(tail)Fairings again, with !!science!!.

[Warren]

Why? Bikes are proven tech, optimized for generations. If merely riding one were capable of inflicting that kind of damage, we'd know it, and what we consider normal bikes wouldn't be normal. So there's something else to it.

My son rode his BMX as kid. He and his friends did the usual BMX stuff, where the seat is basically to rest on between tricks. Road riding was not popular with kids, and too dangerous for unaccompanied kids anyway. As a teen he rode with the family, on a recumbent. In Japan, he had to order a roadster big enough to fit someone his height. The local shops didn't carry any that tall. It was the typical grey, mattress saddle, Dutch style roadster that everybody in Japan rides. He rode with the seat at the correct height, unlike most folks there, who ride with the seat set way down, to allow sitting flat footed at stops. They ride with their knees coming up to the their chest, and stand to start from a stop. They are pretty flexible, and don't seem to mind bending their knees like that. This comes from eating sitting on the ground, with their legs under them, and using squat toilets. My son got very good at this. I tried it at a dinner, figuring I was pretty fit, but after ten minutes I thought my knees would explode. Anyway, after a few weeks commuting, he started to have problems. He might have been able to hack it with padded pants, but he would have gotten lots of unwanted attention at work. The school he taught at didn't have AC, and left the windows open in the winter. So he figured he'd just tough it out, and get over it. Instead of getting better, it got much worse. Going back to walking to work didn't stop it, as it had become a self-reinforcing condition by this point.

I can only hope you get to experience something similar, you sanctimonious ass.

 

[Chalo]

I've hurt myself on the bike before. One time it took a couple months before my thumbs felt normal again. But I always took the hint and revised my bike fit right away instead of trying to tough it out. I never had to resort to riding in a chair to make it work.

You seem to take offense easily to things that aren't offensive. Maybe it's that same kind of jumping to faulty conclusions and overreacting that led you to adopt recumbent bikes instead of stepping up your game.

 

[Warren]

One time it took a couple months before my thumbs felt normal again.

And what if they hadn't gone back to normal? What if the tunnels the nerves went through were narrower than most, and you had a hyperactive inflammatory system too, due to random genetic variation. And you needed to have surgery on all ten fingers, your wrists, and your neck to get relief, like my biologist buddy in New York state. Of course, he has great health insurance. A shop rat like you might not be able to afford that, and not being able to wrench anymore could just live under a bridge. Or maybe there was no pelvic surgery procedure like in my son's case. I guess he could just get a genius like you to improve his bike fit, and ignore the pain.

 

[red]

Warren,

I can relate to the problem your son had. Luckily, at the first indication for me, I could dismount and stay off the bike, because for me the bike was only optional exercise, not necessary transportation.

It would be good for me to continue learning about practical bike fairings, rather than to have this thread spin out of control.

This was my solution: the "removal" of the center of the bike seat entirely, done by the use of a specialized bike seat. It may be helpful to others who experience issues like your son and I had. I would only add, we do a lot of "bike control" with the center of the seat, which I never realized until it was gone. It does take some time to adapt to this design, but that option is better than the alternatives. Each "seat plate" pivots independently. My results were very good. Click the link. Best wishes.
https://hobsonseats.com/
.

 

[BalorNG]

Eh, can you please drop the subject of bike upright seat woes? It is interesting, and deserve it's own thread, but not here... and preferably without name calling, too.

Plus, I can see both yours and Chalo's points - personally, while on ultra-distances I've had my problems with both numb hands (which is, again, remedied somewhat by ergo grips and periodic rests on aero bars), and saddle sores that ultimately proven my 'undoing' so far as going above 400 kms are concerned, but also have great problems with recumbutt and tailbone soreness on 'less reclined' recumbent seats, and while 'highly reclined' indeed solve comfort/presure point problems for good, and I've went a few thousand miles on those, I've never got quite comfortable enough so far as power output/control and vision/visibility is concerned.

I really missed ability to take in the sights 'unobstructed' as I could on my relatively upright MTB, as well as effortless 'riding by itself' steering quality.
My Rinzler CLWB is great so far as this aspects are concerned, but frankly quite slow and, again, recumbutt.

Maybe this design may take the best of both worlds, finally...

 

[PaPaSteve]

Safety was my primary reason for switching to a recumbent.
I was riding upright bicycles to stay in shape for racing 400cc motocross and went over the bars on a practice day and earned a severe concussion in the process.
With upright bikes most injuries are upper body, broken collar bones and head ... more of the same potential problem as riding a motocross bike.
Recumbent injuries (on two wheels) tend to be lower extremities, ankles and hips.
{recumbent trike injuries are often due to roll overs so also tend to be upper body}
Not too long after switching to recumbents I discovered the potential for better aerodynamics and the higher speed that offered.
Racing streamlined recumbents is like owning a F1 race car that could be operated full throttle on the street.
For me, the designer, builder, and engine ... every course record, every race win is like earning another college diploma.
50 wins = 50 college diploma's.
Improved comfort is a welcomed side benefit with recumbent designs.

 

[Warren]

This was my solution: the "removal" of the center of the bike seat entirely, done by the use of a specialized bike seat.

The problem is humans were never designed to sit with something jammed between their legs. There are thousands of "improved " bicycle seat designs.

There are 20 patents for split, and noseless seats listed on their patent starting in the 1890s.

 

[Warren]

It would be good for me to continue learning about practical bike fairings,

If you want to learn about practical bike fairings, start with hpv club links.

http://recumbents.com/wisil/whatsup.htm

http://www.bhpc.org.uk/

https://www.ozhpv.org.au/

 

[red]

This was my solution: the "removal" of the center of the bike seat entirely, done by the use of a specialized bike seat.

The problem is humans were never designed to sit with something jammed between their legs. There are thousands of "improved " bicycle seat designs. There are 20 patents for split, and noseless seats listed on their patent starting in the 1890s.

Warren,

Thanks for that. As I said, the Hobson seat was my solution, but I'm not surprised to hear of many more out there.

Just a side note, U.S. Patents expire after a time (not very long). Any patent that expires becomes Public Domain, so anybody can produce that item freely if they want to do that.

Thanks for the HP ('bent) links. Lotsa good info there. I would have expected more development in the streamline concept for upright bikes, because they "need" it more. The 'bents are still fairly rare around here.

 

[Warren]

I would have expected more development in the streamline concept for upright bikes, because they "need" it more. The 'bents are still fairly rare around here.

Uprights are short, with lots of side area....bad in cross winds. The frontal area on a performance recumbent is already less, even before streamlining.

There was some success with Moulton streamliners.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTbnQtpdnkuUvEvJx0luktqhLk5c9KpN7sjRstoohyBgd3TAXzrIigTodvWySEIOxJajZk&usqp=CAU

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQlqCqL6wmcj_H7mrxZZVIugeNKMlo6mIc07bWXf0Ch-EF4piRTNzhI6eLAYZoz5oMg8tM&usqp=CAU

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTBozE2EsSJEDliI2Rvq_Lb83cTmHmc7emLylG0CKAJpP_gtY-pn7SREbYq_PpbUG93QQU&usqp=CAU

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTHD5Y7VMtS4LaCWFvvaNkiYMypDmugZcbPPAGUtEZ6Quv2vcGfZvl0kjeuOqeQGdTI80&usqp=CAU

I saw one race in Milwaukee back then.


Two wheel recumbents gained interest, for the first time in many decades, about 1975, and had their boom from about 1995 to 2005. The competition events were pretty exciting back then, and the future looked bright. Since then, most recumbent riders have aged out, and switched to trikes.

There are some good books on the history.

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/a-complete-illustrated-history-of-the-recumbent-bicycle/

http://www.ihpva.org/projects/tstrike/resorce.htm

 

[red]

Two wheel recumbents gained interest, for the first time in many decades, about 1975, and had their boom from about 1995 to 2005. The competition events were pretty exciting back then, and the future looked bright. Since then, most recumbent riders have aged out, and switched to trikes.

Warren,

Thanks for the links. Aging recumbent riders have switched to trikes?
Maybe I should just skip a step, and check out the trikes. I'm not getting any younger here. :wink:
Tadpoles or deltas?

 

[Warren]

Aging recumbent riders have switched to trikes?
Maybe I should just skip a step, and check out the trikes. I'm not getting any younger here. :wink:
Tadpoles or deltas?

Tadpoles mostly. Trikes are typically slower than two wheel recumbents, because of higher rolling resistance, partly from the extra wheel, partly because of unavoidable scrub in turns. Also more frontal area. And you never miss that pothole on a trike. Now a velomobile is another beast altogether, and the best has four wheels. Four wheelers have lower rolling resistance, and less frontal area, for the same stability.

https://en.velomobiel.nl/quatrevelo/

With electric assist this thing is awesome, but four wheels will probably get you arrested in most states, due to our stupid bike laws.

https://youtu.be/Dl-MGFGZ-Ng

 

[BalorNG]

Uprights are short, with lots of side area....bad in cross winds. The frontal area on a performance recumbent is already less, even before streamlining.

Well, but time and time again it is show than adding (partial) fairings to a *performance* recumbent is pretty much useless.
And full fairings are huge conceptual leap.

Actually, nothing prevents one from making an 'extra long' upright bike, and the fact that it has 'lots of side area' does not mean anything really, what matters is 'controlability' to compensate for disturbances with steering quickly and effectively, and in my experience recumbents kinda suck at this, likely due to high 'turn in' polar inertia of a rider lying the length of the bike, lack of 'body english input' (though latter is mostly about slower speeds), often suboptimal cockpits and CG/CP locations, which are, again, are NOT well-placed on a typical fully faired recumbent at all (CG too far back and low, CP is too high and forward).

Steve's Rotator Coyote design with FWD LWB form-factor (that is more of like 'MWB' - BB is not in front or behind the wheel, but above it, which is actually best but makes for extremely high BB delta when combined with low seat) is perhaps the best design the world seen so far, but needing to do 'acrobatics' to enter and exit and high bottom bracket imply it is useless for me, for instance.

Velos are so popular is not because they are so much faster (though some might be) than two-wheeled faired bents, but because they solve those problems... or at least make them much less apparent by addition of a third wheel and static stability... and any fully faired HPV, velo or liner, require storage that is more compared to a car, not a typical bicycle... but they cost about the same to a car as well

 

[PaPaSteve]

Uprights are short, with lots of side area....bad in cross winds. The frontal area on a performance recumbent is already less, even before streamlining.

There was some success with Moulton streamliners.

I saw one race in Milwaukee back then.

You may remember there were two streamlined upright bikes running at Milwaukee.
The Milliken / Moulten powered by Jim Glover did the best job.
The other one was nicely crafted and had a strong rider but never seemed in full control.
Towards the end of the weekend at the Brown Deer Velodrome he lost control and earned a concussion and broken collarbone.

Not the best weekend for me either ...
Pulling into the first event at the Mile Speedway the timing chain on the van slipped ... I spent most of my time replacing it which stole my racing time.
I only caught a few glimpses of the events.

 

[Warren]

Towards the end of the weekend at the Brown Deer Velodrome he lost control and earned a concussion and broken collarbone.

I only caught a few glimpses of the events.

I recall at least one crash on the velodrome at one or another event. My main memory of the velodrome, at some event, was seeing Gardener, and Fast Freddie, with the Gold Rush streamliner.

Sorry you missed out.

 

[Warren]

Actually, nothing prevents one from making an 'extra long' upright bike, and the fact that it has 'lots of side area' does not mean anything really, what matters is 'controlability' to compensate for disturbances with steering quickly and effectively, and in my experience recumbents kinda suck at this, likely due to high 'turn in' polar inertia of a rider lying the length of the bike, lack of 'body english input' (though latter is mostly about slower speeds), often suboptimal cockpits and CG/CP locations, which are, again, are NOT well-placed on a typical fully faired recumbent at all (CG too far back and low, CP is too high and forward).

Build a great upright streamliner, and I am sure you will be enthusiastically greeted, by the upright community. Just like Craig Vetter and his streamliner kits for conventional MC. :lol:

 

[PaPaSteve]

Design number 5 ... Believed to be the first streamlined bicycle to do a self contained cross county trip, 1984
Updated several times. 50,000 total miles accumulated between 4 riders before being retired.

Design number 7 ... A strong contender with numerous wins. 9 examples made. Most owners used them as commuters.

Design number 9 ... Most prolific seller from the Rotator label. A solid, stable platform for many different streamlined body experiments.

Design number 11 ... A front wheel drive derivative of the previous designs. Powered by Dean Peterson to the 1986 IHPVA Street Class World Champion at Las Vegas. Always a front runner in any century or marathon event.

 

[PaPaSteve]

I recall at least one crash on the velodrome at one or another event. My main memory of the velodrome, at some event, was seeing Gardener, and Fast Freddie, with the Gold Rush streamliner.

Sorry you missed out.

Gold Rush had bulges in the body shape for heel clearance to allow the pedals to turn.
The bulges would drag the ground lifting the front tire off the pavement.
Happened numerous times.
The "achillies heel" of the design.

Freddie, being a former Olympian was indeed quite fast.
It was rare, but I did beat him a time or two.

I have done some "pavement inspection" a few times.
Minor abrasions ... Never got close to going over the bars on a streamlined recumbent.

 

[BalorNG]

Actually, nothing prevents one from making an 'extra long' upright bike, and the fact that it has 'lots of side area' does not mean anything really, what matters is 'controlability' to compensate for disturbances with steering quickly and effectively, and in my experience recumbents kinda suck at this, likely due to high 'turn in' polar inertia of a rider lying the length of the bike, lack of 'body english input' (though latter is mostly about slower speeds), often suboptimal cockpits and CG/CP locations, which are, again, are NOT well-placed on a typical fully faired recumbent at all (CG too far back and low, CP is too high and forward).

Build a great upright streamliner, and I am sure you will be enthusiastically greeted, by the upright community. Just like Craig Vetter and his streamliner kits for conventional MC. :lol:

Well, that's the whole point - *conventional* MCs. You don't want 'conventional' MC, or conventional upright bike, or even conventional recumbent bike as a fully faired platform.
It must be build from ground up for this purpose. Things that help an unfaired bike hurt a fully faired one.

You want a feet forward motorcycle, but than this results in a conceptual shift - just like 'road bikers' don't see a recumbent as a 'real bike', so are 'bikers' don't see a FF motor as a 'real motorcycle', and for all the spirit of fierce independence bikers are supposed to stand for, they sure are a tribalistic bunch of arseholes - just ask their opinion about, say, other motorcycle brands, for F's sake

And you know what, they are right in their own way. If you want something maximally safe fast and comfortable, just go get a car.
Riding a motorcycle imply you want something else more than that - be that 'cool aesthetics', 'belonging to a particular group' or just feeling wind in your hair or something else.

Switching to a different platform may deprive you of this, so those snobby bikers are actually quite rational about their irrationality.

Since I don't particularly care about latter (though I respect other people's feeling even if don't exactly share them), nor do I want to take the world by storm and change cycling as we know it, I'll be quite content in creating a 'semi-recumbent' bicycle even if that works for me and not anyone else, however, I'll be even happier even if it turns out to help other people as well.

Point is, like I said numerous times and I'll say again, I'm a particularly clumsy rider with health issues, and while it is easy to design a bike that can be ridden only by expert athletes operating on their edge of physical and mental ability (but in fact, it is tough engineering challenge to design a bike that cannot be ridden by anyone, provided you can steer at all), but a bike that can be ridden by 'an average Joe' in all conditions but still retain superb aerodynamics and ergonomics is a much harder task.

 

[Warren]

The challenge will be coming up with something that has not been tried before.

 

[BalorNG]

The challenge will be coming up with something that has not been tried before.

Pretty much everything was tried before, indeed.
However, sometimes all it takes is taking a few 'old things' and putting them together in a new configuration which is greater than the sum of the parts... you still need to know exactly what you are doing, because concept space of 'poor bicycles' is infinite, and that of 'great bicycles' is pretty narrow.

 

[PaPaSteve]

" " I'm a particularly clumsy rider with health issues " "

Pretty much everything was tried before, indeed.
However, sometimes all it takes is taking a few 'old things' and putting them together in a new configuration which is greater than the sum of the parts... you still need to know exactly what you are doing, because concept space of 'poor bicycles' is infinite, and that of 'great bicycles' is pretty narrow.

From this side of the internet it's obvious how much work is being spent trying to create a better "mouse trap"
Leaves the question of ... how much time is being spent on the work of improving personal health ?
Most important factor ... A great bicycle, any bicycle, is useless without health.

Expert athletes tend to have a good eye for equipment that works smoothly, properly, efficiently.
It's not possible to attain an expert level if the equipment doesn't perform.
That expert level does trickle down to the average Joe.

Wishing you best of health.

 

[Warren]

From this side of the internet it's obvious how much work is being spent trying to create a better "mouse trap"

Yeah. Your Pursuit design is good enough. I recall Fast Freddie saying his Javelin (very similar layout) was the fastest bike he had ever ridden.

My Linear ended up as close as I could get it to your design too. Rode 30K miles in total comfort, using amazingly little battery energy. In our hilly terrain, I saw 40 mph or more, on many descents, on almost every ride. On my uprights, such descents always felt like a near death experience.

 

[PaPaSteve]

Yeah. Your Pursuit design is good enough. I recall Fast Freddie saying his Javelin (very similar layout) was the fastest bike he had ever ridden.

Not a coincidence.
Gardner used to do an annual ride, "Return to Freedom" with a bunch of different events.
On the coast down hill event the Pursuit always prevailed regardless of how the riders were switched up.
Not long after Gabe deVault joined Easy Racers he called with questions and thus the Javelin was born.
It was all good, we had a close friendship and working relationship.

When Fred joined Calfee he also called during the design process of the Stiletto.
Some Rotator influence there as well.