aseenan wrote:
> Hi im currently designing a recumbent bike for a university project.
> The bike is for a parent and child to use on the school run. Does
> anyone have any suggestions for safe and practical seating positions
> for both the adult and child. The adult will be the sole operater.
If the adult is to be the sole operator there's no design to be done.
Take any recumbent bike that can tow a child trailer and that's your
work done.
Beyond that, the Hase Pino is an existing example of a near perfect
tandem for this sort of thing with the captain upright behind a
recumbent stoker, and standard extras for shortening the distance to the
cranks for child stokers. So the parent always has the child in their
view and the child can see where they're going and do some useful work
to. The machine is also more compact than a full recumbent tandem which
is a useful point for storage and riding it back home without the stoker.
See
http://kinetics.org.uk/html/pino.shtml
> Also, what are the main benifits of a recumbant bike compared to an
> upright?
Comfort, comfort and comfort. Aerodynamic drag may be less depending on
design, but that's not a given. Issues of superior braking and less
tendency to fly over handlebars are mainly for solo machines rather than
tandems.
> i know the eye line would be considerably lower on a
> recumbent. how does this affect your vunerability on the road?
This is mainly FUD. My eyeline on a touring example is pretty much
exactly the same as a typical motorist's, and examples exist with a
higher eyeline than that. If people can see other cars easily, they can
see me (/if/ they look!). Beyond that my standard view is a head's up
view of where I'm going, compared to many bikes with a crouch position
where the default view is the tarmac just in front.
But back to my earlier paragraphs, it's already been done (and is sold
commercially) by people with a background in recumbent design, so why
are you trying to reinvent their work without the same background?
Seems a bit like trying to do something new to replace wheels, but
ultimately arriving at something sort of round...
Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net
[email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/