[python] Re: New python from Finland
- From: david hout <bmwmadman@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: python@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:39:54 -0700 (PDT)
im still learning to ride mine. i dont have a trike to play with. im trying to
work out a set of training wheels that can be unbolted later but have not had
time. its very frustrating to not be able to ride the bike i built.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Einstein
--- On Fri, 7/30/10, Pekka Pitkänen <pegalle@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Pekka Pitkänen <pegalle@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [python] Re: New python from Finland
To: python@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, July 30, 2010, 1:49 PM
Thanks Torben and Rhisiart!
Today I made a new wooden seat which feels very promising! A few pics are
waiting to upload to the blog. Gonna have a test ride this evening.
There have been discussions in Finnish forum how to get over from the first
embarrassing meters which eat gloves very much, some use short sticks, others
wonder would it be reasonable to use stabilising side wheels or use roller
skates (or similar) in hands.
I wonder how fast that kind of a training back end will be seen in Finland, too!
Anyways, I started my recumbenting in 2001 by doing a copy from Esko
Meriluoto's Hipparion trike which is also leg-steered.
http://www.nojapyorafoorumi.fi/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=40&start=90 ; the green one
in bottom of the page.
Maybe it was a bit easier to learn python because of that, but still not easy :)
2010/7/30 Rhisiart Gwilym <Rhisiart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Congratulation, Pekka. Welcome to the Bruised Python-Learners club!
To help you learn quicker, and to be able to ride even on roads, Erik Wannee's
'Training Trike Back End' is a key idea. See here:
http://www.wannee.nl/hpv/oefentri/index.htm
Dirk Bonne told me about it, and being too far from Erik's place in Apeldoorn,
Netherlands, to hire his trainer, I just made a quick copy. This has absolutely
TRANSFORMED my riding. Before, even after weeks of trying, I could go scarcely
ten metres on my bike-rigged Python before I fell over. Now, I'm doing
twenty-kilometer rides easily, including stretches on roads with motor traffic.
And I could ride the training trike immediately, the very first time that I sat
on it.
I've just turned 70, so my sense of balance isn't as good as it was. But still,
with this rig, the Python riding is easy. And the best is that I can watch
myself catching the trick of balancing the front and middle parts -- just like
the bike rig -- and internalising the learned reflexes steadily. By now I can
ride along for a lot more than ten metres, with my hands just poised loosely
round the grab-bars, but actually steering and balancing exactly as if I were
on a Python bike.
Note that, though Erik's page about his training-trike back end is in
Nederlandse, the pictures really make it all quite clear. All you really need
to grasp is that the rectangular frame which holds the two back wheels is
rigid, and stays upright at all times, and the two rearward grab handles welded
to that rectangular frame also stay solidly on the ground, and upright at all
times. But the whole of the rest of the rig leans and balances just like a
bike. As Erik says, you can't really feel the difference. But there are always
those two solid, unyielding grab bars to rebalance yourself instantly, as soon
as you feel yourself losing it. Absolutely the key to quick, easy learning. You
can just make out the fore-and-aft, horizontal-axis leaning pivots that link
the back end to the rest of the cycle, on the first photo on Erik's web-page.
That's the key!
I have a friend who runs a one-man bike sales, repair and recycling shop, from
his canal-boat home. He's watched me crawling slowly forward with the building
of my Python bike, and then the long, not-very-successful slog of trying to
learn to ride it. So he was pretty sceptical about the whole Python idea. But
the first moment that he sat on my trike rig, pedalled away, felt the beautiful
soft, easy ride of the Mages DIY suspension system, and that extraordinary way
that the Python steers and handles, he was completely converted. So much so
that he's now offering to build bespoke Pythons for anyone who asks me where
they can get one. Graham is a really good engineer and general fabricator, with
half a lifetime solidly in bikes as a professional, so I know that his Pythons
will be really good quality cycles.
We both think that the Training-Trike version is such a good rig in its own
right that I'm tempted to just stay with it, as-is; and Graham also is asking
me why I'd want to go back to the bike rig when I've got a trike as sweet and
easy-ride as this one. I suppose I just want to be able to ride the original,
pure Mages creation too. But I'm very tempted to settle mainly on the trike.
It's such a great ride that I just can't get enough time on it. Got to try them
both first though, before I can decide.
Good luck with your learning Pekka, whichever way you try it. Python's rule, OK!
Hwyl fawr, RhG
Hello pythonists,
This project has been one of the best succeeded what i've been done, got
"influence" in May, gathering bike parts from local junkyard and steel tubes
came from friend's garage. In June I was lucky to have a place where I was able
to weld everything together.
In July I finished the frame in my backyard and started to learning how to ride
the damn thing! One hour per day it took 15 hours to convince myself that I may
be able to ride somewhere else than on the empty car park only!
From now on I am counting kilometres, not hours. The Python has cost next to
nothing, if we are not counting a beer case to the welding place's owners, and
that's not much! Everybody just keep saying that "I want to see if you are ever
able to ride that thing!"
Next thing I'm going to do is modificating the seat, the fabric is not giving
enough support to my lower back and because of my bad back, it's got to be
changed.
A little bit more fine tuning and welding and then some Hammerite black paint,
and then... who knows? :D
Pekka
============================================================
This is the Python Mailinglist
//www.freelists.org/list/python
Listmaster: Jürgen Mages jmages@xxxxxx
To unsubscribe send an empty mail to python-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'unsubscribe' in the subject field.
============================================================
Other related posts:
