My first Human powered vehicle or pedal car I guess you would class it as a Sociable tandem recumbent bicycle I took two 20 inch bikes, one 24 inch, about 20 feet of 3/4 steel box tubing, and and tried to make something fun. This is an early picture of the frame with the front forks welded on and the rear just propped there for effect. The hard part was guessing the angle for the backrest to the frame rails. I ended up with about 15 degrees. I you look at the next picture you will see that the frame siderails(the blue rails) are already 15 degrees from horizontal.
Nearly finished and rideable. The driver has 5 speeds. With a front derailleur it could be 10, but I doubt I'll care to go that fast. The passenger side is single speed with a coaster brake. This is just because I happened to score a 20 inch 5 speed and a 20 inch single speed bike for next to nothing.
Still not all that happy with brakes. It's hard to see but there are 2 brake levers on the left handlebar. One for each front wheel. They work fine but you have to grip both with the left hand. For the rear I coupled both to a single lever on the right handlebar. I find that I can't grip it enough to be very good brakes. Of course I went the cheap toute with old style side pull brakes. I'm sure center pull would be better. Update 8/25/2008I changed and now the right brake lever only controls the drivers side rear brake. Works better even though I am only braking 3 wheels.
Page last updated August 25 2008