Background Spring 2000

Several years ago, I got interested in Recumbents while surfing the web. After reading everything I could find I decided to build a short wheel base bent. I down loaded pictures of all the popular SWBs I could find and charted the common characteristics. The following sketch was the result. I decided to "duplicate" The australian's, Andrew Hooker, approach. This uses the complete rear triangle of an old bike.

The Main section of the frame is 2" exhaust pipe. The pedal and "bottom bracket" is 1 1/2 " exhaust pipe. The adjustable extension is some old water pipe I found that fit inside. I started with what I thought was a 22 " wheel. Turned out it was a 24" (25-520). The rear wheel was a 27" x 1 1/8 " from an old bike. The 24 " wheel was too big, so I substituted a 20 409 wheel I had. I also got enamoured with mid drive. In the first version I think I had 54 speeds. Here's what it looked like:

The geometry was terrible. It was too high. I never knew what gear I was in. There was inadequate trail, which made it twitchy as hell. A series of fork revisions followed. Finally, at about 4 inches shorter and with 4 " trail it was rideable. Also, the seat was replaced by a more "elegant" design. (HA!) I bought a three wheeler seat and fabricated a open mesh seat back.

One of the differences in bents is that road shocks are transmitted directly to the spine. The rear triangle was very stiff. Also, the bike sat rather high (25 " or so) .

Revision 1 Sometime in late 2000 

The mid drive was overkill. I was never sure which range I was in and you can't look anywhere but ahead on a bent (my bents, anyways.) So I removed it and went to an 18 speed. triple crank in front and 6 speed free wheel in the rear.

 Revision 2, spring 2001

The next revision replaced the rear triangle with a fork, fabricated into rear chainstays,with v brakes.

I cut off the conventional rear triangle and grafted on the new one.

It's okay now. But I may cut it up and convert it into a low racer next.

Revision 3, Winter 2002

 I built a quazi low racer from scratch, so the SWB remained in one piece, but unridden. So I decided to rework it one more time. I put on a cool back mesh seat that I never used and shortened the boom. The goal was to more closely imitate the Lightning Thunderbolt.

Then, since I agreed to sell it to a friend, I decided to (GASP!!!) paint it. While it was apart to paint, I took some pictures of the bare frame.

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