Originally Posted by
Cute Boy Horse
So by your admission not everything I said is wrong...
Everything I said is completely correct and I can back it up.
Spoked wheels are known to buckle on these, there's many reported cases, including ones sold as cargo vehicles with ratings of 700 lbs.
The seats are wrong for a pedal vehicle. They are built like couches, which means they put you in the wrong position for efficient recumbent cycling. Their thick padding means they don't breathe, and are very heavy. The correct kind of seat for this vehicle would be a fabric mesh, or at a pinch some thin padding over a formed base. Observe any proper pedal car or recumbent bicycle from the past 40 years.
The steering geometry is as I said, wrong. They ignore the very basics like kingpin inclination and caster, choosing to build everything at 90 degrees instead. The end result is a car that doesn't have self-centering steering, and even worse, can't track straight at all because every bump in the road becomes steering input. Ask an engineer.
(As an aside, that's also why they don't fit front brakes. Because any imbalance would make it swerve off the road)
The gears are ridiculous. The drivetrain on most models has two freewheels between you and the road. a 6x7 drivetrain giving 42 different sprocket combinations! That's crazy! I would absolutely love to see a gear-inch chart of this monster.
The overall impression is of cheapassness. They welded some 50mm box steel together at 90 degree angles, put seats they bulk buy from a boat factory on it, and then slap wally-world mechanical parts on.
Meanwhile, in 1930:
Well, if you want to get specific than.....yes
Wheel buckling - cite your source. I've been googling and found one example.
Seat position - As stated, this isn't about performance. It's about enjoying the ride, which is a subjective experience. I enjoy having the person next to me so we can have a conversation while enjoying a leisurely ride, which is what these were designed for.
Steering - Back to my original point about this not being a performance piece. If self-steering is important to you, or if bump-steering is phrase you utter more than once a year, this isn't the vehicle for you. The geometry references are irrelevant for someone tooling around a beach town at 11 mph. Which is what these were designed for.
Gearing - If you intend to calculate gear inches, this is not for you either.
In short, mini vans don't do well on the drag strips. If you're really into drag racing, stay away from minivans. But no need to hate on said minivan just because it's a minivan. It does it's minivan job very well, and has no business going up against the standards of your gasser.
My real point here is that these aren't crap. They do what they're intended to do fairly well in my opinion, and I've had really good experience with their customer service.