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2020-11-09
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I've recently come into posession of a late 90s Linear [1] long wheel base recumbent gifted by some friends of my parents who are moving away.
It's spent most of the last 20 years being stored in their garage but, being a former cycle mecanic they've kept it in good nick.
Some rather pants pictures of the thing in my parent's shed:
Recumbent bicycles place the rider in a sitting or semi-reclined position. People often switch to recumbents because of discomfort or pain when riding upright bikes. They also have a significant aerodynamic advantage over upright bikes.
Wikipedia has exhaustive detail [2].
The Linear design centers around an I shaped alluminium box section with a (folding!) head tube and fork assembly at the front and a pair of alluminium blades to hold the rear wheel.
The seat, handlebars, bottom bracket and front mech all clamp to the top and bottom of this box section and can be adjusted fore and aft to suit the rider.
To add some additional whackyness the handlebars are located beneath the seat poking out to either side and are attached to the front fork crown by a linking bar.
The model I've got comes with 3x7 speed Sachs derailleur gearing and Dia Compe dual pivot callipers, 26" rear and 20" front wheels.
I'll be honest, there isn't one. The bike was far too unique to pass up.
Relatively little needs doing to it beyond a good clean and some fresh grease. I've got reel of decent compressionless housing on the way to re-cable the distinctly spongy brakes and dug some fresh pads out of the spare parts box.
Hopefully, I'll find some time to get the thing roadworthy over the next couple of weeks of English COVID lockdown.
Then I can start learning to ride a bike again. I'll report back with how that goes!
[1] https://linearrecumbent.com/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle
-- CC BY-SA 4.0 - dave@dnhome.uk
