Fraser Ro-Bike Part 1

 

Ro-bike at home , mid bungy cord repair

The stickers on the bike....

prove its definitely a ro-bike and not a rowbike or any other ridiculous misspelling

My first test ride was ..

on the street out the front. The repaired bungy cord snapped soon after this was taken (Noooooooo!)

from 1982 Canberra Times article, see link below

Fraser recumbent from a Canberra bike museum Catalogue- as well as the Ro-bike, there were tandem ro-bikes, a recumbent and some giraffe unicycles.

My friend Aki

This worked to fix the bungy cord - Auto shop bungy cord grafted onto $2.00 shop ocky strap ends, and prevented from coming off with screwed and glued 3d printed parts.

Old bungy Cord

Clutch

My photo of the Fraser recumbent from an Canberra

Hi

Although I have ridden recumbent bikes as a means of transport for many years, I don't buy many. Some are given to me and I pass them on, but the last one I bought for myself was a Perfomer which I bought in 2011 (see here and here ) . Mostly I ride ones I've built and am very happy with my current one.

But a Fraser Ro-Bike came up for sale on ebay, and I noticed it, and then a friend asked questions about Fraser Ro-bikes on facebook, and then my friend Aki (who has one) pointed the ebay ad out to me on his phone. As well I did some internet digging and found a long informative Canberra Times article about the ro-bikes here (click on Life Style People) The signals were mounting up and I eventually succumbed and bought the bike advertised on ebay. If it needed any extra justification, I had been "good" and had sold or given away 3 recumbents in the last few months. 

The Ro-bike sale was via ebay auction which finished on a Sunday afternoon. Nobody had bid on it in the weeks it had been for sale, and I didn't think there were any lurkers or bidnappers but you can never be sure. So I put a bid in just before the auction rolled over again and a few hours later I had picked it up from Narrewarren. It turns out that a bike friend Ivan was selling the ro-bike, and I had filmed him on it years ago (link to video in this blogpost)

When I got the bike home, I found it needed a bit of work. Firstly, the elastic cord which retracts the chain after the pull stroke was stuffed, and secondly the clutch didn't work. Just pouring mineral turps into the clutch made it work, and then after a couple of tries with the bungy cord the machine was ready to go. 

Changing gears is done by raising (lower gear) or lowering (higher gear) a metal link on a serrated rack on the oscillating part of the bike. This takes some practice! You can't pull the link forward to disengage because that would mean you would be driving the bike along with your hand. Instead you can move the oscillator back to disengage. 

The bike is ok on the flat, shockingly slow up hills, and with only one rear brake precarious downhill. With only intermittent power (pushing legs forward, pulling arms back) the bike slows down on the reverse stroke, and you then have to accelerate it again!

Another characteristic is that you can choose to apportion different amounts of leg and arm power in each stroke. At first I was putting in too much arm power and had sore shoulders at the end of riding, similar to what I experienced with my Cruzbike Quests. With later session I was more used to the rowing action and didn't strain my arms.

My first test ride was out on the street when the bungy cord failed, and since then I have been over to my son's place (about 2k each way, I wiped out my poorly designed light mount on the way) and then on a laden 4k each way ride yesterday

Overall its a lot of fun! 

 

Test ride! Yes I am all disheveled and you can comment on that if you want. I liked a recent doco where Rachael Ward was laughing at all her detractors.