Recumbent-gallery.eu

recumbent with shaft drive

Timo Sairi is finnish designer who has developed and built a recumbent with shaft drive. Here under you can find his comments and few pictures of his bike.

“First of all let me tell you a litlle of my background.

I am an architect and a furniture designer and I have been working with industrially manufactured design furnitures.
Thats why perhaps my interest is always on simplyfying and to clear any design task given.

One year ago I got an invitation to participate on an exhibition dealing with ecological design, here in Finland.
So I decided to build a recumbent bike since I believe bicycles are very ecological indeed.

One thing that is bothering me with recumbents is often quite a complex and technical look of those (maybe also because recumbents are not well known)
So I wanted to do something about this as a designer, just to make them look a little bit more familiar.
To replace the front chain sprockets and to get rid of long chains sounded like an idea worth of thinking and for that goal a logical area to develop was a shaft drive.

My shaft drive system is based on an excisting component that is made for a normal upright bike.
Longer shaft with swivel joints and teleskopic adjustments was needed.

Advantages are obviously:
- maintanance free system
- very silent drive (especially great difference on a bumby roads where usually all kinds of rattles and noices are caused by the loose part of chain drive),
- clean and safe (estethically and practically)

Disadvantages are:
- high price due to need for special components
- some loss of power when compared with a clean, well oiled chain (though not measured yet, I havent noticed any remarkable difference)
- weight, that is about 1.5 kg more than a chain drive, most of it caused by a heavy hud gear unit.

The bike is equipped with shimano disk brakes, shimano 8 speed alfine hub, pantour`s front suspension hub.
The frame is aluminum and the shaft is carbon fibre. I havent yet calculated any exact prices for the bike but basically it has less parts than a normal chain drive.

The next step would be a foldable version since the system has quite a natural potentials for that, additional equipment like bags and mud guards and an invisible rear frame suspension (inside the frame) are under deveploment.
Also, I have plans for a trike, with the same system.”

www.pyora.fi

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If you look into the gallery of Fitser – velomobile producer from Belgium – your eyes will certainly stop on one of those really colorful velomobiles. They are usualy completely covered by thin printed foil which is same as the one used on cars. By such way, you can manage to have a superb look of the velomobile. Unfornatenuly the price of such upgrade is around 1000 EUR and Fietser itself has such possibility in their offer.

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Maria riding Cruzbike Silvio recumbent

On October 10th, Maria Parker will be riding a Cruzbike recumbent bicycle for 12 hours in a race against the clock. Her goal is to ride over 220 miles on a 20-mile loop course on public roads near White Oak, NC. She is attempting to set the world record, which will be observed by Ultramarathon Cycling Association (UMCA) officials. This is the first attempt at the women’s record. The men’s record is 241.5 miles. No drafting is allowed.

Maria Parker, a 46 year-old mother of four, will be testing her endurance and a new front-wheel-drive recumbent bicycle as she attempts to set the world record in the 12-hour unfaired recumbent bicycle event on October 10th. She undertook this challenge after she not only won her first bicycle race in July, but set the course record . “I didn’t even know if I could ride for 12 hours,” she said, regarding her entry into the annual Saratoga 12-hour race held in New York, “but my bike was so fast and comfortable I was able to go much farther than I expected.” Parker completed 211 miles on the hilly course in Saratoga during the 12-hour race.

Maria Parker

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This vehicle is absolute surprise. Can you imagine amphibian velomobile? I have seen some amphibian bikes usualy with ugly look but this machine is so nice!

It is a homebuilt velomobile with linear pedaling, hydraulic steering with steering wheel (!) and electric assist. And the most interesteing thing is that it can be used as a boat!

On the web page www.esoteric-david.eu you can find some more pictures from the building process and above pictures also 6 links to great videos. The best one is here which shows the velomobile going into water.

We hope to come with more information soon.

Oh, I forget. The name of builder is David Buchwaldek

The rear part of czech amphibian velomobile which is probably the nicest amphibian human powered vehicle I have ever seen

3D visualisation of the amphibian velomobile called HEPAV

sharp nose of the HEPAV amphibian velomobile

amphibian velomobile from Jan Jan on Vimeo.

Where you can continue:
- Vaniczka home made streamliner
- Recumbent trike fairing

These few pictures and short text came from Peter Osterversnik from Slovenia. He is the only recumbent dealer there and he has a beautiful web pages www.udobnoposvetu.si

“I made this construction as a combination of Flevobike and Zockra MBB racer. The construction actually developed during the process, I did not do any drawings beforehand.

My wish was to create a construction that will allow me to build a light bike made of carbon. I do not like standard FWD bikes because of the chain problems, so I said I will make a MBB. As this principle fascinated me since I first saw it on the Czech meeting 3 years ago. I was never able to actually cycle with it though. Not even 10 meters…

This first prototype weight 16kg with everything on. There are some parts that could be made much lighter, so even the metal frame could be reduced in weight. I am still learning how to cycle with it. I can got a long distance, but not really relaxed yet. I will add a spring to the steering so that it will hold it in the center position. This way I will have to use force to put the steering to the side instead of holding it straight like I have to do now.

I think it will be a very good bike when it is finished. Construction seems ok. The fact alone, that I can actually cycle with it is a lot.”

We have found two very nice recumbent galleries on Flickr. These pictures were added by user called jalexartis.

One gallery shows his Catrike 700c and the other one Velokraft Vk2 in outstanding painting in US colors.

Enjoy!