hi folks ,I am building a recumbent bike as per recycled recumbents plans ,but would like uss plus an intermediate gear for more speed,(bit of a masher really ,when on a conventional bike)any advice or info appreciated ,fotos to follow when completed Ta in advance
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You might should try contacting Andrew directly, (of Recycled Recumbents fame) at https://sites.google.com/site/recycle...ts/adc-s-bikes He has built a number of USS LWB's.

Intermediate gears are usually used on recumbents with smaller rear wheels because achieving a "normal" range can be difficult. It looks like this design uses a full size rear wheel. So for simplicity/light weight I would suggest that you don't really need an intermediate gear - if you have a triple crank in front and 7-10 speeds in the rear, adjusting the size of chainrings and freewheel should give a wide enough range to cover most circumstances.

Of course if you have a special application (loaded touring offroad?), maybe you do need the additional gears!

A USS LWB isn't going to need any super-tall gears, so gear it with sufficiently low gears and let the high gears select themselves. Anyway, a mid-drive won't get you any extra gears unless you make it shiftable, which introduces more complication. If you want extra gears, get a SRAM hub or a Schlumpf BB. Just my NSHO.

You can also catch Mr Carson over at bentrideronline in the homebuilder department. He`s very active there and it`s a good place to find lots of advice or just post your pics for Show `N Tell. I know that some of his own LWBs and several that people have built from his plans are USS, so it should be pretty easy to follow the path that`s already been traveled.

If you built a USS LWB recumbent with 26"/27"/700c wheels, then you can get away with standard gearing. I have an older USS LWB Linear with a 27" rear wheel and standard road bike drive. It has a gear range that is more than adequate. Later on Linear went to the 26" rear wheel and equipped the bikes with a 3 speed rear hub (8 speed rear derailleur system) and a single chainwheel in the front. No mid-drive needed. I would think that perfecting the USS steering mechanism would be far more complex. It has to be fairly tight with no play but not binding either. If the tie-rod system on my Linear was not properly adjusted, the bike would be very hard to control. When properly tightened with no slop, it required just a feather touch.

BTW, I don't think you can build a bike like the older Linear for what you can buy them used. I bought one of the older Kann Body Shop models made sometime in the 1980s for $400 from PoweronCycling in Florida a few years ago. It was perfectly rideable out of the box.

A fellow recumbent rider I know built his own recumbent a decade or so ago and only got a few rides on it before one of the brazed points failed. He never trusted it enough again to ride it after he strengthened the braze. It was built from parts he salvaged and a kit he obtained from someone in Washington state. It's beautiful but he now only rides the used recumbents he bought after that experience.