Bicycles, Trikes, Tandems and anything else!

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There are many different types and there is no set rule. What works for one may not be so good for another. And it also depenss on the use and the local terrain and how one rides ones machine...

What type of cycles do you prefer and why? What criteria is important for a pedal cycle to have to makemit suitable for you to ride it?

I ride a 29' hardtail MTB

I changed the front suspension and did some other adjustments so it fits my anatomy better.

When buying, I thought mainly of commuting in my kurbstoned city, but it also does well offroad and on moderately advanced single tracks.

Very nice.


I am scaling down and the plan is to reduce my collection to just five bicycles.
The most useful all round bicycle that I have is the touring bike. My main tourer I purchased new in December 1989. It cost quite a bit. I sold three bicycles and a moped and still had to save an extr £60 to pay for it. It rides so nicely... I am so glad I never sold it as I almost did once when youthful eyes assume that new technology (Not actually new... Is actually old re-invented and repackaged to try to get us to part with our money) was better. The truth be said that while certain aspects are, some I expect to come and go much as it did in days gone by befoee the technology made its re-appearance. My tourer takes the very best from the old and new and I have made further subtle improvements over the years I have owner her.

Another one of my bikes I plan to change a few things. It is a sports tourer and currently has my Sachs Elan 12 speed hub gear on it. While the hub gwar works just fine, I would rather use the bike in drop handlebar form, so the hub gear will be transferred onto another bike and prehaps sold. The hub was the fifth hub gear to reach the UK. I do not know if any more made it. It was supposed to have a coaster brake but on opening its box prior to building it up into a wheel, it was found the hub didn't have this feature. Actually, years later I am relieved as they didn't make these hub gears foe that long, so the fewer parts thag eed to be replaced the better, as Sachs sold out to Sram and Sram decided not to continue making them. So in a way mine is a rare survivor! Why? Well. The hubs were sold and said to be sealed for life so the idea was no maintenence. However, after a few years the grease ad oil was known to dry out and then the hubs would start to break down. I had the feeling with mine that it would be a good idea to lubricate it and I later found out that most of the other hubs owned by people who had not done this gave up. So nothing wrong with the hub itself. Just it should have had a recommendation to lubricate it every five or ten years.
In operation it is rather like having a lorry gearbox. If cycling under normal conditions I will skip a few gears at a time. However, if I have heavy panniers, I will be changing one gear at a time. It has about the same range as having a 28-38-48 chainset with a seven speed 14 to 28 freewheel. However, in theory one could use rhe hub with a double or triple chainset and have such a gear range... Though I have not tried this myself. Just dreaming up some fun possibilities...

I have a three speed tricycle.

The gear changer is very much like a grip shift but much smoother and better quality, and it has all 12 speeds on the same single shifter with a littlw window to show what gear you are in.
While in theory I could put it on the end of the drop bar, in practice I don't want it down there. There is no way it will turn the curve of the bar tomput the lever up at the top of the bar position.
Theee is a bar available that splits to allow this to be done at a price, but it is in the more kodern style of drop bars, and also likely to be expensive.
Besides this, a deraileur gear system suits a sports tourer better. The hub gear is better on a cruising type of bicycle or a traditional roadster. A sports tourer is a bike which should be very lively and spritely as it is half way between a racing bike and a touring bike. Hub gears last much longer (The less the number of gears they have, the longer they are likely to last in theory as there's less moving parts inside to wear) but they are less efficient. Actually the most efficient is a single speed chain drive bike in either fixed wheel or freewheel form as long as the chainline is straight and direct and not too far away from the centre of the bottom bracket axle. However, there is a thouhht to eeduce the width of the bottom bracket at the frame but doing this gives a little less rigidity to play with as it is the width between the pairs of bearings which holds things more rigid.

Now a very interesting effect in regards to frame materials and frame flex in the bottom bracket area can be found. The modern way is to stiffen up the downtube by increasing its diameter which will make a more rigid bottom bracket area. This is a must foe aluminium frames but can be preferable foe steel as well. However, not always.. Now some of my bikes have manganese molybdemum alloy added into the steel which here, for manh years was sold under the Reynolds 531 badge and 653. 653 and 531c are the same thing. They just started calling the lightweight c series of frames (c stands for competition which only road racing ad time trialing bikes were made with this material) and with 531, if you ride an older bike made from 531 it does have quite noticeable flex in the bottom bracket area as you pedal (So do other steels flex a little here). Now ordinary mild steels also marketed as carbon steels which most bikes were made from (A few still are) in the past were the budget end as far as bicycle frames go, flexed and the more flex the less go the rider gets. In other words the efficiency of ones pedalling power gets sapped up in the flex of the frame rather then being transferred into forward momentum. Now with 531, it has a spring effect to it. Now if one has ordinary steel and just stiffens up the nottom bracket area by using an oversized downtube, one does get a bit more go but at the same time one is carrying more weight, so the gains are only slight. (Mind you I have ridden many cheap standard size steel framed bikes that just had no ho whatsoever so to stiffen these would be such a bonus). Gojng back to 531, the spring effect... What happens is the flex springs back with a very useful force which takes place right at the end where the dead spot is in the pedal stroke, so if the frame builders knew what they were doing and got it right the benefits to such frames have an outstanding advantage over conventional frames, and after riding aluminium (Which by nature has to be made with as little flex as possible), carbon fibre (Which its light weight is the largest advantage and it is a mix between a compromized design (Hence the need for extra large diameter bearings to prevent too much stress on the frame at these points) with flex but the flex has to be only allowed where it is safe to flex... Well, after riding these bikes I would say that I much prefer riding my 531c when it comes to racing and time trailling as the spring back effect means that the difference between the materials are not that great in performance, and 531 bikes if built the older methods are comfortable.
A warning here before one goes to buy a 531 framed bike. Modern 531 frame tubes(There has been a comeback to produce these again) are only available in one diameter so only the main triangle of the frames can be made from 531. Also, a 531 frame has to be lugged as it needs to be brazed or silver soldered. It can't be welded. A newer steel alloy known as 631 (Not to be confused with 653) was designed to be weldable 531 so needs no lugs. However, the bikes I have seen made from this material have oversized downtubes so obviously it is not going to have the lovely springback of 531... So the advantage of a 531 type material has been cancelled by stiffening up the bottom bracket area. (I have not tried 631 yet, but I have heard people who bought new bikes with 631 that they were missing their old bikes).
So to conclude, if you want a decent 531 framed bicycle, buy secondhand and try to get full 531 with the correct size and type of bike for your needs.

I don't ride a bike. But if I did I'd need a trike.

I have owned two adult trikes in the past. Swings and roundabout there. First, contrary to what people say, they very much need to be balanced while riding, but in a different way to a bicycle. The problem with trikes are that the best designs have a single wide downtube which flexes. If one uses a traditional crossbar the trikes are almost unrideable, as to corner them at speed one has to grab the handlebars and lean right into the corner. The crossbar prevents one from leaning and therefore one is endanger of tipping the thing.
Now some trikes were made in a similar form as a ladies framed bike in that there is the downtube and an upper downtube (In other words the crossbar (Toptube) runs downward parallel to the downtube. This is sligjtly stiffer so one assumes it is great, but through experience with my first tricycle, it is not as the frames are prone to fail as the seam of the tube of the sloped toptube is quite stressed so will tend to start to fail.
The single thick downtube designed for flex has been the most successful in my oppinion where it is usually joined as it meets the seat tube by an extra tube to ensure any flexing does not damage the frame joint at the seattube to downtube join. The headtube to downtube also needs additional reinforcing to prevent failure.
Traction. The easiest way to gain traction with a trike is to drive the single rear wheel nearest to the curb (So it depends what side of the road your country drives on). Custom made trikes can be made with a chain form of differential so both wheels can be driven. It does add weight, but trikes are heavier thinhs to ride in the first place. It takes a litrle more energy to ride a trike then a bike as one has three wheels contacting the road and a much heavier machine to ride.
Another point I should mention are the wheels of a trike, especially the rear wheels. Bicycle wheels are designed to take up and down stresses more then sideways stresses. The way the hubs are designed and the spokes are laced (Either radial, 2x, 3x or 4x depending on the intended use of the bicycle) do not really allow for strong sideways forces but they are very good at coping with the forces on an up and down plane. Even cycling round corners, as a bicycle banks to take these corners, the forces are still exerted on a similar plane. Now consider the tricycle which does not bank round corners. It encounters a lot of extra stress on the rear wheels at the very extremes which its wheels (As they are laced the same way as bicycles are) are not really designed to take. Normally to counter this, tricycle builders will either lace the wheels with thicker stronger spokes or they will reduce the wheels size which makes a stronger wheel as there's less flex. The omly downside to smaller wheels is they don't roll so well over harsh bumps and pot holes.

So it depends wat you expect from a trike. If you want to carry heavy loads, get something lie a Pashley work trike. Bear in mind that most trikes have two brakes on the front wheel. Rwar wheel braking is used on some designs, but due to difficulties where hubs and trueing the wheel on the non driven side (Umm. You may need to be a bike mechanic with experience of tricycle designs and wheelbuilding etc to understand where I am coming from here) can be difficult to get the wheel to be true enough to use, as a slight movement of hub on its axle can throw off the teueness of the wheel. So the trike Inhad even with three strong hydraulic rim brakes... I aas always adjusting the teueness of the rear wheels to compensate and it was difficult to find the happy medium.
Discs maybe better here, but need careful design to make them effective. Many trikes split a cable between both rear brakes where thee is so much flex in doing this, rarely do rhe rear brakes work that well. (Hence why some maufacturers simply put both brakes on the front wheel, but I would not want to ride a trike like this at speed!)

Trikes do habe advantages. In busy traffic. Ok, you can find room to ride past traffic on a bike, but a trike is good in that at a junction you just sit there. No up and down out of the saddle like one gets with a bicycle. So much more relaxing in traffic.
Trikes are much better at trailer towing then bicycle.

I'm saving up for a trike. My balance is horrendous.

I suspect we have found out someone's Special Interest

Sorry guys... I disn't mean to take over the thread. I am supposed to share... I sometimes get told off that I am supposed to let other people talk...
Your turn everybody!

I'm not into biking but if I were I think I would really like this kind cuz it's funny & unique





My 2nd choice would be Tandem with a woman I live in front so I could zone out & stare at her back & daydream while peddling. Be the best way to get exercise.

Don't own one, and severely out of practice. I used to be good with bikes.


But sure, I'd go for a BMX. Because most bikes so far felt rather, well, not firm enough to turn and awkward to me. Though, I dunno what my size is...

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