Recumbent-gallery.eu

Three years ago we wrote about finnish designer Time Sairi who designed a recumbent bicycle with both 26″ wheels and a shaft drive. Quite an amazing machine and a breakthrough in a recumbent world. After three years of development it seems, there is another breakthrough as the first recumbent with shaft drive is going into production.

The concept has been changed quite a lot. From a high racer to a CLWB city style recumbent with a seat which fits better the height of the bike and the way rider sits on it.

The idea is very interesting. There is no pogo efect, you do not need to clean the chain, everything seems to be pretty durable and also they managed to designed the front boom so it can be easily adjusted to different height of rider. We are pretty interested in the final production piece and we are looking forward to see this bike released on the market.

We sent few questions to Timo and Tatu Lund who are two main guys of the new brand called Miragebikes. We also asked them to send us some detailed picture of the rear fork axle and shaft drive connection in that place.

RG: Can you explain a bit more the concept and idea you are following with the Nomad?

Timo: When I started to think design of the recumbent bike about 7 years ago, CLWB (compact long wheel base) was a natural choice and my benchmark was bike-e.

Tatu: Nowadays I would add Flevo Greenmachine or HP Velotechnik Spirit as good representatives of respectable effort of urban recumbent and benchmark for Nomad. We saw room for improvement in those which lead to Nomad.

Timo: Full suspension bike is simple to use with adjustments only on the bench and steering bar (see picture). The front suspension is very important based on my experience. Everybody who know about ‘snake bites’ in the tubes should know that. We know also that ‘no squat’ geometry causes efficiency losses together with suspension when riding uphill, with drive shaft there is no such issue.

RG: I like the new approach, but I am a bit afraid of the seat height which seems to be a bit too high especialy for riding in the city. It is truth that the sitting position is quite steep which makes it easier, but still.

Tatu: The driving position and quite high seat position is also excellent for urban environment and driving safety. It helps observing the traffic and also the others see you pretty well. That is why in this model we have selected this type of adjustment of the seat where it rises at the same time as we bring it further away from the cranks. The distance to the ground is set proportionally. This is following the design philosophy of the bikes simplicity and ease of use. The seat has a bit saddle like shape and that allows dropping your legs straight down when you stop.

Timo: Urban bike needs to be good to handle. Shorter wheelbase is good for that. Also storage places are tight, so the bike cannot be much larger than upright bikes.

RG: Do you plan also some other models? Maybe a trike?

Tatu: We have number of ideas we are working on, since we have ambitions to grow our business in a long term. These are still in quite early phase so I cannot disclose all details on those. We can share this telescopic adjustment idea of the frame and drive shaft. We filed patent for this idea together with couple of other things we are already using in Nomad. With telescopic adjustment we can use our basic frame in wider range of recumbent concepts.

Timo: I’ve been thinking about Trike, 20x20x20 with USS and high racer with high end materials like titanium shaft

Tatu: Those are just examples of things we are working on. It is yet difficult to say when they will be seeing daylight and which order. But yes, sure we are have many things cooking for years to come.

Timo: The starting point was the love affair with recumbent bikes, I just wanted to make them easier to approach for the people and share the experience that way.

Tatu: That is really unique in Nomad, it is so easy to take on. I tend to believe that there would be tighter limits for recumbent market to grow, if we wouldn’t have made Nomad.

Timo: I found again healthy and fun bicycle hobby with recumbent bikes and by testing and creating prototypes for this project.

Tatu: Yes, it is a lot about feelings. Riding bicycles feels good. I’ve background in mountain bikes, I still love to go riding them in the local forests. It requires 100% concentration to handle the bike and feels really good when you have pushed hard. I have also fallen love with recumbents. You get different set of feelings with them. I could compare it to driving a convertible, I can’t help myself smiling when riding a recumbent.

RG: Can you let me know where the bikes will be produced and what will be the price.

Tatu: MirageBikes is a design house. We have manufacturing partner in Taiwan with long experience in high quality bikes. We have found this a good combination. In Taiwan there is a well-functioning ecosystem of bicycle manufacturing including material management, know-how of bicycle engineering in aluminum welding and CNC machinery. We in Europe have understanding of the local market, marketing and innovation know-how. We are targeting Nomad to be sold at approximately 3000 euros street price.

I have found this somewhere on Facebook. A homebuild recumbent with python-style steering with military look. An amazing work with great details and also nice looking military-style web page and last but not least tough name – Kurb Krawla. More information can be found directly on the web and Neil made also a nice video riding on it. He has even more very nice projects on his web.

About a year ago we wrote about a futuristic recumbent concept of hungarian designer Kápolnás Gergely. The next concept of himis an electric assisted solar recumbent tandem.It is very hard to find any more infoon the web so here is what we could read on his presentation on the picture:

“The bike could be a long-range fast and comfortable traveling bike. For example, with our partner, we could go to the Lake Balaton (also called Hungarian See time to time, note of R-G) in one day, or even further riding on the national and continental bike-highway! It would be great to ride to the Black See, to the Lake Baikal, but at least to the Adriatic See. It is possible to take 2-300 km per day, without any special training prior that, and without any pain on bottom. There is a solar celled blanket, which can be stretched in the roof giving a lot of energy in sunny days for the battery electro-motor system. If you go downhill the engine works as a generator, and is charging the battery. If it is raining, we could stretch the dedicated covers to the sides of the bike. We could take many luggages as well.”

The concept in general looks a little bit like the tandem of Honza Galla and Karel Å ebela whom did a tour around Europe in 2011 called Solar Tour. They plan to participate in The Sun Trip race of solar bikes in 2013. They plan to use two trikes, but this might be an option for them too. You can visit their race web here: www.czech-solar-team.com

Eric Birkhauser is a designer with open mind and with amazing projects he is working on. The last one is the ZIPcycle. A lowracer recumbent with rear fairing. As usually, also this concept looks very nice and has the kind of “automotive” design people like. As I told, his mind is open so he is not only thinking about a bike, but he is thinking about bike share program. This is probably the first recumbent bikes share program idea on the world

His bicycle parking lot is named HELIOtrope and it uses a Sun to charge batteries of the ZIPcycles hanging on the construction. The other revolutionary idea is to produce the ZIPcycle not from glass or carbon fiber as would be common now, but to produce enough big volume of them so they can be produced out of aluminum the same way as the car body.

Sure, as you look at the concept, there are tons of problems. The lowracer is not really suitable for riding in the city. Recumbents are not really that popular among people so one can even think of recumbent bicycle program etc. etc. But many new ideas have started with projects people thought were absolutely impossible to use in the future and look where we are now.

If you want to know more, read Mark’s post about ZIPcycle and about HELIOtrope. I also recommend a post on bicycledesign.net about his previous project called PETALvelomobile.

Bentrideronline has posted a message about one hour speed record of 91,556 km. The rider was Francesco Russo from Swiss and his bike Eiviestretto. The machine itself is pretty interesting as it was built in cooperation of Francesco and Demjan Zabovnik. Both of them have lot of experiences in building and riding very very very fast bikes. The story about the record can be found here and here we have a story about the bike iteslf which can be found on the same web page too.

Well done Francesco and Demajn!

After the Dekra-Event 2010 Damjan Zabovnik and me joined together to build a streamliner and brake the One-Hour-World-Record. The result is a team who is very experienced in building and riding speedbikes. Exactly one year after our decision to go this way together I set the World Record.

The Eiviestretto (Eivie + Ristretto) is based on Damjan Zabovnik’s Eivie III. So the rider goes backwards, head first and lying on his back, he uses a mirror for navigation. The shape is slightly modified, as I am taller and have longer legs than Damjan. We improved steering mechanism in cooperation with Leon Plestenjak (company 3D konstrukcije), to make more space for the helmet and head. I am very tight inside the vehicle, but I still can steer, breath and pedal normally. Tolerances are within milimeters. The transmission was also redesigned, using different configuration of bearings and better materials, so it provides more efficient power transfer to the rear – driving wheel. Front wheel – steering wheel has a shape of a plate and is not symmetrical, inside the front wheel are steering bearings, instead of the head tube above the wheel as by ordinary bikes. Eiviestretto also has no steering cables, but it has a push-rod instead.

Students at Delft Technical University have developed a recumbent bicycle with which they hope to break the current bike speed record. The bicycle has an oval, aerodynamic chassis to reduce air resistance. The record attempt will take place in the desert in the US state of Nevada in September.

The current world record is held by Canadian Sam Whittingham, who reached speeds of 133 km per hour in 2009 in his Varna Tempest.

The students hope the aerodynamic chassis will help them break the record. The chassis has been remoulded 30 times to reduce air resistance by 20 to 30 percent. The actual bike is larger than the record holder’s bicycle so that it can accomodate a larger and stronger cyclist.

The bike is being tested on a disused runway in Soesterberg today. It will be raced in Germany at the end of July.

source: www.rnw.nl