Introducing the Bumble Beast

Jamis Komodo  donor bike

My friend pretending to be hard at work

I present "The Bumble Beast"

Yours truly on the Bumble Beast

Inaugural ride (Max went with me)

I won't write about recumbents all the time but I just finished building my first off road recumbent so I'm a little excited.   Actually, I had a friend helping me and he probably did more of the work building the bike up from a bare frame.  But this is more of the story of how the bike (The Bumble Beast) came to be.  I've been riding recumbents for 5 years now, but so far, all my riding has been on the road.  The same friend that helped me build the Bumble Beast convince me that riding a mountain bike was fun so I bought one last fall.  I did like the fact that I could ride it in the winter since I was usually not traveling over 10 mph and most of the time was going even slower than that.  However, after an hour I was always ready to get off the bike for the same reason I don't ride my road bike more than an hour.   The final straw was when I had a wreck this spring and broke my collar bone.  I was probably pushing 15 mph on a pretty fast downhill section of trail I had ridden dozens of times but on this day a vine hanging in the trail caused me to swerve.  I knew there was a log just ahead but it never occurred to me that I might not be able to find my line quickly enough after dodging the vine.  In fact, I only clipped the very end of the log, but it would not have mattered if I hit it in the middle or at the very end, the results would be the same, me flying over the handlebar and crashing down hard on the other side. It felt like the crash happened in slow motion.  I knew I hit hard because I saw stars and heard birds chirping just like on the cartoons but I was not sure if I was seriously hurt or not.  However, after sitting on the ground a few minutes and thinking I might pass out I decided to see if I could ride my bike home.  It became immediately apparent that I could not use my right arm and riding back up the steep hill was out of the question. I was only about 2 miles from home by trail but a side trail led to the road  and I managed to push my bike the half mile out to the road and was then able to gingerly ride on home.  I'm lucky I was not injured worse because I usually carry my phone with me but this was only going to be a quick exercise ride and I left it at home.  Long story short, I needed an off road recumbent.

Building the Bumble Beast was a pretty straightforward affair.  I found a bare Bacchetts Bella frame for sale and bought it in December of 2012. The Bacchetta Bella is a 26 inch rear 20 inch front tire recumbent built extra strong for touring duties.  However, these same qualities had led another off road recumbent enthusiast to choose this frame for building his off road bent (Redzilla).  I basically followed his example except I went without any type of suspension.  I basically used the parts from my hard tail MTB (Jamis Komodo) except for the front fork which had a much to short steerer tube  If you look at the frame of the Bella it is obvious that it uses a fork with a long steerer tube.  Anyways, I needed a fork that would let me install a 26 inch MTB tire (usually pretty wide to boot) and also let me use disk brakes.  I ended up using a Surly fork that was intended for the 26 inch wheel, disk brake equipped version of the Long Haul Trucker.  I also ended up needed a different front derailleur so called Bacchetta and got the one that comes on the Bella. I used a Rans riser bar and the Rans Chopper handlebar along with a couple of Rans idlers.

I took the seat from my Bacchetta Cafe so that eliminated a huge expense but I really need to find a seat for the Cafe now.  For you guys (and gals) who like numbers here is the breakdown of what it cost to build this bike. I am including the cost of the Jamis Komodo since I used most of the parts from it but I did buy it at half price from Jenson USA,  However, this was pretty much a wash as it would have cost at least as much to buy all the parts I moved from it to my off road bent. I'm not sure exactly what I paid for the Jamis but for the rest I have receipts.  I included the cost of shipping where applicable.

$331  Bacchetta Bella Frame
$350 Jamis Komodo MTB
$100  Surly Fork with 400 mm steerer tube
$40 Cane Creek Headset
$26 Rans Forged Riser
$23 Rans Headset Adjuster Clamp
$8 Rans  Post clamp
$76 Rans 3-way Chopper Handlebar
$46 Rans  Single Forward Idler Assembly ($23 each, I needed 2)
$48 Bacchetta Microshift FD-R439 Front Derailleur
$71 new cables and labor for LBS to install cables
 $16 two cheap walmart 8 speed chains (takes 2.5 chains for this and most bents)
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$1112 Total Cost. 

Note to wife:  I know this seems pretty expensive, but I am doing it for my health honey, and considering that a new Bella runs $1800 and a similar off road bent (the Lightfoot Ranger) runs $2375 I don't think I did too bad. I do think I would like to add a triple at some point and if I do it will have shorter crank arms.The 175 mm crank arms do scrub the tires when I turn sharp  The double crankset that came on the Jamis is geared very low so I am spinning out after hitting about 15 mph.  If I had the triple I could also use another set of tires (more road oriented)  and basically have 2 bikes in one.  Ideally the tires would be mounted on another whellset so I would not have to change the tires when I wanted to switch