"Liquid Drive" bike prototype at auction

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:48:51 -0600,
, Kevan Smith
wrote:


I like the idea of recumbents, and would love to own a really
aerodynamic, fairly lightweight one.

That's crazy talk! You're a road racer, not a fred with a beer belly. What would
Fabrizzio do? That's the motto ....

Yeah, ask Fab. He knows a bent won't fit in the new van.
--
zk

John Foltz wrote:

: Bikes or riders? I ask because for most tandem couples, they each
: also have their own 'half bikes.' There are about 800 active riders

I was thinking one explanation could have been female mobility.
Ie. in Finland women would have their own bike for
self-sufficiency while in the US they'd ride the tandem to
accompany the male in the family, but I guess this theory flies
out of the window now...

Maybe females over here don't ride with their male that often,
group rides seem to be predominantly male.

Or maybe US people just have the extra money to blow on a tandem?

Why would tandems have a disadvantage in hilly terrain?

--
Risto Varanka | http://www.helsinki.fi/~rvaranka/hpv/hpv.html
varis at no spam please iki fi

In rec.bicycles.misc John Foltz wrote:
: them. Most US recumbents are, at best, the equivalent of riding an
: upright on the hoods. Bike-E in particular, liked to quote recumbent
: speed advantages, glossing over the fact that their design was
: actually *worse* than a typical road bike.

BikeE is hardly a substitute for a road bike.

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.

--
Risto Varanka | http://www.helsinki.fi/~rvaranka/hpv/hpv.html
varis at no spam please iki fi

In rec.bicycles.misc John Foltz wrote:

: Disadvantages of a fairing like mine or the one in the second pic:
: they add 3-4 pounds to the bike, and they have to be removed for
: transport. Mine is designed to come off in less than 30 seconds. The
: clear ones come off by removing 4 nylon wingnuts. While I love
: riding with it, I haven't used it at all this year. Sometimes the
: feeling of riding a lighter bike is good, too.

And in hot weather, they are still providing some extra warmth...

--
Risto Varanka | http://www.helsinki.fi/~rvaranka/hpv/hpv.html
varis at no spam please iki fi

Tom Sherman wrote in message ...
Carl Fogel wrote:

Tom Sherman wrote in message ...

[snip all relevant matter]

[3] http://www.ransbikes.com/Gallery/Archive/Sherman.htm

Tom Sherman - Planet Earth

Dear Tom,

How do you scratch your nose in that
impressive body-sock?

There are zippered armholes in each side for hand signaling and there is
also a zipper along the top of the sock.

Tom Sherman - Planet Earth

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?

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?

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.

Carl Fogel

On 29 Nov 2003 13:50:12 GMT,
may have said:

Why are tandems more popular in some places while not in others?

This year I've spotted 2 recumbents, 3 upright trikes, 1 folding
bike in the wild (only counting sightings in Finland). Don't
recall seeing a tandem ever.

Tandem bikes are not common in the USA either.

A brief list of possible factors:

-- not terribly efficient for one person to ride, particularly in
hilly areas.
-- much more expensive than a single bike
-- both people need to be going to the same place at the same time

In other words, if two people in the same household both ride, it's
far more likely that they'll get two single bikes than a tandem.

There are many other potential reasons as well.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Yes, I have a killfile. If I don't respond to something,
it's also possible that I'm busy.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

wrote in message ...
In rec.bicycles.misc Carl Fogel wrote:

: The recumbents that I see in my little backwater
: in Pueblo, Colorado, must be the equivalent of
: the inexpensive mountain bikes sold at WalMart.
: The riders sit higher, their feet are lower, the
: wheels are larger, and the chain runs seem much
: more straightforward than that Rube Goldberg

Not necessarily, they sound more like touring bents by your
description. Go read some recumbent websites (there's plenty) for
info on all the designs out there :-)

Dear Risto,

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.

Curiously, your post suggests that I'm showing
up in rec.bicycles.misc, possibly through cross
posting or links to previous cross posts. This
thread, for example, is split off in some news
servers, from the original.

Carl Fogel

John Foltz wrote in message ...
Carl Fogel wrote:

Speaking of the body-sock streamlining, I see that your second
bike has the clear plastic snoot often grown by more advanced
specimens of these enchanting creatures.

To be accurate, that is not me nor is it my bike. The Super ZZipper
(tm) fairing on it is so common, it's rare to see one without a
fairing. I have a homemade fairing for my V-Rex (the first picture)
that does a very good job at preventing sunburn on my legs, as well
as provides a significant speed boost on the order of 7-10% at 20
mph. Lessee, here's the project page where I built it, some good
pics of it at the bottom:
http://www.biketcba.org/TRICORR/proj.../fairing4.html

Am I correct in thinking that this nose-cone not only provides
combined streamlining and visibility, but also keeps the wind and
rain from blowing up your pants? I've read of rain being a
problem for touring recumbents, but have seen nothing in the
current thread about rain gear about it. Last year, only two
inches of water fell from the skies here in Pueblo, Colorado, so
my interest is largely theoretical.

Yes, they protect against wind and rain somewhat. More specifically,
they keep the rain off your chest and put it in your face instead.
This isn't the problem you might think; as long as you have riding
glasses the water just flies off after hitting you. But it's not
perfect. Eventually the rider gets wet no matter what. Fairings are
also good for keeping stinging insects away from the rider. And in
more northerly areas, they help fend off the cold.

Disadvantages of a fairing like mine or the one in the second pic:
they add 3-4 pounds to the bike, and they have to be removed for
transport. Mine is designed to come off in less than 30 seconds. The
clear ones come off by removing 4 nylon wingnuts. While I love
riding with it, I haven't used it at all this year. Sometimes the
feeling of riding a lighter bike is good, too.

Dear John,

Thanks for your answer about the fairings. I find
all this stuff fascinating, even though it remains
theoretical for me.

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

In article ,
says...
In rec.bicycles.misc John Foltz wrote:
: them. Most US recumbents are, at best, the equivalent of riding an
: upright on the hoods. Bike-E in particular, liked to quote recumbent
: speed advantages, glossing over the fact that their design was
: actually *worse* than a typical road bike.

BikeE is hardly a substitute for a road bike.

If you put aerobars and homebrew wheeldisks on a typical road
bike, you probably wouldn't be much worse off than with a lowracer

Like this one? http://users.ids.net/~dkerber/cycling.htm

--
Dave Kerber
Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:48:51 -0600, 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 ....

That's aerobelly to you, buster. You wanna take it up with my
aerobelly? My aerobelly will kick your puny ass all over the place!
--
Rick Onanian