[python] Re: [python]Eureka!
- From: George Durbridge <gdurbrid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: python@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:26:01 +1000
Rhysiart,
There's a lot here to think about; and I will.
In the meantime, happy birthday.
I checked out Erik Wannee's site again. Although the direct link to
"Flevo Trike" is broken, I found a series of pages in English on Erik's
trike, by clicking on the bulleted list or the down-arrow at the bottom
right of each successive page, starting here:
http://www.wannee.nl/hpv/variatie/e-index.htm
George
On Fri, 2010-07-23 at 07:36 +0100, Rhisiart Gwilym wrote:
> George, I can give the answer to that straight away.
>
> I think that it's pretty well certain that I'll be using the trike
> format a lot, just as it is now. I can tell already that it's a very
> satisfactory layout. It has a nice feel, even with the odd minor bug
> to iron out. It rides easily and comfortably, though I've yet to take
> it on a longer ride, to see how I feel after a few kilometres. The
> Mages cheapo homemade suspension system is a real winner.
> Ridiculously comfortable, even off-road. A really neat piece of
> inventive appropriate technology. Mine cost me literally nothing but
> the scrounging up of some bits of medium-soft rubber. Thanks again
> Jurgen! And having a horizontal-axis articulation just behind the
> suspension on the trike back-end means that I can actually feel the
> two back wheels canting gently back and forth laterally between the
> irregularities which they meet separately on a rough off-road
> terrain, even whilst I hold the front end perfectly upright. You get
> the knack just about instantly of letting your arms act as two
> independent shock absorbers for that.
>
> Also the back end being able to swing round the BB axle assembly that
> I used to make the horizontal articulation means that there's
> absolutely no torquing stress on the suspension arm. I pondered a lot
> about that problem for a trike with a Mages central rear-suspension.
> To deal with that problem I'd already designed in my imagination my
> own version of the Wannee tilting trainer-trike idea, before Dirk
> showed my that Erik had had the same idea before, and had actually
> built one which works well. I think Erik has the item about his
> training-trike only on the Nederlandse version of his website. It's
> not on the English-language version, so I'd missed it. I assume Dirk
> speaks Vlaamse, and saw it in Erik's Nederlandse pages. Is that right
> Dirk?
>
> It's quite weird having a trike which articulates in TWO places along
> the length of the frame, and with the axes of articulation at right
> angles to each other too. But whether riding or walking and pushing
> it, it proves not to be a problem. Mind you, when walking this trike,
> the fore periscope proves to be a winner too. What's a fore
> periscope? Ah, wait for the pics. All will be clear......
>
> The only tricky bit at the moment is parking the trike without the
> whole front end just falling over. Coming round to seeing that
> Jurgen's built-in bike stand idea may be the best solution. Cunning
> Mages engineering inventions prove best again.....
>
> I've no doubt either that I shall keep the bike back end, and crack
> the knack of riding that too. Something that you just have to do,
> isn't it. It's really remarkable the way that riding the trike around
> just in the field over the past two evenings has pushed me forward in
> getting the knack of how you balance a Python bike. Could never get
> enough time going forward before I fell over in all my previous
> efforts to learn. But the leaning front end on the practice-trike
> format is, for all practical purposes still a bike. As Erik Wannee
> asserts, you can't really tell the difference in behaviour. But it's
> just that you have these two solid bracing handlebars on the fixed
> upright back-end, to push against and keep yourself upright whilst
> you're learning the new balancing reflexes. I expect that to come
> pretty quickly now.
>
> The great things about the trike are -- well, several:
>
> There's a big freight space between the rear wheels (got that handy
> point from Henk a year or so back with his 'Why I like the trike'
> post, and stored it away as a key fact right up till now).
>
> There's the stability on slippery roads. I ride right through the
> Winter icy time, having only occasional use of a car, when it's
> really necessary. I've really loved getting free, finally, from car
> ownership. I hate being owned by the damned things!
>
> And there's the real problem for me and the other old gaffers (70
> tomorrow, literally) that I need to be able to wind myself slowly up
> hills, and staying balanced on any kind of bike on the steep grades
> has become a problem. That's why I still see occasionally what I used
> to see all the time in my childhood: old bodies on bikes getting off
> and pushing the bike up hills at a very gentle pace. These days I
> realise why that's actually a pretty good tactic. But on a trike, I
> can wind myself up the hill in the very low crawler bottom gear that
> I have on all my bikes, and with the stable trithon, I can just sit
> there smugly on my travelling recliner and wind away comfortably at a
> power output that suits me. Great!
>
> A small bonus with the horizontal-axis articulation between the trike
> rear end and the rest of the cycle is that you can use this tactic
> even when you're crawling up a steep road with a heavy camber: the
> back end just sits at a slight angle from the level, but the rest of
> the bike is perfectly upright under you. Great again! No getting
> steered constantly into the curb by the camber, which can be a
> nuisance with rigid trikes.
>
> Having picked up my trike-format Python and felt the moderate weight,
> even with the rather heavy-tubed bikes that I use for donors to build
> it, I think that it's fair to call it a velo. And that means that
> I'll be using it a lot more than any borrowed car, for the
> all-purpose, all-seasonn runabout that velos are. All-weather too, as
> soon as I've got the rain shield arrangements added on. Yeah, I know
> that people say you can't put farings/rain deflectors on a FWD
> centre-steer. But I have some ideas........
>
> Pics of the bare trike/bike as soon as I can upload them. Pics of the
> fared alleweder as soon as I've made that happen. The Autumn rains
> will be coming soon. Better get going on it.
>
> Pics soon. Hwyl fawr, RhG
>
> >Excellent news! When you have had a bit more time with the
> >python-trike, would you report back your conclusions on how satisfactory
> >a cycle it is in its own right, as well as for a trainer for the bike?
> >
> >============================================================
> >
> >This is the Python Mailinglist
> >
> >//www.freelists.org/list/python
> >
> >Listmaster: J?rgen Mages jmages@xxxxxx
> >
> >To unsubscribe send an empty mail to
> >python-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >with 'unsubscribe' in the subject field.
> >
> >============================================================
>
> ============================================================
>
> This is the Python Mailinglist
>
> //www.freelists.org/list/python
>
> Listmaster: Jrgen Mages jmages@xxxxxx
>
> To unsubscribe send an empty mail to
> python-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> with 'unsubscribe' in the subject field.
>
> ============================================================
>
============================================================
This is the Python Mailinglist
//www.freelists.org/list/python
Listmaster: J�rgen Mages jmages@xxxxxx
To unsubscribe send an empty mail to
python-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'unsubscribe' in the subject field.
============================================================
Other related posts:
