bladderhead
Zen MBB Master
Unicycle with a trailer.1happyreader said:
I hope that Black Hawk Down is encouraged by this.
Hope it is not Cruzbike Down.
Steering damper/stabilizer
- Thread starter Mwhwsmith
- Start date
I hope that Black Hawk Down is encouraged by this.
Hope it is not Cruzbike Down.
DavidCH
In thought; expanding the paradigm of traversity
No nuts... you live longer
DavidCH
In thought; expanding the paradigm of traversity
I noticed a considerable difference when going fast with my wheels being balanced. I haven't had the wobble since my wheels were balanced.
bladderhead
Zen MBB Master
No, it just seems like it.DavidCH said:
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
I believe you on this. Actually, I believe you on everything you say after reading many of your posts. Anyway, I've spent a substantial amount of time configuring the boom and headrest. In the end, I wound up purchasing the "Performance Adjustable Headrest". That helped me get my head pointing straight forward. I have the boom adjusted just right for my leg length. All these adjustments helped stabilize my riding immensely. I feel very comfortable at most speeds now, except at speeds greater than say 25-30 mph. Even then, I'm comfortable until there is an event as previously described. I'm not all stressed out over gripping the handlebars when going 30. I get very relaxed, but then the event... I also have trouble peddling at high RPM. There's a sweet spot, not sure the cadence, but in the neighborhood of 70-80 rpm that's the most stable. If I go too high (or very low on hills), wobble, wobble... I have electronic shifting (DI2 - thanks for the build posts) which makes it easy for me to keep in the sweet spot, but I do a lot of shifting to stay there. By the way, I'm 245 lbs and 5'8". I wonder if my center of gravity is a bit higher than most, causing some of the trouble. I live in the greater San Diego area and I don't think there's any Cruzbike experts around here to help out.
Tomorrow, I'm going riding with a friend. I'll have him take some photos of me on the bike. Maybe you can see if I'm in need of adjustments.
Every day I ride the bike, I gain a higher appreciation of it (started very low...). It's starting to get fun. I appreciate the help.
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
I've never heard of balancing bicycle wheels. How does that work?
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
And sing beautifully...
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
With all due respect (and I mean that...), I don't buy that the V20 is not a bike. It's pretty much a bike in all respects except you are laying down and driving it like a kid's tricycle. That means specialized training, but I don't agree that my previous bicycle training is not useful. Especially my experience with DF's that have abnormal instabilities. All bikes are inherently unstable, as your center of mass is above the axle height. It's overcome by the inertia in the wheels and the brain stem training to make constant course corrections with the handlebars and body weight. With the DF, it is easier to shift your body weight around to make corrections. On the bent, you depend more on steering corrections. This clearly takes a lot of training to become proficient. While I recognize that lots of training can overcome inherent design instabilities, I prefer improving the design if possible rather than training alone. Improving the design may just amount to adjusting the seat rest and boom (per ratz), or adding a steering stabilizer. That's just a preference. Others may prefer to gut out the long training period to be proficient.
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
Too many $$ to go down in flames. I'm committed to the cause.
My primary reason for going with a bent is to eliminate arthritic pain in the hands, shoulders and neck. The primary reason for choosing the Cruzbike is it's ability to climb hills. The primary reason for choosing the V20 is speed.
ratz
Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
Do you have qrings? that might help; as might a slightly shorter cramp to soften a DF fostered power stroke with a pre-disposition for twister the foot when dropping the hammer. No matter what your written down journey is going to help all the lurkers yet to join in.
Photos would be good.
One drill I don't recommend to newbies that would be suited to you. Is dead leg down hilling. find a big ass hill that you can coast up to 40 on. Practice going down it with your legs dead limp like you are trying to make it impossible for your buddies to carry you. Let the weight hang heavy on the pedals. Then just get a feel for what the bike does as it cuts and runs going down the hill; study what you hand input does at those speeds. This will give your brain free training about what hand input does at speed. I've found that at speed wobble is more about rogue hand input than it is pedal input. This will be well timed with your recent described size adjustments. We talked through this drill back when Rick and I were getting into the bikes and before Larry showed up. this one sort of got lost in the sands of times because it's a bit scary to tell people to blast down a hill when we have little data on their skills. In you case you've said enough to indicate you'll do just fine.
1happyreader
zen/child method
Must be the difference between a Sofrider and a V ???? At the beginning of my one and only parking lot session I put my feet on the pedals, leaned back and the bike transformed and became one unit that made sense, I swooped back and forth without steering input, feeling what the bike wanted to do without the distraction of pedaling.
MBB did teach me how terribly dominant my right leg was, cadences that I could get away with on a df were in reality unbalanced to the point that one leg was only following instead of pedaling.
I like to say It's NOT a bike as a means to get folks to pay attention to how it feels and have them open to alternate paths,,, leaning the wrong way, pedaling thru corners, ignoring stuff they learned so long ago it's instinct.
Of course there is the old parable where they put an econo van driver in a formula one car,,, after all it got 4 wheels and all the same control surfaces.
I am sure you will persevere . You are already miles ahead of the hamster bar guy on BROL
Balor
Zen MBB Master
Hmm, not really, no.
While I agree that MBB format as of now can benefit from some design improvements (you may read my musings on it here), I don't think that it really works that way. In fact, it may actively mess with your adapation.
Have you read seen that video?
A great food for thought.
Balor
Zen MBB Master
My first bent was a pretty 'run of the mill' SWB with hamster bars, btw. It took me quite a while to get used to it. Switching to MBB took some time, even a switch to a RWD lowracer.
However, none of bent I have tried had steering problems like you describe persist for a long time and actively ruin my fun of riding the bike.
Ok, not being able to climb anything did ruin my fun of riding RWD bents quite a lot, too. It took me a switch to MBB bent and a year of training to get anywhere near to my DF performance.
I'm still positively sure you can "have it all", though - you just have to disassemble the problem into it's components, leave parts that work, fix those that don't 'get it back together'.
However, none of bent I have tried had steering problems like you describe persist for a long time and actively ruin my fun of riding the bike.
Ok, not being able to climb anything did ruin my fun of riding RWD bents quite a lot, too. It took me a switch to MBB bent and a year of training to get anywhere near to my DF performance.
I'm still positively sure you can "have it all", though - you just have to disassemble the problem into it's components, leave parts that work, fix those that don't 'get it back together'.
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
No qrings. Have ultegra 50-34 compact chain ring, which is another problem for another forum post...
What's a "slightly shorter cramp"?
I feel as though I do this exercise now as I don't pedal when going fast (> 20-25) down hill (too unstable) and I try to totally relax arms and legs, but I'll make a point of focusing on the dead leg thing in tomorrow's ride. May not get a 40 mph hill, but I'm not sure I'm ready for one now anyway. Always tough to do exercises during the ride as I'm riding up the coast with lots of cars, bikes, surfboards, dogs, bilgesnipe, etc., sharing the road.
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
I've never ridden a Sofrider, but I have experimented with sitting up on the V and pedaling vs laying all the way back. It's tough holding yourself up but it seems more stable. When I lay back, I feel a little like I'm a big fat blob laying on a knife edge. It's not that bad but your body position on the seat really affects your stability. After a stop/start, I have to shift around quite a bit to get that perfect position. While shifting, I sometimes shoot off to the side a little and have to do a quick course correction. I'm pretty sure that will all get better with my planned weight loss and experience.
I'm finding that my left arm is dominant even though I'm right handed. When pedaling I push and pull with my arms to counteract the leg forces. I find that my left arm is doing most of the work and it pushes and pulls while my right arm is mostly just pulling. I have to consciously make my right arm contribute to pushing and pulling.
Ya.. I kinda got that. It's just that I hear it in so many posts as a reasoning behind all problems with the bike. There's a great deal of knowledge you get from riding years on a DF that has nothing to do with the differences between a DF and a CB. This knowledge is still applicable and useful. Things such as, handling yourself in traffic (alertness), developing downhill technical skills, handling sudden out of control instances like hitting a pot hole or other road hazard, I'm sure everyone on the forum can come up with a dozen or more transferrable skills from DF riding. There's new stuff to learn on a CB, but you don't have to, and shouldn't, wipe your brain clean. I'm not implying that you are suggesting that. It's an impression I've gotten from some other posts.
Balor
Zen MBB Master
Heh, I'm overweight too AND my legs are highly muscular.
I highly suspect that 'leg weight' is a factor that complicate matters when riding an MBB with 'positive' caster angle and long boom.
My calves are particularly huge, for instance:
https://pp.userapi.com/c618820/v618820343/7980/99yFwcc5plc.jpg
Which contributes greatly both to fork flop AND steering inertia.
I think anyone can have a taste of my woes by attaching 5-pound legs weights on each calf and trying to ride around a bit.
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
We can agree to disagree.
The video, while fun, really didn't teach me anything I didn't know. Is anyone really surprised that you will have to do lots of training to ride a bike with backwards steering? It's all about training your brain stem. I get that you are using this point to show that you have to retrain your brain to ride a MBB and that training on a DF makes this more difficult. My point is that riding a bicycle is not just about steering. I agree that brain stem training is required for the MBB, but there's a great deal of wealth in riding a DF for many years that transfers to a MBB. You don't throw it all out and you do have to add new motor skills. However, I have absolutely no problem getting back on my DF and riding as before, so I'm not sure how much the backward steering example is appropriate. But... fun video. Thanks for sharing.
Balor
Zen MBB Master
Actually motor skills learning and consolidation quite likely happen a bit up the hierarchy, cerebellum and corpus striatum mostly, brain stem deals with more pressing matters like breathing and such - utterly reflexive actions. Damaging the brain stem would, of course, impair your ability to learn new motor skills. It will also very likely kill you
.By the way, experiments with patients with anterograde amnesia show, motor skill learning has a different pathway from declarative memory, because they retain the ability to learn, say, to juggle - while lacking ability to remember ever learning to do it and constantly surprising themselves with their own skill... fascinating stuff. It just an other indication that 'learning to ride a bike' and 'understanding how you ride a bike' are decoupled on a neural basis, and no amount of experience in the former guarantee the latter and vice versa!
Good point. Still, it might be entirely possible that a lot of 'competing' experience may actually hinder your learning, not contribute to it - provided that actual experience is close enough, yet different enough
castlerobber
Zen MBB Master
Should probably be "crank" instead of "cramp," looking at the context. Quite a few of us run shorter cranks and/or Q-rings. I have 155mm cranks and an elliptical ring on my Q; 150s and Q-rings on the S30.
Black Hawk Down
Senior Rookie
Ya.. I was using "brain stem" as a catch all for those things the brain does subconsciously. Clearly, I'm not an expert on brain function. Sometimes it's referred to as "muscle memory", but of course, muscles don't have actual memory, but we know what it means.
