New Silvio - First ride pass the "Wright brothers test"

[pugwash]

G'day all,

I am the proud owner of a new Silvio. I decided round about three weeks ago to buy one of these bikes, which I have been looking at for years, the Silvio 1.0 impressed me, I thought 1.5 a great improvement, but was unable to resist the 2.0.

Firstly thanks to Eric and Ivan for their build threads. The only issues I hit, were doing up the pinch bolts on the rear carbo yoke, where there is not enough clearance for a standard Allen key, my solution was to grab a 5 mm Allen key and cut it down on the grinder. I also had to remove some paint from the dropouts(this required the full assistance of the assembly crew).

I have had two training sessions, and riding the bike is turning out to be a lot less difficult life thought it would be. I'm restricting myself to a quiet area for the moment but I'm happily riding the bike up and down the road in a straight line from a pedal start. (Hence my wight brothers test, controlled, sustained, powered, flight) I was expecting to take a lot longer to get to this point.

I am loving the bike, and thanks to John and Jim for their assistance.

 

[hamishbarker]

your front suspension seems

your front suspension seems to be completely compressed. Is it pumped up?

 

[pugwash]

I was wondering how long it

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to spot that. I did pump it up when I assembled the bike. Am investigating.

 

[John Tolhurst]

I've been looking and

I've been looking and thinking, why does that look so good. Then I realise that as well as the camera angle, pugwash has lovely white wall tires, and it just lifts an integrates the white highlight on black theme in a subtle balance way. Very nice.

 

[Jeremy S]

Looks like SRAM Rival. We are

Looks like SRAM Rival. We are just about Silvio twins.

 

[Ivan]

Looking good!! Nice to see

Looking good!! Nice to see more Silvios in the family, with quite a few of us choosing SRAM! I am liking my 11-32 WiFli setup. With my 53/39 crank I can pedal and balance up a hill at slowest 7kph now. As I improve I should be able to balance down to 5kph which would be the steepest/slowest I can imagine pedaling up so it seems to be working out for me.

Can you give us a side shot and tell us your X-seam?

I see you let your kids nearer the Silvio than I let mine!

 

[Eric Winn]

Hi pugwash, check the valve

Hi pugwash, check the valve core in the shock body and review the Silvio sticky thread: http://cruzbike.com/silvio-air-shock-retain-pressure

Good looking Silvio. What did you use for your groupset?

-Eric

 

[pugwash]

The group is SRAM rival.

The group is SRAM rival. Gearing 50-34 compact crank set. 165mm cranks. 11-32 cassette. My X-Seam is 41"I will organise another shot with the bike side on.

It is too early for me to make a call on whether the gearing is the right choice, but at this stage it feels good. There are options with a compact crankset to go to 52-36 if I do not have enough at the top end or, change the cassette for something that will give close ratios for riding on the flat here in Perth. The 165 mm cranks do feel better than the 170 mm cranks on my old bike, which does make me wonder if even shorter cranks would be better.

I find Photographing black things a bit tricky, the shot of the bike is deliberately a bit overexposed to bring up some of the detail. I'm glad people are liking the short. Jeremy, I have been using your bike as the example to explain to friends and family what I am getting.

 

[Ivan]

Having ridden my Silvio 2 for

Having ridden my Silvio 2 for a few weeks, the only thing I would have done differently is MAYBE gone for 165mm cranks instead of my regular 170mm. This would be to give my legs a little more clearance with the handlebar. As I have it now my low handlebars mean more difficulty clearing the legs and closer to the body. I am okay now but 165mm would have made it easier.

 

[pugwash]

One week in to my Silvio ownership

I am one week in to my Silvio ownership, and I thought it would be worthwhile to record my progress. The Silvio is my first recumbent, my old bike being a custom-built steel frame with fairly dated equipment including down tube friction shifters. In the last couple of years my riding , with work and new additions to the family, has been spasmodic at best. I suppose this puts me into one end of the spectrum of Silvio owners.

I was expecting a learning curve and to have to take it easy for the first few months. I am aiming to ride every day, even if only for 20 min, to give the brain chance to reprogram itself. My first two rides were simple up and back down the street to practice starting and going in a straight line and generally get some sort of feel for the bike.

After two days I moved to the local net ball courts to start practicing turns and straight-line drills. Nothing particularly structured at this stage again to try to get a feel for the bike in a safe environment. There were some rather random and occasionally wild changes in direction but certainly felt like I was making progress. The following day, being Saturday, the netball courts were unavailable. I was planning a short ride but once on the bike was feeling more confident and ended up doing a 10 km loop along some bike paths and local roads.

Yesterday I went back to the netball courts to do some proper drills. Despite the "unusual" arrangement of a MBB recumbent, it is still a bike, and counter steering works. My drill was to ride in a square pattern with 90 turns and try to stay on the white lines in between. Either a bit of extra pressure on one of the pedals, a flick of the legs/hips or pressure on the handlebars will initiate a turn very quickly. Likewise a little pressure pulling back on the inside bar will make the bike pop backup straight away. (Warning: please note these inputs are really quite small. If you going to try this use common sense and find somewhere with plenty of space and no traffic)

My improvement in one week in terms of bike handling skills is really quite dramatic. I think if you can master a cruise bike, you will be a much better cyclist irrespective of whatever else you might ride. I do think that I am slower at this stage compared to my old DF bike. I can feel my quads are doing a lot of work, as are some of the muscles in my arms and back. At least for me, it will take some time to get "bent legs". Being honest, I think this reflects just how bad my technique was on a DF.

I've only had a couple of short but quite steep hills to impede my progress so far, however I am surprised at the ability of the bike to climb. These short steep grades are a real struggle on the old bike, albeit without the low gearing fitted to the new Silvio.

I had one spill. The Silvio doesn't require padded Lycra shorts however, don't wear anything that can get caught in the drivetrain or, as I discovered, hung up on the quick release lever when you put your foot down. No damage to myself on the bike but..., of course there were spectators.

Damien

 

[Charles.Plager]

Hi Damien,
Nice report.  Keep

Hi Damien,

Nice report. Keep them coming.

If you haven't already, take a look at Kim's Cruzbike Videos. You can also read about my experiences (and some tips) learning here.

I think you've got the right mindset. If you feel like things are suddenly going badly, take your feet off of the pedals and let your arms take over. You'll find that you need to do this less and less very quickly.

Once you've gotten past the first stage, clipping in (or some other form of foot retention) gives a lot of us much more control.

Even more advanced, learning how to ride with no hands isn't a useful skill in itself, but getting there means learning how to master pedal steer.

Good luck and keep up the good work!

Charles