Re: Why Do People Fall Down?

frkrygow@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 aka Frank Krygowski wrote:
> On Oct 28, 12:59 pm, Tom Sherman <sunsetss0...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> frkry...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 aka Frank Krygowski wrote:
>>
>>> On Oct 27, 5:17 pm, Tom Sherman <sunsetss0...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>> Ride a well designed tadpole trike for an extended distance. You will
>>>> either get it, or you are a lost cause. ;)
>>> Perhaps the one hanging in my garage isn't well designed... but the
>>> original owner rode it on only a few occasions before giving it up for
>>> his normal bike.
>> More details - what exactly is it?
> 
> We don't know the make.  It was apparently a low-production custom
> from the mid or late 1980s.  The original owner is now deceased.

Hard to make a judgment on whether this trike is generally 
representative of other trikes from that information.

>>> The next owner took only a couple test rides and stored it in his
>>> basement.
>>> The guy he gave it to passed it on to me.
>>> My wife, a couple friends, and I each took our turns at test rides.
>>> For all of us, it failed the test.
>>> The low-racer configuration seems good only for "toy" use.
>> Seems, as opposed to actual practice? Plenty of people ride low seat
>> trikes and lowracer re***bents on the road. The very oddity of it
appear
>> to make drivers give one more room when passing.
> 
> Well, none of us was willing to ride it through town traffic.  Getting
> a bag of groceries was out of the question.  And in general, the vast
> majority of low-racer types don't seem to go for utility use.

My lowracers and trike come with built-in racks that will carry two (2) 
standard panniers and a "trunk" bag. They are also capable of pulling a 
trailer. I am aware of at least one person that uses a lowracer as a 
"market" bike.

That being said, the more performance oriented lowracers are not 
practical, but neither are CFRP uprights that lack the clearances for 
fenders and rack mounting points.

>>> The
>>> turning circle is inconveniently large (you can't do a U-turn on a 20'
>>> road)
>> I have never found this to be an issue.
> 
> It was an issue for my wife.  She rode it in our neighborhood, tried
> to do a U-turn at a quiet intersection, ended up nosed into the curb
> facing downhill, couldn't go forward, couldn't reverse (it has no
> reverse gear), and had to struggle mightily to get out of the thing.
> And she's quite slim and fit.  She vowed never to use the thing again.

Reverse can be had by grabbing the front wheels and rotating backwards, 
or pu****ng on the ground with one's feet in a normal tadpole trike. I 
have no idea about Frank's mystery trike, however.

>>> The need for three tracks through the potholes, plus it's
>>> low visibility, seems risky for the roads, and the extra width makes
>>> it inconvenient on MUPs.
>> Again, the "seems" risky.
> 
> Well, it's not uncommon for riders of conventional bikes to prefer
> upright, not drop bars, for city use.  If they reject drop bars due to
> the 3" drop in eye height, how would they feel with a 48" drop in eye
> height?

I thought it was the inclination of the head that was the issue, not the 
minor decrease in head height - this is the first time I have ever heard 
the latter being a reason for upright bars on a city bike. One of the 
benefits of a re***bent is being able to combine an aerodynamic position 
without having one face turned towards the ground.

>> As for width, most trikes are no wider than
>> the bars on the average ATB - are those too wide for the MUP?
> 
> I just measured.  My road bike bars are about 16" wide.  My mountain
> bike bars are 20" wide.  The trike's front track looks like 27".  (I
> didn't take it off the ceiling to get a precise measurement.)  It's
> significantly wider.

Those are rather narrow ATB bars - my Trek 6000 handlebars are about 25 
inches wide.

>>> And of course, you'd better have a pickup
>>> truck to take it anywhere.
>> Or a Honda Civic (works for my trike).
> 
> It's possible.  I know a guy who carried his upright base fiddle in a
> Civic.  Can we agree that most cars would have trouble carrying this
> machine?

No. A roof rack with the proper channels would work on most vehicles.

>>> It's interesting as a design exercise.  But that's its only virtue,
>>> from what I can tell.
>>> So I suppose the whole crew of us are lost causes!
>> Indeed. Preconceived notions are hard to overcome.
> 
> :-)  Sorry, dude.  I'm describing what the original owner, plus
> several of my friends, actually perceived.

Again, with a "mystery" trike that has exactly what resemblance to 
typical 21st Century trikes?

> I've seen the pro-re***bent preconceptions before - the disbelief that
> anyone could try a re***bent and prefer an upright.  But I've known
> many people who bought them, rode them, then abandoned them.  The
> original owner of this machine was unique among my acquaintances only
> because his was a trike - and the most expensive machine of the
> abandoned re***bents.

Almost all re***bent riders started out on uprights. The reverse case 
would be rare indeed. Which group is more likely to suffer from 
misconceptions?

> That doesn't mean they're not fine machines in their own way, and it
> doesn't mean that some people won't love them.  Re***bent
> proselytizers just need to recognize that the machines don't meet most
> riders needs - and it's not merely for lack of people trying them!

And upright riders would be best if they left their case as not having 
any interest in re***bents, rather that promulgating misconceptions.

In the real world [1], do not comment on the bicycles of others, unless 
invited, then everyone can be happy. How hard is that?

[1] As opposed to Usenet.

-- 
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
When did ignorance of biology become a "family value"?