8000 mile report

[moose]

I'm just droping a line to say that of today I have 8000 miles on my kit bike. The components that came with the kit have been trouble free and I have had only a loose headset from going off jumps and banging around on rough streets. I had 9 recumbents when I built my Cruzbike and now just have a VRex and my Cruzbike. I don't ride the Rex much anymore. The cruzbike has been a great bike. I could'nt get by without one.
Best wishes........
Moose

 

[Mark B]

moose wrote: I'm just droping a line to say that of today I have 8000 miles on my kit bike. The components that came with the kit have been trouble free and I have had only a loose headset from going off jumps and banging around on rough streets. I had 9 recumbents when I built my Cruzbike and now just have a VRex and my Cruzbike. I don't ride the Rex much anymore. The cruzbike has been a great bike. I could'nt get by without one.
Best wishes........
Moose

Way to go, Moose!

Time for a Silvio, huh?

Mark

 

[Nanda H.]

That's good to hear Moose, got any photo's? As they say, a picture is worth 1000...miles :lol:

 

[Rick Harker]

Moose,
8ooo miles is, well... Phew!

What do you do in your spare time? I don't think I've ridden that far in the last 5 years.

Maybe if I had a Silvio I might (hey Mark!).

But from owning a Sofrider for the last few weeks the more I ride the greater I like it.

Regards,

Rick.

 

[John Tolhurst]

Hello Moose, nice you found our new forum.

Let me introduce Moose to other readers by this thread, which gained over 3000 reads at BROL.
http://www.bentrideronline.com/messageboard/showthread.php?t=7527

Best,
John Tolhurst

 

[moose]

John............I stand behind everything I have ever said about the FWD concept. Wht you have done in just a short couple of years is remarkable. I can see a real cult of FWD fans starting and it would not have happened without your design concept. The sliding front bracket is remarakable. I have tortured my kit no end and have found it to be super tough. At 6'6" and 250 pounds I can really pound a bike riding where I ride ............which is anywhere. The fact that your compnents are like new after all these rough miles just about says it for your quality of work.
Best wishes for your future growth!
Moose

 

[MrSteve]

That long, ancient thread over on BentRiderOnLine was a blast to read!
Very informative, on several levels.
Well-worth the investment in time to read.

I'm almost tempted to mount knobby tyres on my Sofrider V1!
It can climb anything the wheel will will grip;
my gravel driveway is unclimbable ... by a Cruzbike shod with the standard tyres.
-But I won't, as my bike spends all the rest of it's time on pavement,
so knobbies would be a bad investment for me.

Anyway, thanks, J.T., for pointing the way to Moose's thread.


-Steve

 

[JonB]

yakmurph wrote: I'm almost tempted to mount knobby tyres on my Sofrider V1!
It can climb anything the wheel will will grip;
my gravel driveway is unclimbable ... by a Cruzbike shod with the standard tyres.
-But I won't, as my bike spends all the rest of it's time on pavement,
so knobbies would be a bad investment for me.

What if you get Schwalbe Furious Fred or Racing Ralph?

 

[moose]

Right now I am running a 2" up frount and a 1.50" armidillo in the rear. I get better grip up front with less drag on the back. I am a recreation/utility/touring rider so speed is secoundary to being able to ride anywhere. Most days I ride below 16 miles per hour with the mix of surfaces I ride on. I have found most folks that just ride to ride really could care less about speed and more about being able to go into an area, or on a surface they would'nt take a top end bike, for fear of breaking a part. I have never been a racer so It just is'nt important to me. I have noticed when I ride my VRex that my climbing has improved since riding my Cruzbike for so many miles. Something transfered over to my Vrex climbing tech. that just was'nt there before. I do still climb in a whole chain ring above my Rex when I climb on my Cruzbike........so I guess I developed power that just was'nt there before. I climb faster with the 2" up front then when I ran both 1.50".
Moose

 

[Kamatu]

yakmurph wrote: -But I won't, as my bike spends all the rest of it's time on pavement,
so knobbies would be a bad investment for me.

Why? The bigger tire to help you get up that gravel hill will also help you build up your wind and muscles, like running with extra weights on. Then when you swap it out for a weekend ride on pavement for the skinny tire will make it seem like you are flying.

 

[Doug Burton]

Good onya, Moose!

 

[MrSteve]

Aw, c'mon guys!

I'll wear the stock tires out before replacing them.
They've already been rotated, as the front was developing a noticeably flat profile.
That's with about a thousand miles of wear.

Have you run knobbies on the street?
Can you say, 'noisy'?
Not for me: you may love it; you can have it.

Speed?
It's addictive.
I'm a long-time speed junkie.
The faster I go, the farther I can travel in a given block of time.
This works for me.
Ask any Silvio owner/operator...I can't afford the Beast myself,
so, my Sofrider is slowly morphing into a 'mid-racer'.
(Not a high racer and not a low racer. Therefore, a mid racer.)

Besides, this is the first -hopefully not the only- post that Moose
shared with us here.
I did not mean to hijack this thread!

Moose has his seat farther forward, for more weight over the drive wheel;
he has a relatively wide tyre up front;
Moose is, um, a Moose -more weight over the drive wheel;
he rides on a much wider variety of surfaces than I choose to.

The Cruzbike is incredibly versatile.

Can Cruzbike ice racing be far off?!
:lol:
-Steve

 

[JonB]

yakmurph wrote: Aw, c'mon guys!

I'll wear the stock tires out before replacing them.
They've already been rotated, as the front was developing a noticeably flat profile.
That's with about a thousand miles of wear.

wasnt Sheldon Brown against tire rotating?

yakmurph wrote: Have you run knobbies on the street?
Can you say, 'noisy'?
Not for me: you may love it; you can have it.

Then get schwalbe Furious Fred, the knobs are all on the side of the wheel.

 

[moose]

My bike dose not resemble y bike in the picture on the Cruzbike site. My seat is several inches back now and the seat post I had has been replaced with a post with several degrees of bend in it. The front tire is slick in the middle so it rolls smooth on paved surfaces. I have gull wing bars repacing my straight bars and have bolted racks under my seat to hold panniers. My seat to begin with was too far forward to be safe........and at Johns suggestion I moved it further back. I really can not say how much the 2" front hurts me on speed since I do not care to push the bike very fast. When I had the 1.50's front and back I had the bike above forty downhill several times.
I have fat tires on My Vex also.........cuz I want to ride it just about anywhere. If I wanted to be as fast as possible I would, of course, run thin 100 psi tires on all my bikes. Each person rides for their own reasons..........that has been the great attraction to me for the past 55 years of riding my bikes.........slow or fast ones.
Moose

 

[Hotdog]

JonB wrote:
wasnt Sheldon Brown against tire rotating?

Yep, he was.

Quote:
Then get schwalbe Furious Fred, the knobs are all on the side of the wheel.

Sheldon wasn't a big fan of such 'combination tread' tyres, either. On hard road surfaces they are quieter (and slightly faster) in a straight line than full knobblies, but when you lean the bike into a corner onto the knobs there's a sudden introduction of squirm and loss of grip just when you least want that to happen, which is potentially dangerous. Unfortunately it's just not possible to make a tyre that's good for both hard and soft surfaces, I think most people are better off using either full slicks or full treads and simply switching between the two depending on where they're going to go riding.

 

[MrSteve]

JonB wrote:
wasnt Sheldon Brown against tire rotating?

Yes...but:
He's referring to the good ol' standard diamond-framed rear-wheel-drive safety bicycle.
He was not referring to the bicycle design we ride, the torsion-beam-framed front-wheel-drive recumbent bicycle.

I rotated my tyres.
The rear tyre is now mounted on the front drive wheel.
Right where good ol' Mr. Brown wanted the best tyre mounted: on the front wheel. Which, in our case, happens to be the drive wheel as well.

The worn front tyre is now mounted on the rear wheel.
Right where good ol' Sheldon wanted the worn tyre mounted: on the rear wheel. Which, in our case, happens to be the wheel that serves to keep
the rear chassis from plowing a trench into the planets' surface.

I ride on the street.
I have never enjoyed cornering on knobbies.
The mere thought of doing so makes my delicate road-rash-sensitized skin squirm.

-Steve

 

[moose]

The cruzbike requires a different way of thinking for me. FWD has changed the the way I look at bikes. I can try different things with this bike that I could'nt with a df or a rwd recumbent. I did try sraight knobbies on my cruz at one time when i was riding in gravel 95% of the time last summer. As I swicthed over to riding a little bit of everywhere this past several months I tried 1.50's front and back.............but would shred my front tire in just a few miles. I had a left over tire hanging in my garage from riding in South Dakota. It was a tire with knobs on the outside of the tread and a smooth center. At 65 psi it really is'nt a slow tire at all. It works well enough in gravel and is fast enough in town. The grip is excellent. The back tire dose not create as much drag as would a 2". I just thought I would try it.........and it turned out to be a good thing for me.
On my rwd recumbents my front itre would be bigger then my rear tire many times.........just to survive my weight on railroad tracks and such. This is'nt any differnt except I did it this time to gain more traction. So now I get the added traction with the extra cush of the 2" tire. Yesteryday I rode on a crushed bike path, forest trail, pavement,and gravel road.
Moose

 

[TallBill]

Moose: are you the same person who is very tall, who some time ago asked about the Verano, and also about tall bike options?

I have an X-Seam about 51", and wonder which bike you use. Have you tried a sofrider, did it work?

Thanks.

 

[moose]

Bill I ride a kit bike with the extra large front triangle. I love the bike! I am the same person you ask about on bentrider. My outseam is only 48 1/2", even though I am over 6'6". I would email John at Cruzbike and ask about your length. I have found him to be a really honest person.
Moose