Recumbent project

For several years now I've been wanting to build a recumbent bike. Perhaps it's my inner geek showing through, but they just strike me as an inherently better platform for long distance, on-road touring and endurance riding. Recently I've been having upper back problems which have further encouraged the idea.

The style I'm interested in is a high-racer in the Volae or Bacchetta model. To my inexperienced eyes this type of bike has several advantages overall and several specific to the home builder.

Highracers use common sizes of wheels and thus gearing which makes finding parts easier, particularly out in the middle of nowhere. I can pick up MTB wheels at nearly any bike shop in the world. Other sizes may be more hit or miss. They have an aerodynamic position which is superior to most unfaired bikes of any stripe with the exception of low racers. However they put your head height near that of most cars which is better for riding in heavy traffic. They are also more "normal" looking somehow. Due to the higher rider height, they play nicer with riders on conventional diamond frame bikes than most recumbents.

Specific to the homebuilder, the main frame is nothing more than a straight piece of .035" wall 2" diameter cromoly tubing. The rear fork is comprised of common MTB fork blades. The rest of the frame is all common frame builder parts. There is no tube bending required or other complex techniques. The jigging for the frame can be quite simple. The fork presents a slight problem in that you are restricted to either tight clearance 650C tri forks which limit tire choice, or MTB forks which are way overkill on clearances. There are other choices, but the two I listed are the most common and cheapest.

Material is something I pondered for a long time. Carbon fiber is a reasonable option and a number of homebuilders have used it to make beautiful bikes. Jim Scozzafava has made some bikes that are the equal of many production bikes costing many thousands of dollars. I also tossed around the idea of an Aluminum carbon hybrid with AL tubes and wrapped carbon lugs. But in the end I settled on fillet brazed steel. I thought about using my mig welder, but I wasn't able to get good enough welds on the thin tubing to satisfy my inner perfectionist.

Steel has a few advantages. First it's relatively cheap and commonly available. It's also reasonably forgiving of mistakes. The biggest factor to me is that I am reasonably sure I can make a durable and long lasting bike from steel. I am not as sure with any of the other materials. There are also a lot of frame parts readily available for steel frames. The same cannot be said for carbon. This isn't a huge issue, but each little thing I need to make myself adds time and effort.

Seats, mounting, stay construction, idlers, steering mast and handlebars, etc are all things I've thought about a lot, but those will have to wait for later posts.