I realize that the crank forward concept has been pretty thoroughly
covered, but I don't remember seeing this road test by Professor
Wilson. I'm sure most people subscribing to this group are familiar
with Professor Wilson.
[censored] Ryan
BIKE: Rans Dynamik Trail
PRICE: $1,395.00 plus delivery
CONTACT: I bought my bike through the Hostel Shoppe)
BY: David Gordon (Dave) Wilson
E-mail [email hidden]
QUOTE: "The Dynamik Trail is new for '07 with a suspension fork, disc
brakes and medium-tread tires. The added wheelbase and low center of
gravity bring a new dynamic to off-road cycling, increasing confidence
in corners and steep descents. . . " (Rans.)
INTRODUCTION
Having ridden recumbents happily since 1974 I wanted to try a new type
for what was perhaps a strange reason: I had been trying to build my
dream recumbent for four years, and everything had gone wrong with the
project. My buddy [censored] Ryan visited me to commiserate, and happened
to speak highly of the Rans "crank forward" line. I decided to buy
one, looked up the alternatives on the Rans website and chose the
Dynamik Trail because it was the 'lowest' in the lineup with disk
brakes, which have become essential for me. My wife Ellen had
previously bought me, for a birthday, another Rans recumbent that
didn't work out for me, and she happily gave me another try. It has
been a delightful gift.
The compliment to Rans happened to come just after our eleven-year-old
daughter, on her new bike, raced me up our hill (we live on a hill
with occasional over-twenty-percent stretches) and beat me
thoroughly. I was on my compact-long-wheelbase (CLWB) Viento. Since
getting the Dynamik Trail I have beaten her every time. For an aging
father there can be no higher reason for buying a new bike.
USE
The quote above indicates that Rans believes that the "Trail" offers
advantages for off-road riding. However, the bike comes with almost-
slick Kendra Kwest 26x1.95" tires, which seem to me to be ideal for
biking on the pot-holed streets of the Boston area, and the
instructions state that you can "swap for some skinny, high-pressure
tires and you've got a competent road machine." I've found it a
pretty competent road machine with the Kwest tires as supplied. It
also comes with a RockShox J2 suspension fork, I suppose so that you
can launch yourself from a high rock to a lower one. I have not tested
this capability of the bike. Go do it yourself. At my age I'm lucky
to be able to stand vertically next to the bike.
SEAT AND COMFORT
The seat is listed as a RANS Q.R./Poly, a broad plastic base with a
short curved riser at the back, covered by a black cushioned cover.
The seat can be tilted through a sufficient angle to fit anyone, and
locked with a quick-release. The large-diameter seat tube is held in
the frame by another quick-release bolt. The seat tube has a keyway
running down it so that there is no danger of the seat suddenly
swiveling and dumping the rider. A nice touch is the scale alongside
the keyway so that one can remember one's own setting when lending the
bike to someone else who adjusts it to suit her/him.
The seat was the only item I needed to adjust. The handlebars seemed
to be exactly the height and angle that I would have wanted, and the
brakes and gears were in good adjustment. I have never experienced
this seemingly perfect fit in a long life of bicycle purchases, after
each of which I usually spend a couple of weeks adjusting everything.
And once I had the seat height and angle to suit me it turned out to
be surprisingly comfortable. It's not as sweet as the seat on a full
recumbent, but far more comfortable than my lovely Brooks saddle on
our Thorn tandem. This produces pins and needles in my male areas in
twenty minutes and total numbness soon after, and when encountering
sharp bumps the saddle comes up like a hammer to hit my family jewels
very painfully. Nothing of the sort occurs on the Rans saddle. One's
buns do get fatigued after about forty minutes, but it is easy to jump
to a new position to let the blood flow.
With a seat-tube angle of around 45 degrees one can just about put
one's feet flat on the ground at a stop while having the bottom
bracket at the right distance from the saddle for pedaling.
RIDE AND STEERING
The weight distribution measured with me sitting on the bike in my
normal position is 27.5% front and 72.5% rear. This gives light,
precise steering, and that is a principal component of the ride on any
bicycle. I have always preferred underseat steering in my 33 years of
recumbent riding, the very early years of which were on a very-short-
wheelbase machine with direct steering and with most of the weight on
the front wheel. My present full recumbent has double suspension,
which may have spoilt me somewhat, with connecting-rod steering. The
ball joints on these rods always wear out rather fast, and the
resulting slack in the joints produces sloppy steering. So the
precision of the direct steering on the Rans is very pleasant.
I remember how magical my first recumbent riding was because my body
above the waist could be almost totally relaxed. On the Rans one's
upper body must be fully involved, and one must haul vigorously on the
handlebars when powering up a hill, for instance. I'm a little
surprised not to be bothered by this in any way. One should also be
able to stand up to bounce on the pedals on a hill, but I haven't yet
managed this. It seems like a long lift off the saddle and then a long
way forward before one is over the pedals enough to bounce.
It's a debatable point on whether or not to wish that Rans should
bring out a fully suspended crank-forward model. I keep telling myself
that it's not for my backside that I should want this, but for my
precious laptop behind the seat. If that's the case, I should make a
carrier for it at the well-suspended front of the bike: there's
plenty of room in front of my knees.
A vital part of the "ride" is safety. I first began my interest in
recumbents in the 1960s. Bicycling newsletters reported too many
people who had run into holes or dogs or had something get into the
front-wheel spokes, had gone over the handlebars and had broken their
skulls or their necks. The Rans Dynamik is enough of a recumbent for
there to be no danger of going over the handlebars.
PERFORMANCE
There's no doubt that I am biking faster on the Rans than on my old
CLWB recumbent. But then I remember thinking the same about the CLWB
when I abandoned my beloved Avatar 2000. The problem is that when I
decide to adopt a bike as my principal commuting vehicle, I load on to
it tools, spare tube, tire, lights, gel-cells, chain guards and so on
so that it becomes heavy. At some point I added a Rohloff to the
CLWB, which adds considerable weight and seems to be inefficient in
the lower seven gears.(They are noisy and make the whole bike-frame
vibrate.) Whatever, as the young say, the Rans does move very well.
FRAME
The frame is beautiful. It is of aluminum alloy 7005, which has the
outstanding virtue that welding does not destroy the metal's
properties. The welds are also very well done. Under my now-modest
pedaling forces the frame feels as if it would last for ever. There
are lugs in all the right places, with an exception noted below.
COMPONENTS
All the components seemed to me to be first class. The brakes were
Tektro Aquila Disc, which have so far performed well. The handlebar,
a RANS Flat Bar, and riser, a RANS Mid 5", are well shaped and
handsomely decorated. The headset is a Ritchey Logic Threadless 1 1/8"
SRAM gears are well chosen, at least for me, with a nine-speed cluster
at the rear, covering 17.9-104 inches. I liked the use of a quadrant
on the rear derailleur so that the cable is not required to go around
a tight 180-degree bend as in most derailleurs. The thumb shifters
that can downshift by two cogs with full motion, and triggers for
single-cog upshifts will please most people. The few old folk who ride
this bike will find the thumb shifters very painful because of the
arthritis that afflicts the thumb joint of almost everyone over 65.
At some time I will shift to twist-grip shifting. These have the
additional advantage that one can upshift by two or three cogs when
making a fast start. The crankset is a Truvativ Blaze 44/32/22 with a
Microshift front shifter, and they are fitted with Wellgo pedals.
The RockShox J2 front fork worked well even in my bumpy-road commutes.
I bought a rear rack for the bike, and it came assembled on the bike,
well engineered. (This was a relief, because the previous Rans bike I
had tried could not be fitted with a rack, at least not by Rans.)
During ordering I also tried to buy mudguards (fenders), but was told
that the Dynamik could not be fitted with mudguards. So I fitted a
pair myself. It involved drilling a small hole in the middle of the
front-fork bridge, and using a hose clamp on the right fork leg to
carry the mudguard stays. I recommend that Rans get lugs put on the
RockShox forks and have a hole made in the fork bridge. Not all
riders regard a line of mud up our bodies and head to be a sign of
some sort of freedom. Also there are no obvious places for front and
rear lights.
The advertised weight is 30.2 lb. The weight of my bike with
mudguards, the RANS rear rack and a plywood piece on the carrier to
help cushion my laptop is 37.5 lb. The wheelbase is 49.5" and the
overall length is 75.5", virtually identical to my CLWB recumbent
(which has 20" wheels vs. the 26" wheels on the Rans.).
RECOMMENDATION
In comparing this with full recumbents that I have ridden it has some
advantages. In the rain one can wear a poncho (a cape in Britain) as
one can on a DF bike, which is delightful compared with pulling on
separate pants and jackets and getting overheated in them. One can
also see behind one without the mirrors needed in a full recumbent
position. The bottom bracket is sufficiently higher than on a DF bike
that one can pedal around corners without danger of the pedals or
one's heels hitting the ground. One's ability to see traffic coming
from near-side driveways and roads might be a little better than on a
full recumbent. Whether one can be seen better on the CF Rans than on
a regular recumbent is debatable. I have never subscribed to the
frequently stated shibboleth that recumbents can't be seen as well by
other road users. It is easier to maneuver around and through doorways
and corridors than is a full recumbent.
On the other hand, I would miss the supreme comfort of full recumbency
on a long ride. Also the wind resistance is undoubtedly higher.
All in all, the RANS crank-forward bike is an excellent commuting,
shopping and comfortable road bike, is probably very good on not
overly demanding trails (one can use "body English", though not so
much as to permit the magnificent vertical leaps that skilled riders
can perform on mountain and BMX bikes) and it is a very fine
introduction to recumbency for those who hesitate to take the full
plunge.
RATING: 4.5
FOR: safety from over-front-wheel headers and from pedal groundings;
highly maneuverable; good visibility; excellent braking, gearing;
superb craftsmanship, assembly and finish; my speed is higher on this
than on my regular recumbent.
AGAINST: high wind resistance and somewhat less comfort than with a
full recumbent; I would like to have lugs for mounting fenders and
lights.