Just over 20 years ago I started designing, buiding and riding recumbent bikes and trikes, three bikes and nine trikes. The bikes were very fast, but not as much fun as the trikes. The first few were pretty rudimentry and had flat back seats, but provided input for design considerations: caster, camber, different steering systems, diffent, size wheels, different gearing and so on. All the early ones were just made from rubbish I found, 5 speed casettes, steel deraileurs and so on. Then I started playing with seating, adding lumbar support, trying different framing, etc.
The white/grey one pictured was in use for about 10 year, made of discarded parts I found, it had a 5 speed cassette at the rear, three speed crank at front and a modified five speed cassette in the middle. This one was a blast, I took my little dogs for a ride on it every day. Eventually the chain and sprockets wore out, so I retired it and hung it from the rafters in my workshop. Hips were shot by this time, so I reverted to an MTB and cut this one up and recycled it.
After hip replacement surgery, I started building and riding again. The two wheeler was the third and last two wheeler I built, I never finished it though, fell off testing it in the backyard, wacking my head on a concrete pot and putting a large gash in my leg, so the wife convinced me to concentrate on tadpole trikes. It sat behind the workhop gathering rust until I cut it up and recycled it. I built another three trikes before quitting.
The last picture is of the last one I built, it sported tank steering, 9 position, adjustanble rear suspension, lumbar support, Deore cycle componentry, adjustable toe in, two degree caster and camber, 20"wheels at the front, 700c wheel at the rear, 42 degree seat back, hydraulic disks, bearinged Delrin chain guides and so on, it weighed in at 19 kgs, same a the MTB I took the componentry from. But eventually age interfered along with RA and I ended up selling it.
The white/grey one pictured was in use for about 10 year, made of discarded parts I found, it had a 5 speed cassette at the rear, three speed crank at front and a modified five speed cassette in the middle. This one was a blast, I took my little dogs for a ride on it every day. Eventually the chain and sprockets wore out, so I retired it and hung it from the rafters in my workshop. Hips were shot by this time, so I reverted to an MTB and cut this one up and recycled it.
After hip replacement surgery, I started building and riding again. The two wheeler was the third and last two wheeler I built, I never finished it though, fell off testing it in the backyard, wacking my head on a concrete pot and putting a large gash in my leg, so the wife convinced me to concentrate on tadpole trikes. It sat behind the workhop gathering rust until I cut it up and recycled it. I built another three trikes before quitting.
The last picture is of the last one I built, it sported tank steering, 9 position, adjustanble rear suspension, lumbar support, Deore cycle componentry, adjustable toe in, two degree caster and camber, 20"wheels at the front, 700c wheel at the rear, 42 degree seat back, hydraulic disks, bearinged Delrin chain guides and so on, it weighed in at 19 kgs, same a the MTB I took the componentry from. But eventually age interfered along with RA and I ended up selling it.
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