This is basically what I started out with as stock.The rear triangle is from a Raleigh Tour ten-speed. The tube is 2" square stock. The head tube is from the Raleigh. The BB came from a wrecked Schwinn MTB.Long Wheel Based Recumbents (LWB) I built a LongWheelBased bike first. The first version had Under Seat steering (USS), and used a rod connected to the front fork. I did not like it. The steering flopped and was loose. Other than that, however, the bike was very comfortable. I finally made a handlebar out of a long tube and the RoadRunner came to life. With the addition of a fairing on the front and an intermediate drive, the bike is virtually unchanged. The Bicycle looks a lot like a Rotator Pursuit due to the fairing, but it has a 700c rear wheel instead of a 20". This is due mostly to coincidence. I have seen others plans which are drawn not from experience, but from a common sense approach to building a bike as simply and efficiently as possible, they look surprisingly like this. In my opinion, the bike is perfect for touring or for long rides. Eighty three speeds (many of them duplicates) allow for tweaking of gearing for climbing and for all out, cajones to the wall speed. The following is what I drew to give me an idea about what I was going to build. Surprisingly it looks very lose to what I originally planned, with the exception of OSS v USS. Originally I had USS and the hole for the headtube is still present in front of the seat. This is only one of the approximately 10 major changes I made to the original plans. (I have edited the picture to take out the USS, and to add the fairing.)(BTW this is NOT drawn to scale)I was too late for the build it yourself TE, but if I could have found the plans somewhere I'd have built one, still will if I can find some plans.
Most of what I accomplished when I built the RoadRunner was done trial and error. I seem to have felicitiously had more luck than errors. I had the rear triangle welded first, then I sat on the frame, leaned back on the triangle, and had my son draw a line where my feet stretched to at their furthest reach. I then split the difference between that and where I had planned for the seat back to be and that is where I holesawed the hole for the BB. Same with the Head tube. The angle of the head tube was wrong for a long time. I finally cut it off, and had it welded at a rather extreme angle, which cut the tiller effect, and made the ride more stable, and the steering feel more positive. The fair- ing came after our above ground swimming pool ripped apart in a very violent wind storm. I had material. All in all, with the fairing, the rear rack with saddlebags, the tool pouch on the seat back, two litres of water bottles, the camelback and me, the bike probably weighs in at around three hundred pounds. That is when you consider, I weigh 225. This is no shrinking violet. It does climb well, and when I have everything in proper adjust- ment, it can hit the high 20s and low thirties with not too much exertion. It has been clocked at 52.8 mph down the back side of Mule mountain pass in the Mule mountains outside of Bisbee. This by a DPS sergeant. He followed me down the mountain, and pulled over after we got to the flats. He told me what he had clocked me at, and just walked around the bike, shaking his head. He then got back in his car, and drove off. That was before the fairing.
This is what the bike looks like now.
This is the BikeE recumbent, a low cost well made bent with OSS, and ease of operation. This is also what my wife rides.
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