"Liquid Drive" bike prototype at auction

wrote:
...
If you put aerobars and homebrew wheeldisks on a typical road
bike, you probably wouldn't be much worse off than with a lowracer
without such enhancements....

Unless it is windy. Due to viscous drag, wind speed increases with
altitude (in the range that bicycles operate in, i.e. less than
10-feet/3-m AGL), so the lower bike will have an advantage, all else
being equal.

In addition, crosswind handling will be much more of a problem with a
full disc on the front wheel with common ISO 622-mm (700C) and ISO
571-mm (650C) road bike sizes than on the common lowracer front wheel
sizes of IS0 406-mm and ISO 451-mm (or smaller).

Tom Sherman - Planet Earth

Carl Fogel wrote:
...
So far, the few that I've seen turn out to
be the inexpensive entry-level recumbents,
apparently EZ-1's, about $500-$700 U.S., far
more than WalMart's entry-level bikes, but
then recumbents are much rarer and more
expensive....

The Sun EZ-1 SC [1] is comparable in build quality and components to an
entry level "LBS quality" bike, so the recumbent price penalty is around
$200-250 US.

An entry level "performance recumbent such as the RANS Rocket [2] is
roughly comparable in frame construction (TIG welded 4130 Cro-Moly [3])
and component selection to an entry level road bike, so the price
penalty is about $400 US.

The price penalty is due to several factors: no recumbent parts groups
(less economy of scale in purchasing parts), a seat that is much more
complicated and time consuming to build than an upright saddle, custom
parts such as steering risers and handlebars (vs. off the shelf stems
and handlebars for uprights), other custom parts such as chain idlers,
more chain, and lower production volume.

[1] Available from any LBS in the US that has a J&B catalog, i.e. almost
all of them.
[2] http://www.ransbikes.com/2003Lineup/Rocket.htm
[3] Bicycle specific tubing is generally NOT available in the diameter
and/or lengths needed for most recumbent designs.

Tom Sherman - Planet Earth

John Foltz wrote:
Vincent Wilcox wrote:

I went for a ride with a local cycling group on a local loop with a
varied route, ie. getting off the road at points. We kept having to
wait for the groups recumbent rider to catch up as he rode the longer
road route because it was impossible for him to lift his bike over
fences and ride on some bumpy offroad track. I imagine he only did it
to increase his mileage.

It sounds like your ride was almost a cyclocross event in places.
Definitely not a good venue for a bike that is essentially meant for
roads only. There is very little public land around here for doing that
stuff, so rather than trespass we stick to the pavement.

It wasn't by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps he was
a wimp recumbent rider?

Carl Fogel wrote:

Dear Tom,

Am I right in thinking that the zippered armhole
in the picture is the faint, dark, descending
curve that goes across your upper arm?

I added armholes after this picture was taken. Armhole slits are
generally very close to horizontal.

And come to think of it, how do you get into
it? It doesn't look as if you could seat yourself
and then pull it back over your head or forward,
so maybe it's stretchy enough to pull up and
get in from the side? Or does the zipper along
the top let you step in from the top?

Entry is from the side - kneel by the bike, duck head under side of
sock, stand up inside sock, lift leg over frame, sit down, zip up.
Egress may be aided by temporarily disconnecting the sock at one of the
lower rear corners.

Do you have a web page for this kind of body
sock? Experience suggests that I'll end up with
hundreds of women wearing leotards while bicycling
if I try to search for it myself.

This is the company that manufacturers bodysocks for Easy Racers (and a
few other bikes).
http://www.bikeroute.com/FreeFormFashions/

Tom Sherman - Planet Earth

meb wrote in message ...
Carl Fogel wrote:
Curiously, your post (like Risto's post), indicates that I'm showing up
in rec.bicycles. misc and appearing in this thread, even if some news
servers have split it off as a separate thread.
Carl Fogel



Risto?s subject line change to a response in the liquid drive thread got
attached to another thread in .tech with the same name as his original
subject change. From that point on the .misc crosspost seems to be
present in the header.

Tom?s subject line change to: recumbent bikes (used to be?) appears to
be what caused a first split forming a new thread. Likewise from that
point on, that portion of the thread has been getting crossposted since
it split off. Any other theory?s or conformation?

Oddly enough, my attempts to change subject in the signature bug test
Saturday went nowhere, apparently because Cyclingforums forces a return
to the responded to subject before propagating to usenet. And that is
inspite of an initial display from cycling forums that a subject change
occurred. Similarly I changed subject yesterday when responding to
Rick?s post showing the cowquadracycle- it forced a change back to the
auction subject line. I wonder if that is a recent change.

It will be interesting to see if a forced subject line to the original
or the resposne and results in this response at the usenet and which
thread it attaches to if other than Carl?s post, or back on the original
liquid drive thread.



--

Dear Meb,

I'm lost. The post to which I'm following up
appeared at the bottom of the thread in
rec.bicycles.tech, perhaps because of my
primitive newsreader? I only noticed it by
accident.

Carl Fogel

Carl Fogel wrote:
meb wrote in message
...
Carl Fogel wrote:
Curiously, your post (like Risto's post), indicates that I'm
showing up in rec.bicycles. misc and appearing in this thread,
even if some news servers have split it off as a separate thread.
Carl Fogel



Risto?s subject line change to a response in the liquid drive thread
got attached to another thread in .tech with the same name as his
original subject change. From that point on the .misc crosspost seems
to be present in the header.

Tom?s subject line change to: recumbent bikes (used to be?) appears to
be what caused a first split forming a new thread. Likewise from that
point on, that portion of the thread has been getting crossposted
since it split off. Any other theory?s or conformation?

Oddly enough, my attempts to change subject in the signature bug
test Saturday went nowhere, apparently because Cyclingforums forces
a return to the responded to subject before propagating to usenet.
And that is inspite of an initial display from cycling forums that a
subject change occurred. Similarly I changed subject yesterday when
responding to Rick?s post showing the cowquadracycle- it forced a
change back to the auction subject line. I wonder if that is a
recent change.

It will be interesting to see if a forced subject line to the original
or the resposne and results in this response at the usenet and which
thread it attaches to if other than Carl?s post, or back on the
original liquid drive thread.



--
Dear Meb,
I'm lost. The post to which I'm following up appeared at the bottom of
the thread in rec.bicycles.tech, perhaps because of my primitive
newsreader? I only noticed it by accident.
Carl Fogel



Carl

At some point Tom changed the subject and the response instead of
attaching to the “ Recumbent bikes (was: "Liquid Drive" bike
prototype at auction)” thread, formed its own new thread. Risto
responded with an attenuated subject to Tom’s thread and it attached to
another thread with the same name. I don’t know if Risto normally cross
posts to .misc, but from that point forward the thread appeared to be
crossposting to .misc. At any rate, it appeared that a subject change in
usenet results in a change of thread lineage.

In the meantime I had changed the subject on a post to Rick to “
Recumbent bikes and cowcycles (was: "Liquid Drive" bike prototype at
auction)”. It initially displayed within cycling forums as posting with
the subject I altered, but later posts showed a change within cycling
forums and usenet. That posted on usenet on “Liquid Drive" bike
prototype at auction.

After seeing this and noticing how the thread had split into three
parts, I responded to Carl’s response to Risto with a subject of “
Recumbent bikes”

Wondering if it would post to the recumbent bike thread in .tech and/or
misc or the liquid drive thread- it double posted to the liquid drive
thread attached to the OP.

Apparently, when a usenet post leaves its original thread, cyclingforums
tracks the posts and derivative posts based on where they should have
stayed premised upon their response parent post rather than where they
actually went per the subject line change. Cyclingforum’s usenet
interface forces the responses to stay with the threads original subject
and directs the post to the original thread. Since the response to which
the post was directed was not in that original thread, it no parent post
to attach so it attached to the OP instead. Since the initial display
shows a post with a successfully altered subject, the forced editing of
the post to usenet and cyclingforums back to the original thread subject
must take place after the initial display in cyclingforums.

Since the recumbent thread to which I attempted to post was for some
reason crossposting, it changed the otherwise posting from a crosspost
to .misc and .tech to threads of the same name to the original thread,
likewise the parent post of the response was elsewhere so my posts
attached to the OP for want of an appropriate place to attach.

While were at it, I’ll try altering this post subject slightly to see if
the same issue is present intra-thread as inter-thread. If so this post
will attach to the OP of the liquid drive thread, if not it will attach
to Carl’s response.



--

Vincent Wilcox wrote:

John Foltz wrote:

Vincent Wilcox wrote:

I went for a ride with a local cycling group on a local loop with a
varied route, ie. getting off the road at points. We kept having to
wait for the groups recumbent rider to catch up as he rode the
longer road route because it was impossible for him to lift his bike
over fences and ride on some bumpy offroad track. I imagine he only
did it to increase his mileage.

It sounds like your ride was almost a cyclocross event in places.
Definitely not a good venue for a bike that is essentially meant for
roads only. There is very little public land around here for doing
that stuff, so rather than trespass we stick to the pavement.


It wasn't by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps he was a wimp
recumbent rider?

I don't know much about cyclocross, but by your own admission it
wasn't entirely a road ride. There's nothing wrong with wanting to
stay on the pavement. I gave up offroad when I came to the
conclusion that I couldn't keep shoveling parts into my mountain
bike fast enough. It was fun (but expensive) while it lasted, though.

--

John Foltz --- O _
Baron --- _O _ V-Rex 24 --- _\\/\-%)
_________(_)`=()___________________(_)= (_)_____

David Reuteler wrote in message m...
In rec.bicycles.tech Kevan Smith wrote:
: That's crazy talk! You're a road racer, not a fred with a beer belly. What would
: Fabrizzio do? That's the motto ....

ryan has long since lost the plot. poor dumb *******.


Dave, I'm not sure what you're meaning there about fab, but we have
determined that bents are pretty much a Non-Event these days.

Was out on some long offseason training sessions over that last month
and you know what?, never saw any of those darn bent thingys out on
the road!