Catrike Musashi Lowracer

Catrike has released teaser video of their new lowracer. At the moment we just have what can be observed in the video. SRAM Rival components, Carbon Fork, Front Wheel is 451, rear is 700c. Spacing on the fork is very tight so basically this will be running with Schwlabe Durano 28mm 451. The Rear tire will have the typical large selection common to 700c wheels.

I love the rear end geometry. The stiff seat, the solid back end both look like they will contribute to excellent power transfer and provide a great way to mount bags and accessories. In fact I suspect a tailbox would be great on the Musashi.

Congrats to Catrike, a wonderful design.
h/t - BROL blog broke this story, thanks Bryan

SIR Winter training ride #1 in 2010

I rode with SIR and CBC today. We did the first of the Winter Training Series, it was a great ride and I am happy with my performance given my current winter weight. It was a lot of fun and Russel came out from Seattle to ride it with me. I also ran into Bill Gobie, and made a few new friends.

I think I want to get a cue-sheet holder that I can drape around my neck. Digging in my pocket was annoying. The Garmin Edge on the other hand performed flawlessly and kept me on route even when I made mistakes. I am happy with the way it follows courses. All in all a great start to the season.

Rohloff US Service partner

Cycle Monkey
Performance Cycling Services
713 Solano Avenue
Albany, CA 94706
Tel: 510 868 1777
www.cyclemonkey.com
(US Service Partner)

I promised someone I would post this information here. Finding the current Rohloff partner has been a bit interesting these past 6 months.

Odd day.

I was planning on a winter bike ride with CBC. It starts at Logboom park so I rode there last night to make sure I knew the distance and time it took. It got dark during the ride so I kicked on all my night lights and noticed that my headlight was low on juice. No big deal, I was only 7 miles from home and I had more than enough power for that distance.

I rode home, worked out a few alternate routes that avoid needless downhills followed by 8% grade climbs. Excellent. I cleaned my chain, filled my water bottles, and checked my tires. All good.

This morning, I get dressed and head on out for the CBC ride. At 5 miles out, 2 miles to Logboom, my shifter cable snaps. Great, now I am a single speed, I turn around and head home. Climbing up the 10-12% grades was interesting but not too bad, I am not sure what gear I left the bike in but it was low enough to climb with a bit of grunting. I get home and decide I want to have the Corsa ready to ride. I take out the floor pump and work on the tires. BAM! A seal goes out on the floor pump. So now I have only half the work done on the Corsa, so I take out my trusty Topeak Road Morph and fill up the tires. Prefect, the road morph is a trooper, no issues, in fact I over filled the rear tire and had to dump a bit of pressure as I don't run 120psi in the winter. I love my road morph, it is the model from 2002/2003 or so and has a pressure gauge, flip over tab for my foot and a hose to prevent bending the stem of my tube off. A nearly perfect device, and one I love.

So now I need a new floor pump and I need to take my Rohloff hub + Raptobike to the shop for new shifter cables + an oil change. Ah well, the sun is still shining, I guess I will go for a pleasure ride on the Corsa.

Lucy

I love this picture of Lucy rolling around in the dirt. It really conveys her playfulness. I find Lucy so cute and fun. She has such wide range of behavior, and really is a doggy dog. She goes from Fashionista:

to Playful:

to Intent:

to Competitive:

to lounging:

she digs:

And she always is part of our pack with Casey:

Project Streamliner

As some of my readers may have divined, I am deeply interested in getting a practical streamliner. I want it to be useful for commuting, long ride such as randoneurring or the stp, and hpv racing in the super-street class.

The idea is that I start with a tilting trike such as the one above. Then I work with Coroplast and make a shell for it. Garrie Hill has already done this for his trike, the model of his shell is below:

From RandomPictures

Then I clean up the surface, paint it, mount it and end up with a nice red streamliner. Something like Lonnie's below but made of coroplast and a different shape. But I do love the red with silver striping.


I am thinking of using PVC piping for internal struts to mount the rear especially since the tilting wheels means I have to allow for them to move. A front strut coming off the BB will provide the mounting location for the fairing as well as a place to mount a front light. I will also have a strut pointing straight up to brace the fairing. I will probably talk to terracycle and replace the stock idlers as well. I will want to raise the seat a bit and I am thinking that I could use side mount drum brakes on the rear wheels and then wire them up to one brake lever. I would move the tilt lock down under the seat and put the rear brake lever on the left side. The front brake would be on the right. I will cut the fairing into pieces so it can be removed and reattached. I am currently thinking a front section, two cockpit sections (top and bottom) and a rear section. With the trike separable, that means I could separate the entire thing into 5 pieces for travel or transport. I would paint the fairing red, and put silver reflective stripes on the sides similar to Lonnie's streamliner. I will also put numbers on the fairing for race events and organized rides such as the STP.

Currently this plan is all potential and no actualized in any way. But if all goes well, I may end up with the trike in 2010.

More on Practical Streamliners.

After posting the other day about the following streamliner that was at the Ford HPV challenge 2009, I was reminded of a streamliner from Portland.

Jester in F40-like clothing


Todd's Streamliner in Portland
I believe that Todd's Streamliner above also has a Jester at its heart. It is based on a Varna shell and he added gull wing doors and a larger canopy. He takes it on the street and always does well at the Human Powered Challenge in Portland since he knows the handling and abilities of his streamliner much better than most riders do.

I have to admit I am very tempted to look into this.

What Features I want in a potential streamliner and why?

Recently I have been considering streamliners as commuting platforms. The so-called "practical streamliner" bike problem. This is an interesting problem to be solved.

Commercially there are a few approaches that have been taken.

1. The Velomobile, a tadpole trike platform with a shell. Examples include the Quest, the Go-One, the Sorcerer, etc. Most are heavy (~70lbs) and the tadpole format adds a certain about of tire scrub and rolling resistance. Even so, this is the format that is the most common for practical applications today. It is also very fast as long as you don't have too many hills.
   
2. Fabric and wireframe Faired bikes, the Lightning F-40, which holds the fasted time ever in RAAM is the classic example. Faired Easy Racer Gold Rushes are another common example and the lowracer above with a customer carbon fiber front fairing and cover is within reach. These tend to be lighter, in the 30-40lbs range and the cost is lower. The speeds are good, especially since the weight is low and low weight means that climbing is not as affected.
3. Hardshell streamliners, tub bikes, these are the real speed bikes, also about ~70lbs with limited steering radius and other practical limitations. These tend to be individually produced with custom design features. There are examples that have been made more practical and can be used in general traffic and riding applications. Joe's streamliner built around a varna clone shell is one example
   

The question is what makes a good platform to build a streamliner around. You want a number of components.

1. Suspension, a streamliner is faster and due to the opaque body generally has reduced forward visibility for road bumps and hazards. You will hit bumps fast and you want to be able to handle it. Suspension also helps stick to turns better at speed. Most streamliners can easily average in the mid 20s MPH or low 30s MPH if the road is reasonably flat or rolling hills. Suspension helps make this comfortable and keeps the tires on the road.
2. Large Gear Range, a streamliner wants high gears to avoid spinning out in the 25-30mph range. It also wants low gears to climb hills with the extra weight. A gear range from 17 GI to 120GI is adequate for most practical applications. This can be accomplished with a jackdrive (intermediate drive), an internal hub, or something like the SRAM dual drive.
3. Indirect Steering, indirect steering or some other method to control how much your steering apparatus goes to the side during turns. Traditional Tiller and U bar steering can take up quite a bit of width during turns, widening your profile and reducing the aero benefits of the streamlining. Indirect steering can eliminate this entirely though it does add complexity. Other solutions are sitting very close the the fork and putting a small T bar steering directly on top of it.
   
4. Entry, Exit and Stoplight solutions, a trike of some sort makes a good practical streamliner since entry, exit and stopping/starting are all pretty simple as long as you can get in and out of the fairing. Bike solutions have to worry about bomb-bay doors for the feet, clearance for derailleurs , etc. The inherent stability of trikes helps a lot for low speed handling like climbing. Most of the practical 2 wheel streamliners have either open bottoms or do something with bomb bay doors (complex) or fabric (simple) to improve the aerodynamics on the underside. Entry and exit is also very tricky with a 2-wheel streamliner. The F-40 and other fabric/nosecone solutions solve this reasonable well. Many 2 wheel hardshell solutions require helpers to launch/catch them. This is not very practical.
5. Storage, some form of storage and luggage capacity. A streamliner is useful for both speed and weather protection. You will want to carry the odd bit of groceries, a change of clothes or maybe a laptop. 20 -to 40L of storage is a nice thing to have. The extended tail section of most streamliners does provide a location that suits many designs. Even a way to add a small basket back there provides useful storage.

Looking at this list, you can see why tadpole trikes do well as velomobiles. I am looking for a bit more speed and less tire scrub so I am considering a tilting trike as a platform. Though a lowracer modification such as the one pictured above is also highly tempting. I suspect I could invest $1000 or so into such a solution and come up with something workable.
-Duncan

Posting Schedule and random news

From RandomPictures

I haven't been posting much lately. Mostly due to the new house and because work has changed lately requiring more hours but also due to the fact that it is the winter. I will continue to run this blog and will post interesting items. For instance Arnold of Raptobike is planning a FWD trike design and has reserved the name Raptotrike.com. I am hoping for a tilting trike out of this.

With the winter and my longer commute I find myself wishing for a trike to commute with. Especially a trike with a fairing, aka a velomobile. In the US, Bent Up Cycles has become the premium velomobile dealer. Dana carries the bluevelo Team, the Greenspeed Glyde and seems likely to start carrying the Quest version produced by Bluevelo under license from Velomobiel. Dana imports VK2s from Poland and carries a number of other European brands. If a tilting trike comes to the US my money says Dana will carry it, especially if there is a velomobile version.

At least that is my hope since I don't want to ever get a second car and prefer to find a car alternative in a velomobile. I don't think I will need the large carrying capacity of the quest. If I can carry groceries for dinner and a gallon of milk then it will be enough for me. My mostly likely day to day cargo is the commuting load. A laptop, a change of clothes, tools and a jacket. With this in mind I want a lighter weight velo and a narrower track. This leads me down the narrow wheelbase of a tilting delta trike framework. I see enough room for the basics in a turtledeck behind the seat and the tilting delta format is good for stability even in the wet leaves I sometimes traverse. Something like the Munzo TT would be nearly ideal with the indirect steering and the take apart frame for transport.

I think a functional, fast, velomobile would be nearly ideal 3/4s of the year and my raptobike would be my summer bike. I could outfit it for fun, lightweight, road cycling and keep the velomobile platform setup for commuting and foul weather. I would love to try this. If I have to make my own shell I will need to experiment with a tailbox for the raptobike first. Cleaning the garage of all the crap from the move becomes a priority then. Ah well, back to the reasons why I am not posting as much, too busy. I will continue to post but not quite as much as I had been.
Duncan

Still Commuting

The Puget Sound rainy season has started. I am still cycle commuting, even in the rain but I have wimped out a few times. I added more lights to my helmet which gives me a bit of control over where my light goes and allows me to turn the lights on or off while in motion. It also lights up my cockpit controls without having to turn on the backlight for the gps or bike computer.


Lately I have been wondering what it would take for me to have a foul weather bike without sacrificing too much performance. The Munzo TT trike caught my eye. A 40cm track width, tilting delta trike with indirect steering and suspension. It is a very good platform to put into a homebuilt shell and the guys at FastFWD.nl seem to be planning to make it into a velomobile as well.

Here is the video of the trike in action:


Tilting trikes don't experience the same tire scrub that a normal trike does in turns. Delta trikes are also faster than tadpole trikes though normally aren't as stable in turns. The tilting changes that equation and makes the trike even better in turns than a tadpole. The narrow track width means a shell will be narrow as well. Suspension is always a good idea for a streamliner since you will hit bumps at speed. Disk brakes are also a good idea and this trike has the mounts for them. Additionally the Munzo TT separates which makes transport much easier. If the shell also separates (as it should) then you can transport the contraption pretty easily. Overall a very exciting idea and one sure to occupy my thoughts this winter.