"tam" <
[email protected]> wrote
>
> "Tom Sherman" <[email protected]> wrote
>> Complaining does not help, but only encourages the trolls.
Responding to them even moreso. But all posts are trolls (think
fishing technique). It is the quality of the bait and the character
of the fisher that make the difference. The lake does seem
to have its share of AOLs... c'est la vie.
> The recumbent is always going to be an exotic machine--
Perhaps, but it depends on the definition of exotic. Recumbents
do represent only a small portion of the overall bicycle market. But
nothing on most recumbents is particularly 'exotic'. The
BikeE beam and swing-arm design are certainly not standard,
but all of the other part on the BikeE are off-the-shelf,-- as are
most of the parts of my Tour Easy and Volae.
There are arguably many exotic diamond frame (DF), Y-frame,
etc, upright bikes... High-end racing bikes (TdF) resemble
commodity department store bikes only crudely in geometry
and even less so in material and construction.
> [recumbent bikes are] always going to be bulky and heavy.
This is a matter of design and materials. No reason they have
to be *heavy*. Bulky is somewhat of a different matter, but my
SWB Volae is hardly much more 'bulky' than an upright bike.
But it is true, in general that recumbents are heavier and bulkier
than uprights, and more expensive, too. The cost factor isn't
likely to change dramtically, soon, but the EZ line of bikes
has made some in-roads into lower cost recumbent models.
> Astronomically expensive- my present D-I-Y project is
> going to have £300 of carbon in it
Economies of scale may come into play here. But high-end
factory-produced carbon DF frames are not cheap either.
There are some real carbom craftsmen working on recumbent
design and implementation. (NoCom, etc.) Don't know about
light-weight trikes...
> People like me who commute and travel on them love the best of them to
> bits.
> I am fortunate living in Scotland I can fly to bike heavens like Holland
> Denmark Switzerland
> France and my all time favourite Berlin.
I am trying to put together a bike tour in the Netherlands next summer. We
have friends there. I need to look into renting a recumbent bike suitable
for
lightly loaded, but self-supported (no SAG/baggage vehicle) touring for a
week or ten days.
> I am working on the most complex part of my new trike at the
> moment the front suspension
Do you have a website with pictures of your work in progress?
Jon