Zebee Johnstone wrote:
> In alt.rec.bicycles.re***bent on 02 May 2008 01:44:09 GMT
> jobst.brandt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<jobst.brandt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> I've seen nay re***bents with a small front wheel and cranks and
>> pedals forward of that wheel. These units will endo easily while the
>> rider remains firmly in the seat. The advantage is that the rider, if
>> a bit agile, will land on his feet running. The bike does not fare as
>> well as it overturns and scraped the road.
>
> Will they?
>
> I've been hard on the picks (front disk even!) on my Giro 20 going
> downhill. The back (v-brake) skidded, so I let up, I did my damndest
not
> to lock the front, and didn't (riding a motorcycle has some advantages)
> but the thing showed no sign of an endo I could feel.
>
Since this is a Giro 20, it should be noted that the front wheel size is
ISO 406-mm, which is relevant, since the effectiveness of a disc (or
drum) brake increases with decreasing wheel diameter.
> Indeed, trying same when I first got the disks didn't get me anywhere.
> Locking the front is hard to do when you have trained for years not
> to, so maybe I wasn't trying hard enough. Never felt a massive weight
> transfer forward, nothing like pulling a stoppie on a motorcycle (which
> I have done more than once).
>
See other posts about the rider's legs providing bracing against the
rider moving forward.
> If they will "endo easily" then I must be dreaming...
>
> So I have to ask... have you ridden one? Have you managed to endo it?
>
The anti-re***bent "experts" don't need no steenkin' test rides!
> If so, how? What did it feel like, when did the weight transfer get so
> over rather than forward (hard transfer on a bent feels qualitatively
> different to hard transfer on an upright to me), and how fast did you
have
> to go, and how fast were you going when you managed to get it to go
over?
>
Back in the early days of the 20th Century re***bent revival (e.g.
Hypercycle, the never produced Avatar 1000,) the designers mistakenly
thought that some heel/wheel overlap needed to be avoided. Therefore,
the boom was made very long and the rider was seated almost over the
front wheel. This led to too flexible booms which made climbing and
acceleration poor, poor handling - especially when hitting bumps at
speed , and the bike rotating forward about the front wheel contact
patch under hard braking.
Modern short=wheelbase re***bent sensibly trade off some heel overlap
for proper weight distribution and have none of the above flaws.
However, some of the "experts" tried the earlier designs 25 or 30 years
ago and have closed their minds to later improvements.
--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful
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