HPR1282: My Homemade Recumbent Bicycle

The Green ♲ Machine

In this episode I discuss my experience building a Recumbent Bicycle from donor bikes. A couple of things I forgot to mention while recording the podcast. First of all I had to use tandem bicycle cables for the brakes and the rear derailleur because they had to be very long. I also forgot to talk about the time when I was in a panic that the rear triangle was a bit out of alignment with the front, such that it would make the bike turn a little bit to the left by default. I called Andrew Carson and asked him if there was anything I could do to fix it and his solution was just awesome. What he told me to do was to put a spare hub in the rear triangle to keep the seat- and chain stays from collapsing together, lay the frame on the ground with the front end propped up on a step or something, and then just stand on it, jumping up and down slightly on it if necessary until I could feel it bend back a little bit. This actually worked! It straightened the frame right out. :) Finally, the total cost for this project was under $300. The most expensive single part of it by far was the powder coat, which cost $120. Here are links to resources mentioned in the podcast or simply of general interest.

• Andrew Carson's Recycled Recumbents: https://sites.google.com/site/recycledrecumbents/home
• Pretty nice video animation of Recycled Recumbent Mach 2 design and some photos of someone else's frame https://youtu.be/YjouiKLz8dA
• My Project Blog https://jonsrecumbant.blogspot.com/
• My Project Gallery: (Editor's Note 2016-01-13: the original pictures were here https://pics.jonkulp.net/index.php?/category/2, but the server is no longer available. They have now been imported to the HPR server) https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr1282/images.html
• Video testing pedals and frame fit: https://youtu.be/fXnuWIclvIs
• Video of my First Ride! https://youtu.be/SDF-y6bd11U
• Custom die-cut vinyl decals: https://www.bikenames.com/
• Wikipedia article on Recumbent Bikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle

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