S30 buildup with Volae Comfort Carbon L seat.

[Jeffrey Ritter]

Great photos and write-up and timed perfectly as I am just now fitting my Silvio S-30 and working to get a slightly more upright position. It appears the Volae comfort seat is longer in the upper back than the carbon seat that comes with the S-30--is that correct? That appears to eliminate the need for the headrest, correct (for which you reversed the headrest rails)? Thanks for your sharing!

 

[tiltmaniac]

Great photos and write-up and timed perfectly as I am just now fitting my Silvio S-30 and working to get a slightly more upright position. It appears the Volae comfort seat is longer in the upper back than the carbon seat that comes with the S-30--is that correct? That appears to eliminate the need for the headrest, correct (for which you reversed the headrest rails)? Thanks for your sharing!

It depends-- the Comfort Carbon XL (which, being a tad taller than my dad, is what I use on mine) is long enough that you can use the standard CruzBike headrest, should you choose.
The Comfort Carbon L rises a bit before second scissor-clamp hole.

It is probably more true to say that the CruzBike seat is straight/flat, and these seats are curved and, when they fit, provide more support-- In fact, if I didn't end up with a pool of sweat without the ventisit, I'd find that the Comfort Carbon seat is pretty dang comfy without the ventisit (but, since swamp-bottom and swamp-back are unpleasant... the ventisit is imperative!).

I suspect he will end up adding an ADEM-2c headrest, but that was a week away when I took the photos.

You can see the Comfort Carbon XL on a Silvio S30 in my tilting-trike-prototype build thread.

Incidentally, the new S30 frame is a step up, in my opinion. The fit and finish are better, the frame has been tweaked in subtle ways, and I just heartily approve. You're in for a treat!

 

[tiltmaniac]

Oh, it is also worth mentioning that there are two obvious angles one can mount these seats.
One is as pictured (upright/about the same as the stock seat, but with more support), and the other is more reclined (almost to Vendetta levels of recline).
I've never ridden with the more-reclined version (mounting the seat was a pain before I did the various mods here, mostly because of blindly attempting to get the bolt in the scissor-clamp (Hey Cruzbike! Providing a longer screw really really helps here, even for the standard seat! ). Now, with the (longer) bolt mod for the scissor clamp, it takes about 1 minute to install the seat. Experimentation now possible...

 

[castlerobber]

Incidentally, the new S30 frame is a step up, in my opinion. The fit and finish are better, the frame has been tweaked in subtle ways, and I just heartily approve. You're in for a treat!

Glad to hear this, since mine is supposed to arrive today.

Do you happen to know what the handlebar-clamp diameter is for the S30? I have a 25.4 mm handlebar I want to reuse from the Silvio 1.5.

 

[ratz]

Glad to hear this, since mine is supposed to arrive today.

Do you happen to know what the handlebar-clamp diameter is for the S30? I have a 25.4 mm handlebar I want to reuse from the Silvio 1.5.

31.8mm; you'll need shims from http://problemsolversbike.com/products/handlebar_shims

 

[bladderhead]

When I began my handlebar experiments I got mountain bars, which required shims. One pair of shims forms a cylinder. The cylinder formed by the clamp is longer. When I discovered this I had to get another pair of shims and use the two pairs side by side. This is a Silvio 2.1.

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Great photos and write-up and timed perfectly as I am just now fitting my Silvio S-30 and working to get a slightly more upright position. It appears the Volae comfort seat is longer in the upper back than the carbon seat that comes with the S-30--is that correct? That appears to eliminate the need for the headrest, correct (for which you reversed the headrest rails)? Thanks for your sharing!

Jeffrey, most likely you will want or need a headrest mounted to Comfort Carbon Seat. As Tilt meantioned adem is a great solution and can also be modified for further comfort. ICE also makes a great headrest made for cf seats.

Tilt, your usage of the plastic pellets are genius, I would like to know more about heating and melting.

 

[ratz]

Tilt, your usage of the plastic pellets are genius, I would like to know more about heating and melting.

I was also thinking you could use Sugru potentially.

 

[Rick Youngblood]

I was also thinking you could use Sugru potentially.

Yeah, interesting stuff, and seems easy to work with.

 

[tiltmaniac]

Yeah, interesting stuff, and seems easy to work with.

The pellets are super easy to work with-- I heat some water (stove/microwave), then pour that warm water onto the pellets in a bowl.
They melt at 140 degrees-f, so you don't need boiling water.
The pellets are all melted when they're transparent.
Then you pour off the water in the bowl, grab the pellets, and squeeze the water out. You may want to pour more water in immediately after squeezing the water out (to keep it warm enough).
Then you stick it wherever in whatever shape.

This worked (and, so long as you don't keep it in a car on a warm day, should continue to work), but I think the better long-term solution will be the apoxie-sculpt (https://www.amazon.com/Apoxie-Sculp...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=J18E5VVWQCXTS5QVBPS3)
The only deal with the Apoxie-sculpt is that it is like epoxy-- you need to use mould release/wax or similar to ensure it doesn't glue itself to whatever you don't want it glued to.
Otherwise, it has a 3 hour working life, and a 24 hour cure. It isn't at all sensitive to temperature...

I suspect this apoxie-sculpt is much like Sugru (which ratz mentions).

 

[tiltmaniac]

For those curious about the pellets, this is a pretty short video (which matches my experience):

 

[AlexisBV]

As a reminder, I did learn from my tour that very low gearing is ineffective on the Silvio, at least while one rides on two wheels.

Could you elaborate on that point? At some point I'll be potentially changing my gearing depending on what works best with e-shifting..

 

[Mathew Fy]

My limited experience climbing at speeds under 4 mi/hr is that I am too unstable, wobbling and eventually tipping over. I have 10-42 tooth cassette & 32-56 rings on the V20 which allows me to spin up hills I used to stand and mash with the old DF. I'm very satisfied with the range, but rarely use the 42 tooth.

 

[tiltmaniac]

When I would liked to have used the lowest gear (27->40, so 18 gear-inches or so), using the lowest gear resulted in massive wheel slip.

This was typically on 12+% inclines

If I had a trike instead, the wheel slippage would be annoying instead of prohibitive, since balance wouldn't be affected, as it is today when going near zero mph on two wheels.

 

[Charles.Plager]

My limited experience climbing at speeds under 4 mi/hr is that I am too unstable, wobbling and eventually tipping over. I have 10-42 tooth cassette & 32-56 rings on the V20 which allows me to spin up hills I used to stand and mash with the old DF. I'm very satisfied with the range, but rarely use the 42 tooth.

My experience with my Sofrider and Cruzigami Mantis are the exact opposite. I can easily ride moving less than 3 miles per hour when climbing big hills and therefore like my very low gearing (both bikes go under 17"). My seats are a bit higher angle than the Silvio (which is higher than the Vendetta), but not usually by much.

Whether or not you will become more used to climbing and balancing at slow speeds or not, I don't know, but I do believe that I would (eventually) be able to handle the Vendetta at such low speeds (and I hope to find out the in the distant future).

Cheers,
Charles

p.s. I can even go that slowly pulling a trail-a-bike or a trailer...

 

[super slim]

My experience with my Sofrider and Cruzigami Mantis are the exact opposite. I can easily ride moving less than 3 miles per hour when climbing big hills and therefore like my very low gearing (both bikes go under 17"). My seats are a bit higher angle than the Silvio (which is higher than the Vendetta), but not usually by much.

Whether or not you will become more used to climbing and balancing at slow speeds or not, I don't know, but I do believe that I would (eventually) be able to handle the Vendetta at such low speeds (and I hope to find out the in the distant future).

Cheers,
Charles

p.s. I can even go that slowly pulling a trail-a-bike or a trailer...

I regularly ride at 4 kph (2.5 mph) on my Silvio V1.0 with a 45 degree seat back, using a 24t chain ring and a 34 T cassette (20" effective wheel size), when climbing +9% grades, and with the 28mm Schwalbe Ultremo tyres with limited slippage, compared to 23 mm 4000s where 7% was the max. before the front wheel would spin to a stop!