Front Wheel Drive Recumbent

Keith Wootten said:

Has anyone tried this...

http://www.cruzbike.com/

... I have to admit, I'm tempted to try it. It looks like fun.

Though not particularly more fun than all sorts of other options,
including the Dutch Speedbike if you want to build from a "donor".

Since the quality of the thing you end up with will depend a lot on the
quality of the donor bike, and since a decent full sus MTB costs Real
Money (TM) and probably isn't a Y frame in any case, I think if you just
want a cheapish 'bent you can build from a donor that the Speedbike
would be better.

If you just want a FWD 'bent there are various commercial options available.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

in message <[email hidden]>, Keith Wootten

(') said:

Has anyone tried this...
http://www.cruzbike.com/
... I have to admit, I'm tempted to try it. It looks like fun.

You might look at this, which seems a tad better engineered:
http://www.dutchbikes.nl/uk.htm

I haven't tried either.

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Simon Brooke said:

in message <[email hidden]>, Keith Wootten
([email hidden]'😉 wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Has anyone tried this...
http://www.cruzbike.com/
... I have to admit, I'm tempted to try it. It looks like fun.

Quoted message said:

You might look at this, which seems a tad better engineered:
http://www.dutchbikes.nl/uk.htm

Quoted message said:

I haven't tried either.

That looks rather a lot more work than the Cruzbike though. And while
the drawbacks of full-sus 99quid supermarket specials are well known, I
get the impression one of the major ones (pedal energy being wasted in
bounce) are in fact overcome by the Cruzbike FWD arrangement.

Are there any significant advantages / drawbacks to a FWD bike over an
RWD one?

In article <[email hidden]>,

Pyromancer () said:

Are there any significant advantages / drawbacks to a FWD bike over an
RWD one?

Plus: shorter chain = lighter drive train
Minus: traction on wet or loose surfaces not as good for FWD

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meeting with Jacques Chirac, smelling of alcohol, and with body language
suggesting a total disregard for the rights of ethnic minorities, lone
parents and laboratory animals=3F?

Pyromancer said:

Are there any significant advantages / drawbacks to a FWD bike over an
RWD one?

I would have thought that it would be difficult peddaling at the same
time as negotiating a sharp corner on a front wheel drive, as the pedal
movement would be a different direction to the natural leg movement.

For an extreme example, look at little children struggling on their
tricycles. (I've only ever seen one rear-driven child's trike. I
think it was older than the parent, but the child couldn't half go!).

PhilD

--
<><

Pyromancer said:

That looks rather a lot more work than the Cruzbike though. And while
the drawbacks of full-sus 99quid supermarket specials are well known, I
get the impression one of the major ones (pedal energy being wasted in
bounce) are in fact overcome by the Cruzbike FWD arrangement.

I can't really see why FWD should be any better than rear in this
respect. The main problem with suspension of cheapy y-frames is the
basic sus units are cheese and poorly specified and designed cheese at
that. A lot of the excessive bob you get in Y frame "MTBs" is, I
suspect, due to basically no damping in the shockers...

Quoted message said:

Are there any significant advantages / drawbacks to a FWD bike over an
RWD one?

Good: less length of transmission, generally with no need for idlers, so
the drive should be a little more efficient and easier to keep in trim.

Bad: the transmission is made less efficient any time you turn the
steering as you either have to bend the chain sideways (if the cranks
and front wheel are not on the same bit of frame) or bend your legs
sideways (if they are on the same bit of frame); there is more chance of
loss of traction on steep hills with FWD; usually very ugly :-(

Some people have suggested the "obvious" answer to the sideways bending
of chains/legs is steer the rear wheel and while this is fine in theory
a Mike Burrows answer to "why don't people do this?" query in C+
suggested that theory aside, practice usually involved such machines
being ridden by folk called Koko with big feet and red noses.

In practice, as with many things 'bent, either approach can be used to
make a good bike and it's just one factor in many that combined with all
the others will make a diamond, a pig's ear, or (more often) something
between.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Pyromancer said:

Are there any significant advantages / drawbacks to a FWD bike over an
RWD one?

I would have thought that it would be difficult peddaling at the same
time as negotiating a sharp corner on a front wheel drive, as the pedal
movement would be a different direction to the natural leg movement.

For an extreme example, look at little children struggling on their
tricycles. (I've only ever seen one rear-driven child's trike. I
think it was older than the parent, but the child couldn't half go!).

PhilD

--
<><

I had a rear wheel drive trike when I was a little little boy. It had a bread bin type
thing as a boot, and iirc it was sky blue in colour. And istr that I had a presed steel
peddle (or perhaps scooted) motorbike think. But my first real bike was a Rehiely with a
bend in teh top tube. It was gold and red I think.

paul said:

I had a rear wheel drive trike when I was a little little boy. It had a bread bin type
thing as a boot, and iirc it was sky blue in colour.

Mine was red.

--
Dave...

dkahn400 said:

paul said:

I had a rear wheel drive trike when I was a little little boy. It had a bread bin type
thing as a boot, and iirc it was sky blue in colour.

Mine was red.

Mine was yellow with a red bread bin.

John B

John B said:

dkahn400 said:

paul said:

I had a rear wheel drive trike when I was a little little
boy. It had a bread bin type thing as a boot, and iirc it
was sky blue in colour.

Mine was red.

Mine was yellow with a red bread bin.

John B

Mine was red and the bread bin fell off. I could go it on two wheels.
--
Cheers
the.Mark

Quoted message said:

I had a rear wheel drive trike when I was a little little boy. It had a bread bin type
thing as a boot, and iirc it was sky blue in colour. And istr that I had a presed steel
peddle (or perhaps scooted) motorbike think. But my first real bike was a Rehiely with a
bend in teh top tube. It was gold and red I think.

Yeah, mine was blue too. I used to scatter dried earth on the bends of
the paths in my grandparent's garden so I could skid (drift?) round
them. Developed a BAD habit of stopping by riding into solid things
(fortunately grew out of this one), which eventually straightened the
front forks and did not improve the steering - happy days 😉

squeaker said:

Yeah, mine was blue too. I used to scatter dried earth on the bends of
the paths in my grandparent's garden so I could skid (drift?) round
them.

Come to think of it, I don't remember ever having a tricycle. I had a
purple mini-Chopper type thing with stabilisers, then I had a black bike
that I learnt to ride on. It was the same bike that my mum and all her
brothers and sisters learnt on. My sisters and most of my cousins
learnt on it, too. There's a picture of it here:
<url:http://www.colyer.plus.com/danny/cycling/>

I guess I really need a trike now, to make up for the lack in my childhood.

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dkahn400 said:

paul said:

I had a rear wheel drive trike when I was a little little boy. It had a
bread bin type thing as a boot, and iirc it was sky blue in colour.

Mine was red.

So was mine, but I think the bread bin was white? Was in about 1950, so my
memory is hazy....

I used to take it to bits and put it back together again - the first time I
did it my mum was horrified, but it always went together again ok.

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"Danny Colyer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Come to think of it, I don't remember ever having a tricycle. I had a
purple mini-Chopper type thing with stabilisers, then I had a black bike
that I learnt to ride on. It was the same bike that my mum and all her
brothers and sisters learnt on. My sisters and most of my cousins learnt
on it, too. There's a picture of it here:
<url:http://www.colyer.plus.com/danny/cycling/>

I guess I really need a trike now, to make up for the lack in my
childhood.

Most definitely - although my trike was sold on once I'd deemed to have
outgrown it, my friend still had his lurking in an outhouse when we were in
our early teens. The amount of pleasure we got from riding it on two wheels
and down a steep grassy embankment behind his house was much greater than
that from our bikes.

I wouldn't mind a racing trike though I suspect, because of my porkiness,
I'd impose too much lateral force of the wheels when cornering and end up
doing some impressive unplanned but entertaining manoeuvres.

John B said:

dkahn400 said:

paul said:

I had a rear wheel drive trike when I was a little little boy. It had a bread bin type
thing as a boot, and iirc it was sky blue in colour.

Mine was red.

Mine was yellow with a red bread bin.

I (well, my little bro, so I used it a lot ;-) had a quad pedal car with
a handbrake; I could pull handbrake turns on loose gravel, until the day
I rolled it. :-)

R.

Danny Colyer said:

I guess I really need a trike now, to make up for the lack in my childhood.

Yes, it's about time you had something other than a boring upright
bicycle. :-)

--
Dave...

dkahn400 said:

Yes, it's about time you had something other than a boring upright
bicycle. :-)

You're so right :-)

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In article said:

Some people have suggested the "obvious" answer to the sideways bending
of chains/legs is steer the rear wheel and while this is fine in theory
a Mike Burrows answer to "why don't people do this?" query in C+
suggested that theory aside, practice usually involved such machines
being ridden by folk called Koko with big feet and red noses.

Even in theory it's quite tricky to get right, though I believe the rear
wheel steering of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion was later absolved of
responsibility for its fatal crash. It's useful for maneuverability on
dumper trucks and forklifts, but there are good reasons that higher
speed vehicles don't generally use it (at least not alone - steering
the rear wheels as well as the front is another matter, and would
reintroduce the sideways bending if done on a bike).