Home built recumbents?

I had the chance to test ride a easy racer recumbent while shopping
for a new ride the other day. I had never riden a bent before but I
loved it! But my wallet can't afford the price tag of the ones I have
seen. But I could afford plans to build one at home. Has anyone ever
built a bent at home from plans they got over the net? If so how did
it work out? I am fairly mechanically inclined (have rebuilt a couple
of cars in the past) and I think that I could handle the "building" of
a bent.

Ken

live-free wrote:

I had the chance to test ride a easy racer recumbent while shopping
for a new ride the other day. I had never riden a bent before but I
loved it! But my wallet can't afford the price tag of the ones I have
seen. But I could afford plans to build one at home. Has anyone ever
built a bent at home from plans they got over the net? If so how did
it work out? I am fairly mechanically inclined (have rebuilt a couple
of cars in the past) and I think that I could handle the "building" of
a bent.

The least expensive places to find donor tubing and components are bike
shop dumpsters, curbside trash, and thrift stores.

The greatest challenge may be the seat, as many manufacturers spend as
much building the seat as they do for the frame, and homebuilt seat are
often less than satisfactory.

Links posted on a recent thread:

http://www.ihpva.org/Builders/
http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisil/
http://www.recumbents.com/mars/pages/proj/spol/Tom/projspolTom1.html
http://www.mile43.com/peterson/weezlow.htm
http://home1.gte.net/kfics/bikes.htm
http://www.recumbentcyclistnews.com/pdf/RCN.Homebuilder.pdf.

--
Tom Sherman

live-free wrote:
I had the chance to test ride a easy racer recumbent while shopping
for a new ride the other day. I had never riden a bent before but I
loved it! But my wallet can't afford the price tag of the ones I have
seen. But I could afford plans to build one at home. Has anyone ever
built a bent at home from plans they got over the net? If so how did
it work out? I am fairly mechanically inclined (have rebuilt a couple
of cars in the past) and I think that I could handle the "building" of
a bent.


Havent built it yet, but here are the plans.

http://members.aol.com/domerie/bentech.htm


--
Mark Wolfe Lakeside, ca http://www.wolfenet.org
gpg fingerprint = 42B6 EFEB 5414 AA18 01B7 64AC EF46 F7E6 82F6 8C71
Rule the Empire through force.
-- Shogun Tokugawa

(live-free) wrote in message om...
I had the chance to test ride a easy racer recumbent while shopping
for a new ride the other day. I had never riden a bent before but I
loved it! But my wallet can't afford the price tag of the ones I have
seen. But I could afford plans to build one at home. Has anyone ever
built a bent at home from plans they got over the net? If so how did
it work out? I am fairly mechanically inclined (have rebuilt a couple
of cars in the past) and I think that I could handle the "building" of
a bent.

Ken

******************************************

I built my first red 'bent from a set of easy racer plans that I
bought in about 1982.

There are pix of it and a couple of others that I have built since
then on my Webshots album http://community.webshots.com/user/tirush

Hope this helps.

Lewis.

****************************

"Tom Sherman" wrote: (clip) The greatest challenge may be the seat, as many
manufacturers spend as much building the seat as they do for the frame, and
homebuilt seat are often less than satisfactory.(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I ran across a guy a while back with a home-built recumbent. It was
obviously home-built--almost on the crude side, but appeared to be very
rideable. His seat was an injection molded plastic kitchen chair--the kind
that is form-fitting around the butt and back. It appeared to be quite
comfortable, and it was certainly very light.

(live-free) wrote in message om...
I had the chance to test ride a easy racer recumbent while shopping
for a new ride the other day. I had never riden a bent before but I
loved it! But my wallet can't afford the price tag of the ones I have
seen. But I could afford plans to build one at home. Has anyone ever
built a bent at home from plans they got over the net? If so how did
it work out? I am fairly mechanically inclined (have rebuilt a couple
of cars in the past) and I think that I could handle the "building" of
a bent.

Ken

Easy Racer-ish plans are available:
http://www.wisil.recumbents.com/wisil/plans/plans1.htm

Here's a couple more places to look:
Bentrideronline hosts a homebuilders forum:
http://www.bentrideronline.com/
http://www.bentrideronline.com/messa...splay.php?f=12
Recumbents.com has lots of resources, particularly within the WISIL
and MARS club pages:
http://www.recumbents.com/home.asp
http://www.recumbents.com/wisil.htm
http://www.recumbents.com/mars/

And the IHPVA has many random resources and hosts mailing lists:
http://www.ihpva.org/
some are he
http://www.ihpva.org/Builders/

A couple friends of mine rode from Portland, Oregon to Boston in 27
riding days, averaging 125 miles per day. One was riding a homebuilt
Tour Easy clone. Here's his journal: http://www.ohpv.org/mea/intro.htm
..

Jeff

live-free wrote:

I had the chance to test ride a easy racer recumbent while shopping
for a new ride the other day. I had never riden a bent before but I
loved it! But my wallet can't afford the price tag of the ones I have
seen. But I could afford plans to build one at home. Has anyone ever
built a bent at home from plans they got over the net? If so how did
it work out? I am fairly mechanically inclined (have rebuilt a couple
of cars in the past) and I think that I could handle the "building" of
a bent.

Ken

Another set of plans for a tour-easy clone is at
http://home.flash.net/~staudt/bike.htm

Steve@LongBeachCA

Leo Lichtman wrote:

I ran across a guy a while back with a home-built recumbent.

Did he sue your pants off?!?

Bill "slow night" S.

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:37:48 GMT, "Leo Lichtman"
wrote:


"Tom Sherman" wrote: (clip) The greatest challenge may be the seat, as many
manufacturers spend as much building the seat as they do for the frame, and
homebuilt seat are often less than satisfactory.(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I ran across a guy a while back with a home-built recumbent. It was
obviously home-built--almost on the crude side, but appeared to be very
rideable. His seat was an injection molded plastic kitchen chair--the kind
that is form-fitting around the butt and back. It appeared to be quite
comfortable, and it was certainly very light.


Here's my homemade bike ( http://geocities.com/throwaway888/ )
I commute every day with it and have put at least 11,000 kilometres on
it since building it. This winter I'll be adding studded snow tires.
Should be fun!

wrote:

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:37:48 GMT, "Leo Lichtman"
wrote:


"Tom Sherman" wrote: (clip) The greatest challenge may be the seat, as many
manufacturers spend as much building the seat as they do for the frame, and
homebuilt seat are often less than satisfactory.(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I ran across a guy a while back with a home-built recumbent. It was
obviously home-built--almost on the crude side, but appeared to be very
rideable. His seat was an injection molded plastic kitchen chair--the kind
that is form-fitting around the butt and back. It appeared to be quite
comfortable, and it was certainly very light.



Here's my homemade bike ( http://geocities.com/throwaway888/ )
I commute every day with it and have put at least 11,000 kilometres on
it since building it. This winter I'll be adding studded snow tires.
Should be fun!

One of the probable reason the bike rides well is it has proper weight
distribution. Too many SWB designs make the mistake of having a long
boom to minimize foot/wheel interference, which results in the front
wheel being too heavily loaded, leading to inferior handling and braking.

--
Tom Sherman