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Old September 5th 08, 06:05 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent
Chalo
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Default BikeE?

Jon wrote:

Chalo wrote:

Jon wrote:

Chalowrote:
to say nothing of reliable, for an actual cyclist.


What is an "actual cyclist"?


Someone who actually rides actual bicycles, often and long enough to
have a good sense of what a bike actually does.


How about more than 15,000 miles of recumbent cycling?
Is that an actual cyclist?


No, it's a recumbent cyclist. Just like riding a unicycle 15,000
miles would not give someone much of an appreciation of the handling
qualities of a bicycle, riding a 'bent doesn't by itself give the
rider a sense of the capabilities and characteristics of a normal
bicycle.

'Bents seem to be in a state of development comparable to where normal
bicycles were in the 1870s-- there is no real consensus as to the best
configuration for a 'bent, and nobody has yet succeeded in making one
that clearly demonstrates the inferiority of other basic designs.
Enough time has gone by that the evidence now suggests a two-wheeled
'bent cannot be made as stable, maneuverable, consistent, or precise-
handling as the average normal bike.

But you tell me, what does a bike "actually do"?


In the context I originally used that phrase, it was tautological. A
bike actually does what a bike actually does, which a non-cyclist
doesn't understand because he or she does not ride. When folks who
don't ride set out to design "solutions" to a bike's "problems", their
designs are often nonsensical and usually create new real problems.

In the context you an I are now discussing, a normal bike actually
does some things a 'bent does not. A normal bike, in its design speed
range, automatically does a lot of the work of balancing itself and
its rider without active input on the part of the rider. When 'bent
riders (whose bikes don't do this work) design new bikes, the new
bikes inevitably lack this important self-stabilizing quality which
constitutes the main reason a conventional bicycle layout is
conventional.

How was BikeE design not reliable? (implementation had its
glitches with some recalls for forks and swing arms, etc...)


It is reliable in that you know with absolute certainty that you are
completely hosed if your hands leave the grips for a fraction of a
second.


How come my son and wife, and many other riders have fallen
for exactly that reason on while riding upright bikes?


Clumsiness? Bad bike design? Fork mounted backwards? Who's to
say?

*That much I know from trying to make a BikeE CT my around-
town transportation during my first stay in Seattle.


I'm certainly willing to believe that for some people, perhaps
many, for some applications, a BikeE CT wouldn't be the best
bike. *All bicycle designs represent compromises. *Are there
upright bike designs better suited for self supported touring
than others? *Are there upright bike designs better suited
for gravel roads or muddy trails than others?

Where do you "tweak" a bike that handles like you're
trying to ride it backwards?


I never experienced a feeling of "handles like you're
trying to ride it backwards" on my BikeE.


Again you offer no meainingful support for the assertion
that the BikeE "handles like you're trying to ride it backwards".


The BikeE is violently unstable. Its front end has an intrinsic
tendency to whip to the side and dig in at an oblique angle from the
direction of travel. If this were allowed to happen at speed, it
inevitably would result in a crash. The range of steering angle
within which it does not try to flop the front wheel one way or the
other is so narrow as to be like balancing on a knife edge.
Increasing speed does not have a pronounced stabilizing effect on the
BikeE as it usually does on a poorly configured, unstable but
otherwise normal bike.

Since you may be lacking in recent experience with normal bikes, I'll
point out that a well-configured normal bike is self-stabilizing when
moving in the forward direction, and self-destabilizing when moving
backwards. That is what I mean when I say the BikeE handles like you
are trying to ride it backwards. Nowhere in the riding envelope do
the bike's intrinsic steering characteristics displace the rider's
active intervention in keeping the bike upright.

If there were true, how is that so many people found it so
easy to ride mine the first time without any problems?


I managed to ride a BikeE all over Seattle without crashing it. That
is _not_ the same thing as the BikeE being easy to ride. I have
ridden this bike I made all over Seattle and elsewhere without
crashing it, too-- and anyone who has tried it can tell you it is not
a sweet-handling contraption:

http://datribean.com/chalo/images/x-plain1.jpg

In my opinion, it handles about as well as a BikeE.

I think that folks who have inured themselves to the handling
deficiencies of recumbent bikes, just like those who have gotten used
to chopper bikes, swing bikes, tallbikes, unicycles, etc., tend not to
see their preferred machines as ill-handling or lacking in
capability. They come to judge their rides of choice by a separate
standard, which is appropriate. But judged by empirically observable
criteria (time required to learn, turning radius, no-hands capability,
dynamic stability, ability to maintain a constant radius through a
turn, "stall speed", bump reaction, etc.) there is no real comparison
to be made between novelty machines like choppers, unis, and 'bents
versus normal, technologically mature bikes of conventional layout.

Chalo
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