Recumbent bikes

My wish for a recumbent has started with the cover of the book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit. I had never seen such a bike before, I kind of fall in love with Tom Poppendieck's trike. Then, as a Python (The programming language) user, one of my web search drove me to the Python bike. I found that building a bike was not out of reach.

So I have started building bikes during the summer 2007, trying to find the best suited for my needs. I would like to have a recumbent for every day use (and get rid of the car), easy to ride in the city even at low speed and in narrow paths, able to cary goods (using a trailer if necessary), able to cary my 15 months old daughter, comfortable to ride, not afraid of rain and wind, and able to ride on bad lanes / country side. I think a tadpole trike is the answer but have not yet started to build one.

I gave up the project to build a tadpole trike, and have acquired a WizWheelz TerraTrike Tour which commute us every day since mid November. My current "projects" are to build a 26/26 bent with front drive and a delta velomobile (also with front drive).

Python short wheel base low racer

The first one is a Python (without its pedals that are for the moment shared with the marauder). It is a hell of a bike to ride for the moment. This is the main reason why I moved to build the marauder.

images/python.jpg

Marauder long wheel base Low racer

The marauder has been designed by http://www.atomiczombie.com, and is not too hard to build. I thought that if I was not able to ride the beast I could modify it to a Wolf Trike (which was not necessary). I have a new wheel for the back with disc brake to install, and still have to weld the front speed changer. After those final modifications, a good paint should be the final touch (for the moment).

images/marauder.jpg

The bike is quite long, and even if I am 186 cm tall, my legs may be short (as the pedals are not close to the front wheel as expected). It took only two attempts in order to be able to ride the bike.

This second attempt does not satisfy me neither as it does not go every where I need (bad turning circle) and too low for carrying my child with enough security. It is nevertheless a very nice bike to ride.


Wed Aug 15 21:03:43 CEST 2007