Underseat steering of Tour Easy Clone

With all the controversy concerning Under Seat Steering (USS) Vs. Above Seat Steering (ASS), I decided to Modify my LWB to the USS configuration.

Here's the starting point, my homebuilt tour easy clone.

As a home builder, frugality is a philosophy. Unlike Marci, I don't buy another bike to see if I like it. <G>I "whittle' one.

A recent post on the ARBR news group had good pictures of a system crafted by a man for his father. I also like the setup on the Reynolds Wishbone. With this picture in mind, let the whittling begin:

Using 3/4 inch conduit (gasp!! ) I bent the center bars

Fot the pivot, I cut a portion of the head tube out of an old bike, complete with head set.

then I cut the fork tube out of an old fork.

After grinding, brazing , head scratching etc. the two parts looked like this:

I added handles to the bars blank, installed barcons (from Ebay) and the final assembly looks like this:

Now, the control rod and linkages have to be addressed.

Control Linkage:

A side effect of USS is that the amount the front wheel can be turned is limited by the geometry of the linkage. Too wide and you get into the plane of your pedals. This has little effect, I was to find out, except at startup. I left a mini bar on for speedometer mount and for a future fairing mount.

When all was said and done, it looked like this:

The bike rides okay. As wiith other bent designs, the startup is different and takes some aclimatiization. Smooth is the secret. It is even more important than with above seat steering, where you can really swing the tiller from side to side to maintain balance.

After someone told me it resembled a longbike, I found pictures of the Longbike Vanguard. Sure enough!!! Quite a similarity. What do you think???

Conclusions:

After three weeks of riding the underseat steering configuration, I decided it is not for me. The problem is that startup is more awkward. It is more comfortable when underway, but since I want to ride this bike in town, I'm just not comfortable with the new steering. It came off yesterday.

Fast Freddy Markham, I have to agree with you on this one. USS is not a good fit on the Tour Easy design.

I'm now fabricating a tilt tiller type steering. I'm going to try the "praying Hamster" style for a while.