Our Three T50 Builds, and Maybe a Sofrider Retro-fit

NeaL

Guru
It's got three rings on the crank (I haven't counted teeth yet), nine on the outside of the rear hub (again, haven't counted) plus three internal gears. That's 81 gear options! I'm going to need some time to study and practice riding this thing.

If you've ever seen footage of a huge bull walrus moving itself across a coastline, I've been using that comparison with a beached whale in describing my experiences riding my Sofrider: I have too much of my own body mass working against me.
I couldn't pump my legs fast enough going up hills to keep from falling over. That's not a problem on a trike; as long as you're pedaling you'll keep moving up and forward.

I believe this will be enough for the first stage to get me commuting to work, eventually touring, and gradually to race fitness.
Trike-> Sofrider-> S40-> V20.
 

NeaL

Guru
Great choise in a trike, that could climb a mountain with an effective 22T front chainring, AND without the increased chain tension using the SRAM Dual drive hub!!!

Do you know of any good sources for Royal Australian Air Force roundel stickers, something all-weather, small enough for a trike frame, and with 'Roo available facing either left or right? I've found a set on Amazon.com but they're about 3inches (7.6cm) in diameter. I think I'll want something smaller.
 

super slim

Zen MBB Master
Do you know of any good sources for Royal Australian Air Force roundel stickers, something all-weather, small enough for a trike frame, and with 'Roo available facing either left or right? I've found a set on Amazon.com but they're about 3inches (7.6cm) in diameter. I think I'll want something smaller.
I have looked using Google.au but 75 mm seems to be the only size!
 

NeaL

Guru
Hey NeaL,

I'm not sure but maybe @Rick Youngblood can help with ideas how to custom make stickers. I know he re-branded his Vendetta very nicely.

I might ask him about that, especially if I ever get a business idea off the ground and want a whole fleet of recumbent trikes to have matching markings.

Ever see those guided tours of people riding Segways in some cities? My mind is working on a similar idea but using trikes.

This started when I got to looking for safe routes to follow while biking from where I live into town and back. I was disappointed in the limited availability of safe pathways and I got to wondering whether to bring it up with anyone in the town government.
As I was researching about cities and bike routes, I came across a TEDx talk video about a married couple in Arizona whose farm happened to be alongside a popular bike path. They got the idea to open up a little café right there on their farm and started selling products and crafts they made to bicyclists who found it to be a great place to stop for a break.

Around here where I live, there are historic sites from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. There are also vineyards with cafes and outdoor wood-fired ovens for pizzas and such, along with a stage for live music events. There's a distillery here which had some kind of reality TV show being filmed there, something about moonshine. One of their moonshiners, a guy named Tim Smith, is something of a celebrity. Many of the local farms which set up their wares at the Saturday farmers market also have little shops there on their farms.

In researching bike routes, I see a lot of examples in different cities where they poured public funds into creating bike lanes which no one in the area really wanted in the first place, so they go unused and neglected, or perpetually maintained-at ongoing public expense-because there's a government program for it and people might still want to use it, someday. Other towns and cities have bike routes so poorly designed that no one feels safe using them, or they're in places where no one wants or needs them.

Last summer, a local bike shop sent out a mailer about a schedule of social bike rides. Some were an ice cream social, others ended at a local brew pub. The idea was to just get people out for a ride; no racing, no long distance endurance races, just something to do. All we needed to participate was to bring our own bike and a helmet.
They had one staff member lead the group, one bring up the rear, and one or two others who mingled from the front to the back and served as crossing guards when we had to cross a busy road.

So I've been thinking, what if these different farms were willing to have a path for cyclists along the borders of their property? What if these paths could coincide with historic battlefield sites? What if enough of these paths could connect with each other from the area of the town and reach further out to the rural areas where people live? And what if all of this could be done using private, free-market solutions, designed by cyclists for other cyclists, and serve the community with increased revenue from tourism?

I've never started a business before. I have no idea how to proceed with this. There are a number of obstacles to overcome, but this is all giving me an idea of having guided trike tours. My kids and I all have our Cruzbikes, well, the kids' bikes will be built and well-used by the time I could hope to organize such an entrepreneurial endeavor; there's no real need for the tour "staff" to have trikes. They can guide from bikes, or even unicycles, maybe.
I would need to provide the trikes, so I'll need enough for the numbers likely in the tour groups. I'll need ones compatible and adjustable for people of different body types and abilities.
It would be great to have a variety of tour routes with maybe some options for simple but fun offroading along the way. Visitors get to enjoy the outdoors between points of interest while getting a workout and building up an appetite. No dragging a lawn chair to a music performance or outdoor theater, just roll up in a trike and set the parking brake. Panniers and seat-side saddle bags would provide places to keep their cameras handy and stow their souvenirs until the end of the tour.
And my three kids aren't getting any younger, so the "free labor" idea is running out of time. Oh, and my kids are homeschooled. This would be a great incentive for them to learn some local history, learn about running and starting a business, and improve their people skills while playing hosts.

Anyway, I'm kinda just daydreaming at my keyboard at the moment.

Another idea I'd like to throw in there is to have little GoPro-like cameras on the front and back of each trike, maybe have the guides each wear a body cam, and even throw in a drone-cam. After an organized tour, edit the footage together, trying to capture each member of the tour group enjoying something during their visit, overlay the footage with some music and graphics/credits to create a video keepsake of their visit to our town, and something to show their friends and family how fun riding recumbents can be.

For your viewing pleasure, here's a video of what I think it would look like if people could actually see my mind working on an idea.

 
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NeaL

Guru
I have looked using Google.au but 75 mm seems to be the only size!
Cruzbike and Greenspeed both share an Australian connection. I think it will be enough for people to clearly see just the 'roo while the rest of the roundel stickers wrap around the tubular frames of our bikes and trikes, so 7.5cm will do.
 

NeaL

Guru
N+1 disease has mutated into a superstrain.
It has only gotten worse. In researching my new (used) Greenspeed, I've seen on their website how simple it is to link two of their 'Anura' model delta trikes into a tandem; just remove the front wheel of one and link its steering column to the rear axle of the other.
Why stop at two? Go for three? Four? Suddenly I could take the whole family on a recumbent trike-train!
Figure out a way to stow the removed front wheels and we can all go to a destination, split up into our independent rides, then re-couple into our tandem train for the ride home. "Alright team, let's form Voltron!"

Here in Virginia we have oppressive property taxes on our vehicles. Add to that the costs of registration, insurance, licenses, inspections... This N+1 strain has me wanting to get rid of our cars/trucks and maybe just rent something if we ever need to go a long distance in a short time.


Back to the T50 news: Tomorrow, I'm planning on bringing at least one frame-set to the local bike shop so that set's young recipient and I can work with the shop staff at getting the components needed to finish the bike.

Because we are waiting for one more frame set, I'm concerned about that offspring having to wait and do without while her younger siblings get theirs. My sense of "fairness" says they all have to wait on bringing them home and riding them until after all three T50s get built.
Then again, if she sees what the other two kids are doing and she gets to test ride them while waiting for her frame set to arrive, that might give her better ideas on what she wants to do on her T50.

I also like the idea of one or two not-for-sale, completed CruzBike T50s sitting on display in the bike store, where other customers will see them and wonder about those unusual looking bicycles.
 
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super slim

Zen MBB Master
It has only gotten worse. In researching my new (used) Greenspeed, I've seen on their website how simple it is to link two of their 'Anura' model delta trikes into a tandem; just remove the front wheel of one and link its steering column to the rear axle of the other.
Why stop at two? Go for three? Four? Suddenly I could take the whole family on a recumbent trike-train!
Figure out a way to stow the removed front wheels and we can all go to a destination, split up into our independent rides, then re-couple into our tandem train for the ride home. "Alright team, let's form Voltron!"

Here in Virginia we have oppressive property taxes on our vehicles. Add to that the costs of registration, insurance, licenses, inspections... This N+1 strain has me wanting to get ride of our cars/trucks and maybe just rent something if we ever need to go a long distance in a short time.



Back to the T50 news: Tomorrow, I'm planning on bringing at least one frame-set to the local bike shop so that set's young recipient and I can work with the shop staff at getting the components needed to finish the bike.

Because we are waiting for one more frame set, I'm concerned about that offspring having to wait and do without while her younger siblings get theirs. My sense of "fairness" says they all have to wait on bringing them home and riding them until after all three T50s get built.
Then again, if she sees what the other two kids are doing and she gets to test ride them while waiting for her frame set to arrive, that might give her better ideas on what she wants to do on her T50.

I also like the idea of one or two not-for-sale, completed CruzBike T50s sitting on display in the bike store, where other customers will see them and wonder about those unusual looking bicycles.
The Anura is not very stable and twitchy, as it only has about 20% weight on the 16" front wheel.
The Greenspeed Magnum is VERY stable and very good cornering at slow and high speed, and the 20" *2" tyres soak up a lot of the bumps!
 
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NeaL

Guru
The Anura is not very stable and twitchy, as it only has about 20% weight on the 16" front wheel.
The Magna is VERY stable and very good cornering at slow and high speed, and the 20" *2" tyres soak up a lot of the bumps!

Who makes the Magna?
I just tried a Google search on "Magna trike" and got a bunch of motorcycles. I tried "Magna trike recumbent" and got a whole bunch of recumbent bikes.
 
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super slim

Zen MBB Master
You are correct, as the Magna was the Mitsubishi large family car in Australia to compete against the Holden (General Motors) Commodore, and the Ford Falcon!
I only mixed the last two letters up!!!
 

NeaL

Guru
Okay, but THIS cannot be as easily done with a tadpole trike, while retaining the simplicity of returning each back to a single ride.

 

NeaL

Guru
Whenever I order something from a website, there's sometimes a prompt for comments or special handling instructions. I like to get creative with these opportunities.

I ordered something from TerraCycle and they had such an option. I asked, "Can you draw a Ninja riding a CruzBike and making a stunt jump like Evel Knievel on the box or packaging?"

When I got home today, I found a 3-sided box waiting for me. I think their fulfilling my question might have delayed shipping by a day or two. I'm cool with that.

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Whenever I order something from a website, there's sometimes a prompt for comments or special handling instructions. I like to get creative with these opportunities.

I ordered something from TerraCycle and they had such an option. I asked, "Can you draw a Ninja riding a CruzBike and making a stunt jump like Evel Knievel on the box or packaging?"

When I got home today, I found a 3-sided box waiting for me. I think their fulfilling my question might have delayed shipping by a day or two. I'm cool with that.

27021841_10215486502782851_7838963934277533673_o.jpg

26952374_10215486505182911_2920940298043316833_o.jpg

26952449_10215486507622972_5984564035036736349_o.jpg

27021508_10215486509143010_5177101335524376214_o.jpg

27164582_10215486511063058_7471738162706515506_o.jpg

26951805_10215486513423117_3871010981239199350_o.jpg

26961931_10215486514943155_1190177114498543047_o.jpg

26951743_10215486517423217_7981752889581283349_o.jpg
I would like to see a ninja flip themselves around and do a superman like that little guy. Great stuff
 

NeaL

Guru
Just an update to refresh this thread.

I took my son's all-black T50 frame to the local bike shop so that everything was properly lubed & torqued. Then I got some bad news and was unexpectedly hit with a 1, 2, 3 punch of financial and litigation entanglements, all extenuations of their mom's divorce.

I could have gone ahead with ordering the parts and putting his bike together, but his sisters' T50s would have had to wait until these problems are resolved. I didn't want him to be riding his T50 around while his sisters still had to wait for theirs, so I delayed getting his bike finished, too.

In the meantime, it looks like their work stand is more stable at holding a bike being worked on when there's a counterweight of a 2nd bike being held on the other side of it, so the shop is using his empty T50 frame for that weight stability. For several weeks now, that T50 has been on the stand, right behind the counter with the register, for all the world to see. My guess is that any sharp-eyed customers spotting its unusual configuration have been asking about it.

The eldest's "Sky Blue" & black T50 frame set came in, and looks awesome.

It's frustrating that I went and got a new Saris 'Freedom' 4-bike hitch rack and have only been able to transfer my one Sofrider around on it. I can't wait to get past this storm of troubles and get all four Cruzbikes on that rack for some weekend bike trips with the kids!
 
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