Check Google newsgroup archive, e.g., Lorenzo Love's posts. Also
Google "oyster bucket bike". I've seen pictures of these mounted on
a Tour Easy...

Jon