Poor Man's RV

Ford Prefect said:

Why are there no flat bar road bikes or drop bar mountain bikes in official races?
The ICU forbids it
Why are there no Triathlon Handlebars in official races?
The ICU forbids it

Recumbents are a BLAST. I rented one in 2008 and toured Spain with a friend. Long wheelbase, 26" in the back 20" in the front. There is no better way to fly. From a pure riding perspective they have virtually no downsides. They corner amazing. you actually know where you steer (many people still believe they steer with their hands). They are extremely stable at any speed.

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Yeah, the UCI is dumb. Agreed. Though I'd say you definitely don't see drop bar mountain bikes in races simply because anyone who's tried it knows it's just a very poor handlebar choice for the task. You'll hurt yourself. You'd cause a bigger crash in a race. You simply can't hold and control the bars in the way you need to for fast off-road riding. I even found I had to ride the brakes on steep gravel down-hills on one tour with particularly rough/chunky gravel. Very sketchy stuff. It was the sort of gravel hills that I'd be bombing at speed and loving on my MTB. You can ride bumpy off-road with drops, but certainly not quickly.

I'm jealous of your tour! I'm hoping to make it on a tour of Spain at some point in the next five years. But I've heard recumbents aren't as stable at low speeds. That's one area I've read as a negative to them, and why I feel they would be better on long rides with few stops, and worse in town with frequent stops.

It takes a little practice, agreed. After the first week and about 10,000,000 red traffic lights (rough estimate) I got used to it.
It was actually not long wheelbase. It was an Azub, you can look them up at azub.eu . Probably an Azub FIVE the direct predecessor of the nowadays Azub SIX.

So long, …

Electric Earth said:

But I've heard recumbents aren't as stable at low speeds. That's one area I've read as a negative to them, and why I feel they would be better on long rides with few stops, and worse in town with frequent stops.

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I will never forget a charity ride I was on, back in the 1990's. A guy on a dropbar road bike, and I, were stopped at a cross road, out in the country. It was a steep grade, and there had been a new culvert put under the road. We were stopped in deep gravel. When the way was clear, we both pushed off with our clipped in foot, and then clipped in the other foot. His foot slipped off, and he crashed hard on the gravel. I turned around and came back. We had an interesting conversation about safe bike design.

I am going to get off my soapbox now. People will believe what they will believe.

Thanks for the fantastic off-road recumbent porn, Warren.

Azub bikes look cool as hell. I like the lightning bikes as a cheap alternative, as you can get them with chromoly frames.

I have only ridden my recumbent off the street a free times and I must say that how well it handles off road was surprisingly good. If the swingarm and fork we're stronger, I'd love to jump the thing

Warren said:

I will never forget a charity ride I was on, back in the 1990's. A guy on a dropbar road bike, and I, were stopped at a cross road, out in the country. It was a steep grade, and there had been a new culvert put under the road. We were stopped in deep gravel. When the way was clear, we both pushed off with our clipped in foot, and then clipped in the other foot. His foot slipped off, and he crashed hard on the gravel. I turned around and came back. We had an interesting conversation about safe bike design.

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After riding my e-bike for about a year on my 4-5 times a week 16 mile one-way commute, I decided to do it on my dust covered road bike. The ride in takes about 50 mins on the ebike and took 70 minutes on the road bike. No big surprise. No motor on the road bike. But the really big difference was the feel of the whole thing. I'm on the drops or hoods of the road bike most of the time. My neck is uncomfortable from looking up from the prone angle. The tires seem incredibly fragile and ride a bit rough at 100 psi of pressure. No rack.

Compared to my MTB ebike conversion, the road bike was a torture device. Sure. I've ridden thousands of miles on it and I'm sure I would get more comfortable if I spent the time to re-adapt. But I didn't have to do any of that with the more upright position of the MTB. When I got the road bike home, I hung it up on its hook and wondered if I'd ever ride it again. The more I think about it, probably not. At least, not for any kind of significant distance.

There is something like the right tool for every job.
Yes, you can commute on a full suspended fat bike with spiked tires and a 5kW rear hub engine any season on any surface. That doesn't make it the right tool for Tokio downtown in august.

For sporty road biking you need a road bike.
For sporty mountain biking you need a mountain bike.
For extreme mountain biking you need a fat bike.
For commuting without sweating you need a comfortable E-Bike.

Warren said:

A guy on a dropbar road bike, and I, were stopped at a cross road, out in the country. It was a steep grade, and there had been a new culvert put under the road. We were stopped in deep gravel. When the way was clear, we both pushed off with our clipped in foot, and then clipped in the other foot. His foot slipped off, and he crashed hard...

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The guy was clipped in, in deep gravel, on a steep grade, on a road bike. Sounds like a moron, and I'm not surprised he crashed... I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that story doesn't display any sort of evidence other than that the guy was an idiot and tried to use his vehicle in all of the wrong ways, lacked the skills to do so, and crashed.

And for what it's worth, I'll just point out that I haven't spoken in a generally negative way about recumbents. I said that I've never tried one, I've read(from recumbent riders) that they're not ideal for stop and go riding due to the low speed handling, and that I would feel less safe on one in a situation where bike handling skills were needed. It's not like I was slamming them or calling them inferior. I've even pointed out the strength of a recumbent for longer rides. It's just my opinion that a standard bike would be more suited to bike touring. While touring, you're likely to be slowly climbing long hills, riding on the white line on county highways at times with traffic blasting closely past, frequently in stop and go town situations, and I believe the OPs desire to keep cost as low as possible is a downside for the recumbent because it's much more expensive to ship.

As I said, I didn't mean for that other comment to throw this thread further off course and expand into a debate about whether you can MTB on a recumbent, etc. It was an offhanded comment that I would have left out had I foreseen the outcome.

wturber said:

The road bike was a torture device... I hung it up on its hook and wondered if I'd ever ride it again. The more I think about it, probably not.

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I'll take the torture device off your hands for ya. I had some minor issue with neck strain when I first started riding a drop bar bike, which also was a bit too big and created too long of a reach for me. I do think your neck muscles have to get used to acting differently, and I think reach/fit is less forgiving when riding that stretched out. On the other hand, though, I found I was having some neck problems when I first started ebiking a lot. It actually had me seeing a chiropractor again, as it got kinda bad. The combination of speed and bike weight was encouraging me to ride lazy. I'd also come up on bumps quickly, and so wouldn't be off of the seat. And I found that my pedaling changed, because the heavy bike and DD hub motor lost speed too much if I stopped pedaling. I stayed seated more to maintain pedaling and avoid losing momentum. All of that added up to my back and neck taking a beating in a way that never happened on my other bikes(I've been biking my whole life and have several styles of bikes). I ended up switching to a full suspension frame to adapt to the different riding technique. My point in all of this being that I don't think you need to give up on your road bike. I bet if you just start riding it again, and make sure the fit is good, you'd adapt back to that riding style(while maintaining the ebike style) and find joy in it again.

Given that this will be my only bike, and touring is only one use case, would the people that recommended a recumbent still recommend one as a daily driver?

I love the idea of an electric full suspension fat tire recumbent trike with a canopy pulling a trailer. I don't think I could afford this though.

If I was buying a gas vehicle I would buy a truck as my daily driver. So in the bike world I guess I would favor a cargo bike (or Xtracycle conversion).

A 2WD electric fat tire MTB with Xtracycle conversion that could be removed sounds awesome too and it's more affordable. How easy is the Xtracycle conversion to remove and put back on?

So what I need to build is a daily driver that I can drive across country as comfortably as possible. I'm not opposed to using a trailer if that gives me more flexibility.

A recumbent is great for everything EXCEPT carrying loads. How they fare with a trailor or an long tail conversion I cannot tell you. Neither did I ever do an Xtracycle Radical. I planned to, but they are impossible to find in Europe and the new model Leap is disc brake only, which my bike lacks.

A few of my opinions, very personal:
When your rides get longer, faster, or more frequent you do not want to do them on a discounter bike for 150$/€/wtv.
Used bikes can be good, but you should know your way around a bike and a workshop before buying a bike and a FS bike doubly so.
A conversion like the Xtracycle is not suitable for a cross country voyage of tens of thousands of kms.

Ford Prefect said:

<snip>
A conversion like the Xtracycle is not suitable for a cross country voyage of tens of thousands of kms.

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Yet Justin rode across Canada on an Xtracycle conversion.

I'd use a recumbent as a DD with a trailer added for touring.
Hell yes.

Ford Prefect said:

A recumbent is great for everything EXCEPT carrying loads.

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I guess those of us doing exactly that are just imagining it all.


CrazyBike2 did a lot better at it than any regular bike I had or built. Some random cargo-hauling pics. Worked better as I developed the design, but fine considering the limitations of what I had to build with and my knowledge at the beginning.

All of these pics but the first only show cargo that was more than could just fit in the cargo pods (which is a lot), since you can't actually *see* the cargo in those.

But the best is when you see the big bags of dog food in the seat itself...you could not carry cargo on the seat like that on a normal bike. :lol:
















































One with a trailer full of stuff, that just wouldn't physically fit on the bike in one load:


Or pulling Tiny, who was too big to fit safely in a cargo pod like Hachi did as a puppy

Yes he did travel across Canada, his vlog of the journey is quite interesting. I shall find it for you all to view.

News story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ9APdQPEkw

VLOG - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCvo6ffWRdE

Heres a new video (Mar 27, 2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhuoUrwhIw

Grintech HQ tour - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxB2j-egWcQ

wturber said:

Ford Prefect said:

<snip>
A conversion like the Xtracycle is not suitable for a cross country voyage of tens of thousands of kms.

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Yet Justin rode across Canada on an Xtracycle conversion.

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I think the better generality is that longer wheelbase bikes tend to make better cargo bikes than shorter wheelbase ones.

Note that Warren's recumbent is a long recumbent built from a tandem recumbent. He he uses it to haul recycling among other things.

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=78828#p1166596

wturber said:

I think the better generality is that longer wheelbase bikes tend to make better cargo bikes than shorter wheelbase ones.

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For any given wheelbase, you'll be able to tote much more stuff on an upright bike than on a 'bent. That's an easy and factual generalization, because on an upright bike you're not lying down in the way of your cargo (or chain, or steering apparatus).

markz said:

Yes he did travel across Canada, his vlog of the journey is quite interesting. I shall find it for you all to view.

News story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ9APdQPEkw

VLOG - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCvo6ffWRdE

Heres a new video (Mar 27, 2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhuoUrwhIw

Grintech HQ tour - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxB2j-egWcQ

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Thanks for the links! I read through Justin's posts about his trip, and it made a good book. Watching the video was like seeing a good book made into a movie. Very inspiring!

The interview at Grintech HQ was also very informative. I especially liked hearing the history of his company and it's relationship with this forum. Relative to this thread I also liked his take on hub vs mid drive.

I think that I, like a lot of new builders, was attracted to the mid drive because it looked like something I could do myself. You can't just buy a hub motor and put it on, it needs to be built into a wheel. Wheel building takes special skills and equipment. You can buy a pre-made one or have one built but that introduces other complications and decisions. So many factory built bikes have mid drives and a lot of information on conversions kits are centered around mid drives that I thought they were the latest, greatest thing. For me the clincher was when Justin (and another poster on this thread) pointed out that a mid drive motor failure would lock up the whole drive train.

One of the hardest things about this process is separating what's old technology from what's new. With the rate of innovation around this tech changing so fast it's hard to know what is the current "best practice". A forum like this, and the resources it provides, is essential to my success. I've got lots of decisions to make but I can cross off one, mid drive vs hub.

I've been researching different donor bikes and there is something I'm not clear on. I know there are many factors that go into determining how much weight a bike can support but maybe someone could distill it or dumb it down for me. As part of my research I found the same bike, one stock the other electrified, and they had different load limits. The stock one had a weight limit of 300lbs the electrified one had a limit of 250lbs. I imagine part of this to be the weight of the extra components like motor and battery (geared hub motor) but what other factors would contribute to this difference? I assume the hub motor wheel build has something to do with it such as spokes used etc.

I like the donor bikes options but the weight limit concerns me being that I weigh 230lbs. I would like to build the bike myself with a DD motor but how do I determine the builds weight limit? Would something like the Xtracycle improve the weight limit? How does a trailer affect the weight limit?

kauaicycler said:

Wheel building takes special skills and equipment.

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It takes a little wrench, $2 - $10 range. Not to make light of the skills - I was happy to let someone else build my hub wheel, because there's a lot of stress on that wheel and some special considerations. I never had any trouble with the wheels I've built, but they weren't perfect, and they were normal wheels. But store or factory built wheels can be garbage, too, so ... like they said to Socrates, pick your poison.

The hardest part can be to put your wheel into the rear dropouts, when the dropouts were designed for a lesser width. I needed a special tool for that - custom made out of 2x4s and stuff. But anyway, that's your poor man's truing stand: set the bike down with the rear up in the air, and use the rim brakes to check alignment. If you don't have rim brakes, rig up something similar.

It isn't a completely useless skill set. If a spoke breaks, you need it, to replace the spoke and true the wheel. If a rim breaks, you need it. Those things can sure happen. Back in the '70s the local bicycle repair co-op held classes, a few evenings learning to service wheel bearings and stuff like that (wheels had loose bearings back then, except Phil Woods, ooh ahh sealed bearings.) Last/optional evening was build a wheel.

donn said:

kauaicycler said:

Wheel building takes special skills and equipment.

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It takes a little wrench, $2 - $10 range. Not to make light of the skills - I was happy to let someone else build my hub wheel, because there's a lot of stress on that wheel and some special considerations. I never had any trouble with the wheels I've built, but they weren't perfect, and they were normal wheels. But store or factory built wheels can be garbage, too, so ... like they said to Socrates, pick your poison.

The hardest part can be to put your wheel into the rear dropouts, when the dropouts were designed for a lesser width. I needed a special tool for that - custom made out of 2x4s and stuff. But anyway, that's your poor man's truing stand: set the bike down with the rear up in the air, and use the rim brakes to check alignment. If you don't have rim brakes, rig up something similar.

It isn't a completely useless skill set. If a spoke breaks, you need it, to replace the spoke and true the wheel. If a rim breaks, you need it. Those things can sure happen. Back in the '70s the local bicycle repair co-op held classes, a few evenings learning to service wheel bearings and stuff like that (wheels had loose bearings back then, except Phil Woods, ooh ahh sealed bearings.) Last/optional evening was build a wheel.

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Good points donn! I guess I should learn the basics for emergency repairs at least. Any resources you're aware of to help me learn this skill?

kauaicycler said:

I like the donor bikes options but the weight limit concerns me being that I weigh 230lbs. I would like to build the bike myself with a DD motor but how do I determine the builds weight limit? Would something like the Xtracycle improve the weight limit? How does a trailer affect the weight limit?

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Here's what Xtracycle says. (400 lbs)
https://www.xtracycle.com/convert-or-new/

I'm not sure how they come to that given the question of what the donor frame can hold, but there it is.

As for donor bikes, the questions you raise are why I'd just look at getting a robustly built mountain bike. If from a good maker, you can be fairly certain that it has been engineered with the bumps and jumps of trail riding in mind. That should make it plenty strong to carry well over 250 lbs on relatively smooth roads. I'd also add that a human bean on a bike is a bit of a live load. Even if you don't stand up over bumps, you aren't made of stone and rigidly attached to the bike. Compared to things bolted to the bike, you are soft, squishy and bendy. And optimally, if you lighten your self in the seat, have a front suspension and/or a suspension seat post,and are running 2 inch or so tires at no more than 50 psi, you become significantly decoupled from the bike when it comes to the shock loads the bike must withstand.

More info from Specialized:
https://media.specialized.com/support/0000057489/0000057489.pdf

Also, keep in mind that a heavy hub motor stresses the rim and tire more than the bike and frame given that it supports the bike, rider and cargo. So I wouldn't add the weight of the hub motor to the total weight limit for the frame.

And finally, individual components can matter most. For instance I'd be sure to have a top quality pedals, seatpost and handlbar if I were a big guy. I'd probably also steer clear of square tapered bottom brackets if I planed on putting lots of work into pedaling - especially heavy out-of-the-seat pedaling.

Hopefully Chalo will wade in on this since he has a lot of big man experience dealing with bikes and frames.

They give those #'s because then they can weasel their way out if something happens.

wturber said:

As for donor bikes, the questions you raise are why I'd just look at getting a robustly built mountain bike. If from a good maker, you can be fairly certain that it has been engineered with the bumps and jumps of trail riding in mind. That should make it plenty strong to carry well over 250 lbs on relatively smooth roads. I'd also add that a human bean on a bike is a bit of a live load. Even if you don't stand up over bumps, you aren't made of stone and rigidly attached to the bike. Compared to things bolted to the bike, you are soft, squishy and bendy. And optimally, if you lighten your self in the seat, have a front suspension and/or a suspension seat post,and are running 2 inch or so tires at no more than 50 psi, you become significantly decoupled from the bike when it comes to the shock loads the bike must withstand.

More info from Specialized:
https://media.specialized.com/support/0000057489/0000057489.pdf

Also, keep in mind that a heavy hub motor stresses the rim and tire more than the bike and frame given that it supports the bike, rider and cargo. So I wouldn't add the weight of the hub motor to the total weight limit for the frame.

And finally, individual components can matter most. For instance I'd be sure to have a top quality pedals, seatpost and handlbar if I were a big guy. I'd probably also steer clear of square tapered bottom brackets if I planed on putting lots of work into pedaling - especially heavy out-of-the-seat pedaling.

Hopefully Chalo will wade in on this since he has a lot of big man experience dealing with bikes and frames.

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I was originally going to look for a mountain bike but then the recumbent debate started and so I started to look into those as well. Searching for recumbents brings up a lot of information about trikes so I looked at those too. The donor bike in question here is for a Sun seeker fat-tad cxs tadpole https://www.industrialbicycles.com/SUN-SEEKER-Fat-Tad-CXs-Tadpole.aspx and the electric one is here https://www.electrictrike.com/colle...s/products/fat-tad-cxs-tadpole-electric-trike.

The electric one is interesting because it offers a one year tire to tire warranty. I'm not sure if this configuration would suit my purpose but the fact that this builder is confident enough in the donor bike to offer a warranty speaks to it's suitability as a donor bike.

A fat trike build is appealing for the comfort factor but it does complicate my build plan (and travel plans). I want to use a dd motor for regen and a geared hub for hill climbing, pretty straightforward with two wheel but what about three wheels? How do I get regen and hill climbing on a trike?

markz said:

They give those #'s because then they can weasel their way out if something happens.

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Yeah that was my initial reaction too. The lower weight limit one has a one year warranty.

kauaicycler said:

I was originally going to look for a mountain bike but then the recumbent debate started and so I started to look into those as well. Searching for recumbents brings up a lot of information about trikes so I looked at those too. The donor bike in question here is for a Sun seeker fat-tad cxs tadpole https://www.industrialbicycles.com/SUN-SEEKER-Fat-Tad-CXs-Tadpole.aspx and the electric one is here https://www.electrictrike.com/colle...s/products/fat-tad-cxs-tadpole-electric-trike.

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Yeah. I was thinking conventional uprights. I'm assuming you don't want to rig up something as unconventional as Justin's Xtracycle semi-recumbant. But he did traverse a continent on it. Also, any conventional long tail cargo bike could convert to something like Justin made pretty easily. In fact, I suspect something like this Kona Ute could be made to work with a reversed stem and/or long reach handlebars - thus avoiding the steering linkage bit.


I've been thinking about this a lot for my own purposes. I'd like to rig something together that I could go 100 miles/day moderately comfortably. I think what I really want is something very much like Warrens converted tandem. And that would work well for you as well given that the frame was originally built to carry two people.

Warren's bike, of course, is a unique solution that arose from a unique situation. He already had the tandem. No longer needed it. And realized that trying to sell and ship it was going to be a hassle. So he made a home-brew DIY recumbent cargo.

I've been thinking about building a version of this Atomic Zombie bike that would be modified to be more like Warren's (shorter wheelbase, crank over the front wheel, seat in back, long reach handlebars).
https://www.atomiczombie.com/tradewinds-tandem-recumbent-diy-plan/


How a person build's it would determine how strong it ends up. Of course, build/weld quality becomes a big deal on something like this.

Warren's bike

kauaicycler said:

A fat trike build is appealing for the comfort factor but it does complicate my build plan (and travel plans). I want to use a dd motor for regen and a geared hub for hill climbing, pretty straightforward with two wheel but what about three wheels? How do I get regen and hill climbing on a trike?

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I'm just not a fan of tricycles. Can't really say why exactly. I guess it's just a prejudice from all the miles on two wheels. But maybe it's the thing for you. That's gonna be yer call. But yes, the drive system suddenly isn't so straightforward.