FWD 'bent

Lewis,
Looks nice! I have not built a Traylor, but I designed and built my
own moving bottom bracket front wheel drive bike. It is a lowracer
that I call the atomBLASTER. If you have not seen it, have a look
here:

http://www.geocities.com/atombikes/blaster.html

I have a question about the front end detail on your bike. The
dropouts on the front fork; did you shape those yourself? Is the front
fork shortened? What are the two cables on the front wheel going to?

Oh, another question. How much trail does the front end have? The
head tube angle appears to be around 60 degrees?

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>>

I have a question about the front end detail on your bike. The
dropouts on the front fork; did you shape those yourself?
<<<<<

Yes, I made them but, as this is still a prototype, they aren't
'finished out'.

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>>

Is the front fork shortened?
<<<<<

Yes, the fork is shortened. It was made for a 700C wheel and my wheel
is a 26".

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>>>

What are the two cables on the front wheel going to?
<<<<<<

I'm using a Rohloff, 14-speed hub and the cables you see are shifter
cables.

Thanks for sharing your very interesting website.

Kind regards.

Lewis.

******

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>>

Oh, another question. How much trail does the front end have? The
head tube angle appears to be around 60 degrees?
<<<<<

You're pretty close.

The angle is 65 degrees and the trail is 4 1/2".

Kind regards.

Lewis.

******

Someone's selling this, built, for $150 in a recent issue of RCN.

Quoted message said:

I'm in the process of building a Front Wheel Drive 'bent, from a set of
Tom Traylor's plans
( http://traylorfwd.home.mindspring.com/bike_plans.html ) and wondered
if any of you have done this, too?

http://fwd-bent-update-03-12-06.blogspot.com/

Kind regards.

Lewis.

********

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Someone's selling this, built, for $150 in a recent issue of RCN. <<<

Well its obviously not _THIS_ one.

Lewis

*****

I too am wondering how many Traylor plans-built front wheel drive
recumbent bikes there are out there? Seems the plans have been
available since the early 80's? You would think there should be a
decent number of them built, if it's anything like the Toureasy clone.

http://www.geocities.com/atombikes

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>Someone's selling this, built, for $150 in a recent issue of RCN. <<<

Well its obviously not _THIS_ one.

Lewis

*****

Right, so, just as an FYI to folks, this is also available
already-built, and, if it works, etc., for a great price!

Quoted message said:

Well its obviously not _THIS_ one.

Lewis

*****

atombikes said:

I too am wondering how many Traylor plans-built front wheel drive
recumbent bikes there are out there? Seems the plans have been
available since the early 80's? You would think there should be a
decent number of them built, if it's anything like the Toureasy clone.

http://www.geocities.com/atombikes

Wow, they've been around that long?

Wonder how they work, then...if someone's selling one for just $150!

NYC XYZ said:

Wow, they've been around that long?

Wonder how they work, then...if someone's selling one for just $150!

I met Tom Traylor back in the '80's, when I was building recumbent
trikes. He was a fixture of the Los Angeles Recumbent Riders then, and
probably still is.

Tom built his own bikes and sold plans- he never sold bikes. Tour Easy
clones were/are more popular due to the fact they had factory (semi-)
approval.

A homebuilt Tour Easy might sell for $150, too, if it had cheap
components and/or the owner wanted to unload it quickly.

Jeff

Jeff Wills said:

I met Tom Traylor back in the '80's, when I was building recumbent
trikes. He was a fixture of the Los Angeles Recumbent Riders then, and
probably still is.

Tom built his own bikes and sold plans- he never sold bikes. Tour Easy
clones were/are more popular due to the fact they had factory (semi-)
approval.

A homebuilt Tour Easy might sell for $150, too, if it had cheap
components and/or the owner wanted to unload it quickly.

Jeff

Hmm! So how much does it really cost, at least in materials only, to
build the "typical" 'bent? Or any given 'bent, really, then...I mean,
these things sell for $$$$, but it sounds like they probably only cost
a few hundred in materials?

Just curious -- I'm happy paying for service and peace of mind, believe
you me!

NYC XYZ said:

Hmm! So how much does it really cost, at least in materials only, to
build the "typical" 'bent? Or any given 'bent, really, then...I mean,
these things sell for $$$$, but it sounds like they probably only cost
a few hundred in materials?

Just curious -- I'm happy paying for service and peace of mind, believe
you me!

Believe you me- I'm the *last* person you should ask about money! I
lived my life out of a checkbook until I turned over my finances to my
wife. She gives me an allowance. :-)

There's probably the same amount of raw material in a $500 Sun EZ-1 as
in a $2900 HP Velotechnik Street Machine. The difference comes in
economies of scale- as a WAG, I'd say that there's 100 times as many
EZ-1's built as there are Street Machines. This affects the price of
*everything* throughout the supply chain- from purchasing of materials,
ease of manufacture, marketing, after-sale service, etc. What you
*should get* for the extra money is *superior quality* throughout- in
fabrication, in personal contact with the builder, in careful service
by the dealer.

Or, to put it another way, you could spend the same $2900 on a used
Trek Madone and have a bike that's far lighter than a Street Machine.
It would also look and function exactly like the 10,000 other Trek
Madones out there. If HP Velo could build and sell 10,000 Street
Machines, I'd bet the price would come down to under $1000. If
recumbents were built in the same quantities that GM produces pickup
trucks, they'd sell for $100 each... if that.

In fact, if you want to reduce them to their raw materials (16 pounds
of aluminum, 8 pounds of steel), the typical recumbent should only cost
you $17. The difference in price comes in the labor necessary to change
that chunk of ore into a bicycle.
(Commodity prices at
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/Pnk_0306.pdf)

So- what was the question again?

Jeff

Jeff, did you ever have a chance to ride one of the Traylor plans built
FWD bikes?

Lewis, How did you bend your front fork to accomodate the drive wheel?

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Lewis, How did you bend your front fork to accomodate the drive wheel?
<<<<

Send me $15.00 if you view this.

http://limeyley-l.blogspot.com/2006/03/prototypes-of-my-machines_114164209288274694.html

Lewis.

******

atombikes said:

Jeff, did you ever have a chance to ride one of the Traylor plans built
FWD bikes?

Nope. Bikes are rarely long enough for me to test ride comfortably (I'm
6-foot-4). This is an exception:
http://www.ohpv.org/albums/pir2003/testride/pages/zach005.htm .

In fact, the only FWD 'bent I remember test riding was the Cal Poly
Velox Solium: http://www.ohpv.org/albums/bm2004/velox/pages/velox5.htm
.. It didn't fit either: my knees angled outside of the ends of the
handlebars. I was riding it successfully after two false starts- a
testimony to Bill Patterson's theories on steering geometry.

Jeff

Quoted message said:

I'm in the process of building a Front Wheel Drive 'bent, from a set of
Tom Traylor's plans
( http://traylorfwd.home.mindspring.com/bike_plans.html ) and wondered
if any of you have done this, too?

This looks interesting, but I'm a little puzzled by the claim:

"The front-wheel drive gives it the ability to climb as well as a
standard bike and much better than other types of recumbents."

Why would front wheel drive offer any climbing advantage?

And if this is a false claim, is the rest to be believed?

Rich

Hi, Jeff, on this link it describes this machine as having:-

"The head angle is 76 degrees and there's some negative fork offset in
order to give it 1 3/4" of trail."

http://www.ohpv.org/albums/bm2004/velox/pages/velox5.htm

I put these figures into a 'Rake/Trail' program, Wheel dia. 24.4, Head
angle 76 degrees, Trail 1 3/4" and got a _positve_ (not negative) Rake
of 1 1/4"

Do I have a screwed up spreadsheet?

Kind regards.

Lewis.

*******

Quoted message said:

Hi, Jeff, on this link it describes this machine as having:-

"The head angle is 76 degrees and there's some negative fork offset in
order to give it 1 3/4" of trail."

http://www.ohpv.org/albums/bm2004/velox/pages/velox5.htm

I put these figures into a 'Rake/Trail' program, Wheel dia. 24.4, Head
angle 76 degrees, Trail 1 3/4" and got a _positve_ (not negative) Rake
of 1 1/4"

I've cc'd Lew already, but...

It's a 20" Continental Grand Prix- actually closer to 18" in diameter.

I plugged 18" diameter (9" radius), 76 degree head angle, and -0.5"
offset/rake into the recumbent.com calculator:
http://www.recumbents.com/wisil/trail.asp#Actual%20Trail%20Calculator
and came up with 2.75" of trail. That's pretty good for a high-speed
machine like the Velox Solium. They topped out at about 60mph, and it
was
easily rideable at parking lot speeds.

Jeff Wills

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Make plans now to attend the Portland Human Power Challenge:
http://www.ohpv.org/PIR/index.htm
and the Recumbent Retreat:
http://www.recumbentretreat.org/
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