Hello Listies, I'm new to this list, so let's introduce myself first. My name is Miche (Michael), i'm 26 Years old and live near Ingolstadt in Bavaria, Germany. I hope you excuse my bad english. My understanding of driving physics is limited too. I'm interested in Recumbents for a few years now and thought about buying a HP Speedmachine, but then the long chain seemed to be a bad idea for me. Also the high price is a problem for me. After an accident with my upright last year falling over the handlebars, knocking out a tooth, getting some scars in the face and hurting my knee to be unable to walk about six weeks, i'm sick of that old-fashioned stuff. Then i thought about FWDRWS. Searching the web i found the page of Eric Wannee which marked my idea undoable. Then i found Flevo, Airbike and Python and found it quite good. Then i searched the list archive and found Dennis Renners Bike which fascinated me. Now back to the topic. I have attached a modified picture of Dennis Renners Bike (Original: on top-right of his blog at http://recumbentsartandpoems.blogspot.com/) After comparing it to the Python PX.5 on the bottom of Jürgen Mages Page at http://www.python-lowracer.de/modifications.html i thougt they are kind of similar. Unfortunately i did not find any further information about the PX.5 (Handling on low and high speed, mileage, who built it, ...). According to Eric Wannees classification (which in my eyes makes sense) both, the one of Dennis Renner and the PX.5 are rear steered front driven bikes. On both bikes if you virtually rotate the reer-wheel around the pivot axle, its lowest point is when the steering angle is straightforward. So i don't think it is self-centering. But as you can see on the pictures both bikes have a lot of positive trail of the reer (steering)-wheel. So maybe it will overwaight the missing self-centering effect even at low speed. On the picture of the PX.5 i don't see handlebaars and it seems to me as if the seat is mounted to the front part. I would wonder if it can be driven without handlebars. I would not call it a Python. If i understand Dennis Renner right, then a lot af work is made on how to realize the interface handlebars - steering-angle. Maybe he is doing a stroke of genius somewhere around there. Maybe we will see if he comes over with his plans on some day. Please correct me if i'm wrong at any point. Have a nice day. Miche
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