Recumbent - Crashing on Wet Roads

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Lloyd
10-22-04, 08:08 AM
I've been riding a long wheel base recumbent for 2 years and have had several crashes on wet pavement, something that has never happened to me on a standard bicycle. Can anyone tell me if SWB recumbents are better in this respect? Thanks.

scarry
10-22-04, 11:00 AM
I've been riding a long wheel base recumbent for 2 years and have had several crashes on wet pavement, something that has never happened to me on a standard bicycle. Can anyone tell me if SWB recumbents are better in this respect? Thanks.


Did your front wheel wash out? LWB bent's have a very light front wheel.
Lloyd
10-22-04, 12:17 PM
Yeah, that's what happened today, anyway

dfulton
10-22-04, 12:28 PM
Lloyd,

SWB design does put more weight over the front wheel. Are you running skinny or fat tires? There are some postings on the IHPVA that indicate fatter tires are in general a good idea on bents, and the speed penalty is not as great as with uprights.

Darren
sch
10-22-04, 08:21 PM
The front wheel is so far out that corrections applied by the rider to small slip outs
are not enough to recover, compared to SWB where the axis of steering is similar
to a DF bike, directly over the front wheel, so the bike has to get a lot further away
from its center of gravity (balance point) before control is lost and it is correspondingly
easier to make the corrections in steering to prevent this. In short, LWB fall a lot easier than SWB. On mine, a Rotator Pursuit, at 15" seat height, the fall is a lot less
uncomfortable than with a higher frame. Even higher seat level SWB bikes are a lot
closer to the ground than DF bikes though. Steve