Univega Cruzbike finally complete

[gymbnz74]

Well I had a heck of a time getting this baby ready to ride. I think some of my diffuculties arose from not using an ideal donor bike.
My biggest problems was Knee/Handlebar clearance; I finally had to buy a stem extention so that I could keep the seat far enough back to keep handling acceptable.

The Good
I've been commuting back and forth to work for a few weeks now, the learning curve is pretty fast. I already feel more comfortable than my USS Vision R40 after 6 months.

The Bad
This thing is a tank, i feel like I am stuck in jell-o sometimes. I am quite a bit slower than on my vision even up hills. I haven't really gotten the hang of using my arms affectively but that may be due to my donor and how close the bars are to my body.

I hate to say this but I think my love affair with tinkering and recumbents may have come to a close. I am considering putting this on my local craigslist. For curiousity how much do used (mine is hard to tell from new) kits go for?

This forum has been invaluable during my built...i thank everyone for their help.

Jim
Sacramento, ca

 

[defjack]

How slow is your bike? I built up a steel Huffy like that and had no problem riding 17 MPH on the road or bike path. think you are loosing a lot of power with the bars so high.Get your bars away from your knees and you dont need the extension. An way used kits are going fast for 250. Jack

 

[rearengine]

Hey JIm.. Like Jack said , get the bars down ( cruzer bars ) and forword of your knees .. That puts them more inline with your hips,and shoulders, for more power .. Maybe a little more closed position, by shorting the BB Tele Tube,and moving the seat back a scoshy bit.. Just MHO.. Your bike looks like it should work very well.. I have no problem going 16-17 on this.. Bill..

 

[defjack]

With the bars you can go either way.My cruiser bars are about 4-5in behind my knees on both the conversion and Silvio.If anyone wants to see I can post some pictures. Jack

 

[JonB]

When i look at the pictures of the green bike and the silver bike, it looks like the green bike has fat wide tires. Naturally these are heavier and have a higher rolling resistance.

 

[gymbnz74]

Thanks for all of the good input. I tried like crazy to avoid getting the bars up so high. With my leg length i could never find a seat vs. handlebar position that gave me knee clearance and a good reach. I can bring the handlebars down but then I have to move the seat up and then my arms are around 90 degrees. I have tried cruiser bars, flat bars, and finally this origin 8 bar.

Bill I may give it one more try to get my knees up behind the bars...to me after riding this setup for awhile would that be the key to getting some straight-line power to the pedals.

They are wider tires, Schwalbe fat apple on the back, a narrower slick on the front. From everything I've read there are some misnomers about wide tires, I don't really think i'm loosing a ton of speed there...aside from the weight increase.

Thanks again guys, i hope i can work it out, I love the looks I get going down the road on the "frankenbike".

Jim

 

[rearengine]

JIm... This is how I set my bike up for me , but I am only 5ft 8" .. Yours may be quite different .. I really like the way Jack has his bars , Maybe best for taller riders.. :idea: Hang in there... Bill

 

[tmpotter]

Well, I need to preface this with the fact that I'm in the middle of my conversion (first/only) and have not actually tried riding the bike yet (still waiting for a couple more bits to arrive due to a fair amount of incompatibility between my donor and the kit. However, I do have it up on a stand that lets me play around with fit, and I did have a problem with my aligning with the handlebars (6 ft, fairly much in the legs). My solution (again not road tested) was to actually reverse the stem, so that it is pointing back at me, which puts my knees in front of my bars. I am using slightly bent (by design, not accident) mountain bike bars. This seems to be a comfortable position for me, and allowed me to move the seat and BB back some.

BTW, I am still using longish cranks (170mm), because that's what I happen to have, but I suspect a shorter crank would give me slightly better knee clearance.

In my experience, low-pressure knobby tires suck a lot of energy out of your bike, but I don't think a wide (but smooth, high-pressure) tire is that much worse than a narrow one. I think the real question is how much the tire deforms where it contacts the road -- the more it deforms, the more energy you lose (but the more traction you gain).

Hopefully I can get out onto the road this week, and can report whether my reversed stem played out OK....

--tmp

 

[currystomper]

tmpotter wrote:
In my experience, low-pressure knobby tires suck a lot of energy out of your bike, but I don't think a wide (but smooth, high-pressure) tire is that much worse than a narrow one. I think the real question is how much the tire deforms where it contacts the road -- the more it deforms, the more energy you lose (but the more traction you gain).
--tmp

There has been a lot of discussion about tires in the folding bike community as it was bad tires that made the original folding bikes such clankers. The one thing that seems to be important is the energy required to deform the side walls of the tires. If you have a soggy tire, pump it up the side walls will flex less and the bike will go faster or better still get better tires with thin side walls that deform easily.

This has been taken to the extreme with some racing bikes they use tubs (tubulars)!! here the tread is attached to the 'inner tube' therefore no tire side wall to flex and lose energy into.

Obviously modern materials can help to make thicker wall tires run better than expected..

Cheers

Currystomp'

 

[John Tolhurst]

the side wall of the tubs will still flex, but at 200 psi its hard to see - gee but they roll well.