atman

I recommend it highly!

geeklpc1985

What you said it true, but here in Wis. we have hills, ice and snow. Try riding up a icy hill, your going to miss that weight on the back tire. There are many reason for waiting your body weight on the back tire. Since it is the drive wheel, your going to lose power when you lose the weight. Also it is good at low speeds, true, but who wants to go slow?

Michel Gagnon

I don't have an Xtracycle, but I have a tandem and often ride it by myself. Same issue, only even more so.

I find the stokerless tandem as easy to ride as the single bike except in a few situations:

– Steep downhills need to be taken with more care, especially if the road is bumpy. There is very little weight on the rear wheel, so don't brake too hard while you jump a bump or the rear wheel will skid! That,s especially important if the road is likely to be slippery, because at that time, one should favour the rear brake.

– Climbs in the snow. Actually, that's a welcome challenge. My pedal stroke has become much more even because of that. Call that a year-round benefit.

tfahrner

On a regular bike, climbing a very steep grade usually means getting out of the saddle and standing on the pedals, to keep from lifting the front wheel as well as more torque. This shifts your weight forward, unweighting the rear wheel while your likely somewhat choppy standing pedal strokes test the limits of traction. On an Xtracycle, you remain seated to keep the center of gravity nearer the rear wheel for maximum traction, and spin more smoothly up, or pull on the bars as hard as you need for torque; you won't lift the front wheel except in the most extreme cases.

It's true that hard braking on the flat can cause the rear wheel to skid much more easily than with a typical bike. So you learn to go easy on the rear brake: problem solved.

geeklpc1985

How I go up steep grades, is gear down a little, stay seated, and pump evenly. You will learn fast not to stand up, with ice and snow, with out the weight, your going no ware fast.

guruguhan

What advantages do you see an xtracycle specific frame (Big Dummy) having over a converted bike? Vice versa?

How many of you have debated between an xtracycle and extrawheel? The extrawheel seems pretty good, and I like that it can be removed/added as needed. I don't know how it compares in the load category though. I've never ridden with one either....

The Human Car

My understanding is the main advantage of the Xtracycle specific frame is that people can walk into a store see it, buy it and then ride it home all in one day.

The Extrawheel looks good as do a lot of one wheel trailers but if you want to max out your carrying capacity and still have a single wheel track nothing comes close to an Xtracycle. Keep in mind with an Xtracycle you not only have the two side areas to load but you can load things on top as well.

A story just to show the possibilities of an Xtracycle; I took a trip with my son and some of his friends on the C&O and we thought bringing real food would be fun so besides the regular camping/touring gear I also brought a cooler filled with ice and food stuffs on my Xtracycle. During the trip one of the kids racks breaks so I ended up just putting his panniers and sleeping bag on top of my Xtracycle and we kept going. My guess is I had something like 110-150lbs of gear I was caring.

The way I look at it is most single wheel trailers give you enough capacity as a large extended trip backpack. If this capacity will fit your needs and you like the convenience of taking it off then go for it. If you are after something as a car replacement or something like a deluxe RV in the world of bike touring then the Xtracycle rocks.

I used to have a Yakama trailer (similar to the BOB.) While this was a great trailer it had a limit of what it could carry that was way less then what I could haul. I will not go back to using one after having tried an Xtracycle. But to answer your question, I looked at a lot of trailers before I decided on getting the Xtracycle and there really is nothing else that comes close but then again caring over a 60-80lbs of stuff on a bike is not everyone’s cup of tea either so it can be over kill for some people.

catatonic

Getting out of the seat is for racerboys. Do enough adverse terrain conditions, and you learn to stay in the saddle, since your butt now becomes a stabilizer of sorts...it keeps the bike aligned properly in the vertical plane to avoid washouts.

I don't see much evil from this on hills though, especially growing up in a hilly area. the added forward weight will allow you to hammer on the hills, instead of waste energy trying to keep the front wheel in place.

I'd like to see if two freeradicals can be mounted to each other.....kind of a bicycle-bus of sorts.

turtle77

My two cents:
I'm going to get an Xtracycle. The reason - I'm normally not going to want to cruise around with an empty trailer clangin' behind me, so I'll take it off. Then, inevitably, I'll end up somewhere without my bob trailer, or whatever and I'll realize that I want to haul something home and I'll not have my extra cargo space with me. That will never be an issue with an Xtracycle.

cerewa

I bet you could, and i bet you'd also wind up breaking something because the more distance you put between the wheels, the more stress you put on the middle of the bike.

atman

I should maybe not confess this, but I've come to use the skid to 'rudder steer' in tight places like between lanes of traffic. I run skinny tires and when I have a light load I can easily push the wheel a little, more than making up for the high turning radius of the bike, because my rear brake (kool stop fwiw) will reliably skid the wheel.

I simply don't have experience running in the winter yet, but I'll be putting some phatty tires on and trying it out soon enough. I'll let y'all know how it goes: we have plenty of ice and snow here, if not so many hills. I already sense, having ridden both types extensively, that the long wheelbase of an xtracycle is more the kind of balance I want on marginal terrain, and I already "get" how to lean into the rear wheel for more traction where needed.

catatonic

Ture, but I figured a good DH hardtail would be a suitable frame for this kind of abuse....just get a rigid fork long enough and have at it. Those things take insane levels of abuse.

nebben123

How long did it take you to get your Xtracycle? I ordered mine a week and a half ago and they still haven't shipped it (even though they charged my credit card). I also can't seem to get an answer on their 1-888 number.


Ben

The Human Car

The 700c kit has been out of stock for a while and should be in now or soon (I also have (another) one on order) so they are probably swamped right now trying to get orders out.

Try emailing info@xtracycle.com if you can’t get through on the phone.

guruguhan

A backrest for the extracycle (since they have the footsies, seems like a good addition) would be nice. Something simple and lightweight.


edit: errr, I mean xtracycle (sorry guys!)

nebben123

It turns out that the Xtracycle people are swamped with orders AND they had some kind of "system failure" -- not sure if they meant with their computers, or their suppliers, or what. But they told me that usually they ship out next day. My order has been 10 days in the queue so far, and they swear it's shipping out tomorrow.

Ben

The Human Car

Not a bad idea but I’m looking for a good padded snap deck first then I'll consider a backrest.

atman

How about just getting a stadium seat and putting it on the snapdeck, with the weight of the passenger holding it in place? I've had no problems padding the snapdeck with a piece of fleece...

Nice that the xtracycle phenomenon is finally blowing up. The Surly frame will be another major step in that direction.