Blogroll

Hi

Over a little while I have been noting a few other Blogs of interest, hope you enjoy these sites as much as I do.

Bentupcyclingjournal is frequently updated and provides information about trikes and trike riding, but I particularly enjoyed this post.  When Rohan Dennis recently broke the UCI Hour cycling world record, it made the press big time but little or no information about the restrictions on bikes is given in most articles. And us recumbent rider types get upset. Bentupcyclingjournal puts the whole argument quite concisely, Thank You. PS The hour world record is held by a highly unlikely speedbike, the rider Francesco Russo is on his back, head forwards and looking up into a mirror to see the road ahead and steer and balance.  But he's one of us guys.

Type Velomobile, Cake, Germany into your search engine and you end up at the wonderful, gentle website of Auntie Helen. Like it a lot.

And lastly, a few months ago, Aiden McHaffie lives in the UK and bought one of my cycling books late last year.  He is building a recumbent trike and here is his blog.  Not so prolific of late but at one stage, he blogged every day for a year.

Regards

Steve Nurse

iLean mk2 - on the road

Out at our local park in the morning, on the 2nd test run of the pocket rocket ilean.

 

At this time of day the park is populated by dogs, dog walkers and people on strange human powered vehicles taking self-timer photos on digital cameras.

Hi

Posting a few photos of my new, smaller lighter version of an ilean trike.  It works but is a bit slow and can't carry anything, and I will work on fixing that over the next few days, swapping out wheels and tyres, widening the back axle and adding a tailbox.

Regards

Steve Nurse

iLean mk2 - pocket rocket

Starting the build of the new ilean with some fairly snazzy bits.  The aluminium frame shown here was built for one of my Big at the Front Bikes, and the start of that bike build is detailed here. With a bike using an identical frame, I completed the Murray 1200  (1200km) 4 day Audax ride.

The wood and steel parts at the back hold a bottom bracket shell mounted to the frame.  Here I have varnished the wood (laminated and glued 6mm plywood) and brazed the raw steel bottom bracket to its mounting plate.  The mounting plate has been machined so it is square to the bottom bracket and is in good alignment when mounted on the timber.

All mounted in the frame.  An old bike tube was cut up and with this on either side of the wood, it is a snug fit in the alloy frame.  The adapter is screwed into the frame using the centre 3 holes, and the holes at the end are for knocking the timber adapter out of the frame.

 

Slightly more routine work, brazing v-brake bosses to each side of the fork. The front derailleur is already mounted on the fork, a while ago I wrote a procedure for this process.

 Hi

A few weeks ago, I started to build a new ilean trike, and as I write, it is rideable and on the road. 

Do you ever see those cooking shows where the chef (very annoyingly) skips over vast hours spent baking and covering things with cling wrap and leaving it in the fridge by brandishing an almost finished product and saying "Here is one I prepared earlier".  In an ilean trike building sense, I am the same as that annoying chef, I have stuff I prepared earlier, and just use it on my current builds. More will follow shortly!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Monostay Bike, What Next?

Lasercut Steel flat, to be folded into a monostay.

Schematic of steel Monostay on bike

Loopwheel from ......

England, an in-wheel suspension system.  The bike wheel you get when too much bling on your bike is really not enough.

Loopwheel schematic

Original, short-lived monostay bike.

Hi

For a while, I have been building bikes and have been in the position of being able to build what sort of bikes I like within reason.  If something fails on a bike I build, there are few consequenses beyond a loss of dignity.  Its not an aeroplane or a space rocket, you just pick yourself up and move on back to the drawing board.  This is what happened recently with my monostay bike. 

The last one didn't work for long, and I've set about making new alternatives monostay long wheelbase recumbents.  Not content with one approach, I am going forward with 2 separate approaches!

1.  Loopwheel Lwb.   A fascinating 20" bikewheel called a loopwheel has been championed by Velovision.  After lots of negotiation including a few phonecalls to England I purchased a loopwheel for a monostay, which is usually used on recumbent trikes.  Initially I wanted to make a rigid bolt-on swingarm for an existing frame to hold the loopwheel but now thing that making an entirely new frame entirely of plywood is the go.  (Note that a suspension bikewheel can also use the pantour hub)

Last week I started a design master's degree at Monash University with my principle subject the development of the ilean trike.  It's too early for me to make brand new ilean trikes for my masters degree yet, but I can certainly do a bike as an informative limbering up exercise!  I intend to use a few new-to-me construction techniques on the bike, which should be fun and informative.  I like the "one sheet boat" concept, why not have a one sheet bike? 

2. Steel monostay.  The last monostay bike had a wooden piece and lasercut steel bosses supporting the back wheel, but on that construction the wood wasn't strong enough.  So a fully lasercut piece might do the job, and I've designed one and had it made.  Not sure when I will have a chance to put this version of the bike together!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Cruzbike version of ilean.

An old cartoon showing a relaxed recumbent riding position.  If low stress riding is one of the aims of recumbent cycling, then that aim has been met by Maria Parker on the Cruzbike version of an ilean trike!

Hi

Late last year, after much emailing, quite a bit of argy and lots of bargy, I built and then sent some new bike parts to Jim Parker of Cruzbike.  These parts made up an adapter set to convert front wheel drive Cruzbikes to an ilean type trike, and included the rear wheel shafts detailed in a previous post.

My first version of an ilean is shown here on a 200k ride in November 2013, possibly the first long distance ride on one of these machines.

In late December last year I saw some videos Jim had taken of the trike and they mirror my feelings about the vehicles with the wheelset, they add stability to a bike!

So, anyway, as you may now know, Cruzbike have now installed and tested the ilean trike kit and are calling their version the Ttrike as per this blog post.

There has been a bit of discussion of the Cruzbike trikes on a few bulletin boards, here are a few links to some examples.

Bentrideronline.  Lots of it!

From a German list, Translation courtesy Google translate.

From the US, I aim to join this forum as they have some techy stuff on it.



Cruzbike forum, Now includes comments from Jim Parker on performance of the trike at a Human Powered Racing America meeting, as well as a link to the results spreadsheet for the meeting

From Brazil , a bit more perspective in this report, which seems to be from a general bike site, not a recumbent bike site.  The photo of the fully laden cruzbike clone is a wonderful thing. Someone on the forum did something very sensible, writing a summary of the trike performances at the HPRA meeting mentioned above in kph.

Facebook posting of video

French Discussion, Translation Courtesy Google Translate

Last night I wrote to Vi Vuong, the starter of the whole ilean thing and his comments were:

"Hi Steve,

Thanks for the link. It is a pleasant surprise that Cruze Bike is embracing our work. Hopefully the module will be offered as an inexpensive option, for any FWD bike.   It should encourage more recumbent adoption.

I have been riding bikes on the street a lot.  Monitoring and dodging cars is no fun...  Probably will get back on the trails with the trikes soon.

Cheers, Vi"

He is a gentleman and a scholar!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Cruzbike mk2

Start point was a folding bike which Stu gave to me. (Thanks Stu) In this photo, the forks and wheels have been changed, and an old steerer stem is in place ready to be modified.

The bike is almost "a natural" for the conversion process, as the water bottle bosses on the main seat can be used to mount the seat base without the use of messy hose pipe clamps.

This is the modified steerer stem in place, it converts a 1" diameter steerer to 1 1/8" or thereabouts.  A 1 1/8" tube was brazed on top of the 1" steerershown in the top photo.

Off - Piste modification.  I moved the seat as far back as it would go and drilled a few extra (lower) holes in the seat back to make this work.  As well I cut back the seat base, so it wouldn't interfere with the bike's hinge.

So this is mk2 ready to be tested.  When the seat is moved back, and the pedals are readjusted for correct leg length, the pedals move up.  This is good, I am very used to bikes with a high bottom bracket which are aerodynamic and can go a bit faster.

Hi

Over the last few days I have been making a mk2 Cruzbike from the kit I received a few months ago.  After flexing my muscles with mk1 a few weeks ago and receiving a suitable donor bike, it was time to do a faster version.  As well, I had already stolen some parts from the mk1! 

Getting the front wheel setting right was interesting, without careful adjustment, the front wheel can bang into the top of the fork, the chain can bang into a fork boss, the brake pads get out of range for contact with the rim. And every setting change affects fork offset and handling!

So this bike has been ridden a few times but not yet mastered, and obviously there will be more tweaking.  I am looking for Zen-like handling, with fast riding and pedalling without the irritating diversion of putting hands on handlebars.  Yes, I know, dream on......

Regards

Steve Nurse

Bev and Barnie

Bev and Barnie on a recent visit.

Hi

Our friend Bev has been round a couple of times in recent days.  The first time was to introduce us to her new friend, Barnie.  Barnie is a dog.

Barnie was previously called Arnie but is now called Barnie, because Bev has another friend called Arnie, and calling the dog Arnie just got too confusing.  And Barnie doesn't mind, "Barnie or Arnie, what the heck, I get fed and walked and stuff " I imagine him thinking.

Barnie is 9 1/2, which is sort of middle aged for a dog, and her previous family couldn't keep her because he lived with Mum after all the kids had left home and Mum had moved to an apartment with slippery floors and other dog-not-very-friendly features.

Bev rescued Barnie from death at a dogs home, and he goes to a good life.  Bev lives next door to a family who has a dog, and she already looks after their dog sometimes and has a dog door between her place and theirs. So now things are even more dog heaven at her place.

Barnie's previous owners sent a postcard from his old life to Bev.  Here is the link.

Bon Voyage Bev and Barnie!

A Surfboard Trailer

An Echidna (middle foreground), seen on a surf-check trip on the Ilean trike.

Some of the previous lives of the wheels of my latest project were.....bought new as a Speedsail (gotta love the website!) board....as an "unsafe at any speed" home-made skateboard principal trike as shown above....as another surfboard trailer..... and lastly

...... as a Monsterbike inner trailer, which had been rather abandoned until recently.

Latest use for the wheels, another surfboard trailer.  I started making the trailer to carry the board.......

 fin-down, but abandoned that plan for....

..... a fin-up alternative.  The bits of wood on the timber lift the board up so the board does not rest on its legrope

There is a plate with a slot in it for the fin.  This plate bolts on over the fin and some bits of allthread rod.

So this is it in use, for the moment at least it is a walking trailer and just hangs on to the fin end.  The fin up design means the wax doesn't melt on the way to the surf, as well the rocker of the board bends in the right direction for an ergonomic hand hold.  Not that the surfboard trailer eqivalent of a "blocky" is walking around the house dragging the thing.

Hi

I have been lucky to have January off away as holidays at the beach and have spent some of the time making a trailer to make it easier to walk my surfboard to the local beaches.  I used an old set of wheels on a steel frame, and its come out ok, I even put it into use.  The trailer forms a board stand, so the board can stay on the trailer and lean against a wall when its in the garage, the trailer only needs to come off at the beach or when it goes on the car. 

Local beaches are about 1k away and you can walk to them, and the trailer makes it easier.  But I'm not sure about adding on to the trailer (and making a bike trailer) and going to the nearest beachbreaks  which are 3 - 9k away.  I can usually use a car and there is a choice of being exhausted when you get home from a surf or exhausted exhausted when you ride to the surf and back carrying a surfboard on a bike trailer!

Regards

Steve Nurse