Recumbents are getting silly now!!!



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Gadget

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Yesterday I had the chance of a day off from work and I took it. With last minute desicion I headed
of Epping Forest for a bomb around with the feeling that every other tom **** and harry with a bike
will be at work. This turned out to be true on most parts but there was was one other cyclist in
EF. As I was bombing down a trail, I was rather stunned to be over taken by a bloke on slim
recumbent. The trail was not the best suited even for my MTB and this guy looked like if he hit
another bump the 'bent would throw him. I'm not sure about the width of this contraption but it was
a lot narrower than usual 'bents. And have all 'bents got small BMX style wheels or do you reckon
that this was a custom job. Do they retail these? Does any of the 'bent riders know of this design
and/or model?

And on a personal note I don't mind you taking over the roads but please leave our trails alone. :eek:)

JK

Gadget
 
Gadget wrote:

> was bombing down a trail, I was rather stunned to be over taken by a bloke on slim recumbent. The
> trail was not the best suited even for my MTB and this guy looked like if he hit another bump the
> 'bent would throw him.

The only time a 'bent is a liability off-road is if you need to shift your weight around to maintain
balance. Many trails the only problem per se is a rough surface, but many 'bents have suspension so
that's less of an issue really, and even unsuspended ones generally have shock absorption in the
seat to a fair degree. BikeE actually made a purpose built off-road model called the FX at one
point. Ben "Kinetics" Cooper has a festive picture in the shop of him getting quite a bit of air on
his old Streetmachine, fitted with knobblies for the occasion.

> not sure about the width of this contraption but it was a lot narrower than usual 'bents.

I'm not sure quite what you mean by that. 'Bent bikes, like most upright bikes, are narrower
than their riders aside from the handlebars, but even then only usually only on under-seat
steering models. The frame is still just a tube, and shoulders will generally be outside the
seat in any case.

> And have all 'bents got small BMX style wheels

Plenty do. 20" wheels are very common on 'bents. Probably the most common wheel size, in fact. A few
are 26" both ends, quite a few are 20" front 26" rear. Some go down to 16" front or both.

> or do you reckon that this was a custom job. Do they retail these? Does any of the 'bent riders
> know of this design and/or model?

Rather difficult to tell from that description. As above, "slim" doesn't really mean anything as on
a large percentage of models the rider's the widest part, and small wheels are if anything more
common than big ones. There are certainly plenty of 20"/20" slim designs you can buy, though it
still may have been a home-build.

> And on a personal note I don't mind you taking over the roads but please leave our trails
> alone. :eek:)

People have been riding "road" bikes on trails ever since there were bicycles. You certainly don't
need an MTB unless you want to go as fast and/or rough as possible along them. Usually the case that
all you need to do a typical off-road trail through woods is the assumption that you can. Most
modern 'bents should be at least as good for the job as the old Raleigh "racers" with steel wheels
and Weinman "brakes" we used to hack around woods on when I was a sprog.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email protected]
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
>Ben "Kinetics" Cooper has a festive picture in the shop of him getting quite a bit of air on his
>old Streetmachine, fitted with knobblies for the occasion.

Bent knobblies sounds quite nasty ;-)

Cheers, helen s

~~~~~~~~~~
Flush out that intestinal parasite and/or the waste product before sending a reply!

Any speeliong mistake$ aR the resiult of my cats sitting on the keyboaRRRDdd
~~~~~~~~~~
 
wafflycathcsdirtycatlitter wrote:
> Bent knobblies sounds quite nasty ;-)

Indeed.

I've lost all the other posts in this thread (been playing with my PC date, and OE was set to delete
messages 14 days after downloading), so I can't reply to the original post as I had intended. But
anyway, it seemed like a good excuse to post the Bent Xtreme link again: http://cybercondor.free.fr/

Seems to be missing at the moment, but then accessing this particular page has always seemed a bit
hit and miss.

There are some movies somewhere of someone getting air on a Hurricane. Can't seem to find the link
for those at the moment though.

--
Danny Colyer (remove safety to reply) ( http://www.juggler.net/danny ) Recumbent cycle page:
http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/recumbents/ "He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -
Thomas Paine
 
Ok then, this is a better description on what I saw. This 'bent had what look like a 3 wheel
configuration. One wheel at the front and two at the back. The two back ones looked so close
toghether but you could make out a chain in between the two. The tyres themselves looked about 18
inches and 2 inches wide. The chain ran flat to the ground, not upright like upright bikes. The seat
looked to be about 6 inches from the ground and about 1 inch from the back wheel. He had a cable in
hands which I presume is for steering or brakes.

Does this offer any better clues to the make and model

Gadget
 
Gadget wrote:
> Ok then, this is a better description on what I saw. This 'bent had what look like a 3 wheel
> configuration. One wheel at the front and two at the back. The two back ones looked so close
> toghether but you could make out a chain in between the two. The tyres themselves looked about 18
> inches and 2 inches wide. The chain ran flat to the ground, not upright like upright bikes. The
> seat looked to be about 6 inches from the ground and about 1 inch from the back wheel. He had a
> cable in hands which I presume is for steering or brakes.

Not *that* many Delta 'bent trikes (one wheel at the front, two at the back) so that narrows it
down. The most obvious suspect of those I know would be a Hase Kettwiesel: see
http://kinetics.org.uk/html/kettwiesel.html and http://www.bikefix.co.uk/b-kettwiesel.html (latter
has quite a good rear view which may help establish if that was it) but it may well have been a
homebuild.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email protected]
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
My Challenge Mistral handles moderate rough stuff capably with front an rear suspension and 20" fr and r wheels with 1.5" Scwalbe Marathon tyres.

Whilst fixing a puncture on Sunday a Canadian cyclist stopped for a look and said, "I've seen road versions of those before but I've never seen a mountainbike one."

26" wheels would be better off road, perhaps a Challenge Distance or maybe an Optima Orca or Condor.
 
"Peter Clinch" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Gadget wrote:
> > Ok then, this is a better description on what I saw. This 'bent had what look like a 3 wheel
> > configuration. One wheel at the front and two at the back. The two back ones looked so close
> > toghether but you could make out
a
> > chain in between the two. The tyres themselves looked about 18 inches
and 2
> > inches wide. The chain ran flat to the ground, not upright like upright bikes. The seat looked
> > to be about 6 inches from the ground and about 1
inch
> > from the back wheel. He had a cable in hands which I presume is for
steering
> > or brakes.
>
> Not *that* many Delta 'bent trikes (one wheel at the front, two at the back) so that narrows it
> down. The most obvious suspect of those I know would be a Hase Kettwiesel: see
> http://kinetics.org.uk/html/kettwiesel.html and http://www.bikefix.co.uk/b-kettwiesel.html (latter
> has quite a good rear view which may help establish if that was it) but it may well have been a
> homebuild.
>
> Pete.
> --
> Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells
> Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email protected]
> http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
>

Nope, must have been a home build. The wheels on that delta at the back are too far apart. The one
that shot past me had about an inch between the back wheel. And the chain was horizontal.

Gadget
 
Oh and on the mention of horizontal chains this guy's one went into a gear box and an axle came up
between the back wheels from the box.

Oh boy I'd be useless as witness for anything criminal

Gadget
 
Gadget wrote:

> And the chain was horizontal.

Ohhhh... just figured out what you meant by that! I don't know of any production machines with that.
Though I'm certainly not familiar with everything available, most production 'bents are actually
pretty conventional as far as the drive transmission goes as it means you can use standard parts.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email protected]
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
Peter Clinch <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> The most obvious suspect of those I know would be a Hase Kettwiesel

Which was, according to legent, named after the old Geoffrey Bayldon series with the "telling bones"
and such :)

see http://tv.cream.org for more on Catweazle, and other fine examples of televisual entertainment.
 
On 1 May 2003 22:00:27 +0950, Seamus <[email protected]> wrote:

>My Challenge Mistral handles moderate rough stuff capably with front an rear suspension and 20" fr
>and r wheels with 1.5" Scwalbe Marathon tyres.

SWMBO is looking at one of they. What are the plusses/minuses of them? They certainly look nice.

>Whilst fixing a puncture on Sunday a Canadian cyclist stopped for a look and said, "I've seen road
>versions of those before but I've never seen a mountainbike one."
>
>26" wheels would be better off road, perhaps a Challenge Distance or maybe an Optima Orca
>or Condor.

Never thought of that. I'll have to try it. :)
--
DG

Bah!
 
On Thu, 1 May 2003, Gadget <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> wheel. And the chain was horizontal.

I don't understanmd this - all my normal, diamond-frame bikes have chains that are mostly
horizontal. My recumbent also does, but why the repeated statement that this is a
distinguishing feature?

I can't imagine an arrangement in which a chain is other than substantially horizontal.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|
 
Ian Smith wrote:

> I don't understanmd this - all my normal, diamond-frame bikes have chains that are mostly
> horizontal. My recumbent also does, but why the repeated statement that this is a distinguishing
> feature?
>
> I can't imagine an arrangement in which a chain is other than substantially horizontal.

It was gnawing at me at well, then occurred to me that what he meant was the drive chain runs in a
plane parallel to the ground, rather than orthogonal to it. Which, if I've got that right, is very
odd indeed!

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email protected]
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
Ian Smith wrote:
> I can't imagine an arrangement in which a chain is other than substantially horizontal.

You tend to see a lot of vertical chain on front wheel drive bikes, like this one:
http://toxy.wurzel6-webdesign.de/english/produkte/toxy-zr/index.htm

Of course, you'd see a lot more vertical chain if the picture had been taken from the other side.

--
Danny Colyer (remove safety to reply) ( http://www.juggler.net/danny ) Recumbent cycle page:
http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/recumbents/ "He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -
Thomas Paine
 
Was the horizontal chain part of a steering mechanism? i.e. was it a front wheel drive, rear steer,
delta trike?

It certainly sounds a homebuild.

John J http://xntrick.co.uk/
 
Peter Clinch wrote ....
> Gadget wrote:
>
> > I was rather stunned to be over taken by a bloke on slim recumbent. The trail was not the
> > best suited even for my MTB and this guy looked like if he hit another bump the 'bent would
> > throw him.
>
> The only time a 'bent is a liability off-road is if you need to shift your weight around to
> maintain balance. Many trails the only problem per se is a rough surface, but many 'bents have
> suspension

Michael Rogan produces a fully suspended foldable trike, the Swift Adventure. There's a pic at

http://www.mrrecumbenttrikes.com/

I saw it in action at the Oz HPV rally a couple of months ago: a real fun machine. It's not the
'slim recumbent' you saw, but worth looking at.
 
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