Recumbent - Homebuilt Lowracer: 26" front and rear?

is it possible? Or will I need to go with a 20" front and 26" rear? Using old mart bike and mountain bike parts :)

Bikes this size are commercially available, but are not for the height challenged rider.
Seat to ground distance can be a problem, and lowering the seat makes for a long
bike. Rotator had a few frames made up in this size, but never went into production and I haven't looked at their site to see if they still have pix, probably not. Once you
start up the seat height is not a problem, but coming to a stop, and starting up, as
in traffic can be dicey with high seats. Helps to be limber to get one leg on the pedal and one on the ground. Even dual 560's (size?) are a bit high for a lot of folks.
Seat heights above 24" are where the problems start, 22" for shortys. Look at the specs for Baccheta (www.x-eyed.com). The Aero 650 is about 22" and you learn to sit up and slide forward when you stop. You can't touch the ground from the riding position. Steve

Bikes this size are commercially available, but are not for the height challenged rider.
Seat to ground distance can be a problem, and lowering the seat makes for a long
bike. Rotator had a few frames made up in this size, but never went into production and I haven't looked at their site to see if they still have pix, probably not. Once you
start up the seat height is not a problem, but coming to a stop, and starting up, as
in traffic can be dicey with high seats. Helps to be limber to get one leg on the pedal and one on the ground. Even dual 560's (size?) are a bit high for a lot of folks.
Seat heights above 24" are where the problems start, 22" for shortys. Look at the specs for Baccheta (www.x-eyed.com). The Aero 650 is about 22" and you learn to sit up and slide forward when you stop. You can't touch the ground from the riding position. Steve

The Bachetas are high racers. Given the necessary clearance for legs at the turning front wheel, a swb dual 26 lowracer would need a rider with at least a 34" inseam on fwd and more for a rwd. Smaller riders would need to go lwb to achieve a dual 26 lowracer since the cranks would be trailing the front wheel eliminating the front tire interference.

Here is a picture of a dual-26 SWB. The seat is as low as possible for such a bike -- even short people can ride it. However, it is more of a high racer than low racer.

http://www.nazca-ligfietsen.nl/modellen/model.php?bike=pioneer_bs
http://www.nazca-ligfietsen.nl/nieuws/

If you want a low racer, then I'd build on dual-20s for the quick handling.

Here is a mwb dual 26 lowracer built by Mike Burrows - midway down the pics.

http://www.velovision.co.uk/cgi-bin/show_comments.pl?storynum=636

Okay here is a homebuilt lowracer that uses dual 26 inch wheels also. It's really funky and said to have a learning curve to ride because it's handle bars are used only for holding brakes and shifters. It steers by leaning.

http://www.python.de.tt/

is it possible? Or will I need to go with a 20" front and 26" rear? Using old mart bike and mountain bike parts :)
The lowracer plans I offer on my website do just that- allow you to build a dual 26" lowracer out of mtn bike parts (if you choose). The frame geometry as detailed in the plans allow any combination of 20" and 26" wheel combos, and the geometry can be modified to allow an even lower seat height than depicted on the website. No worries over chain routing---it's front wheel drive.

http://www.geocities.com/atombikes/plans

http://www.geocities.com/atombikes/1111.jpg