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| Jamis Komodo donor bike |
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| My friend pretending to be hard at work |
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| I present "The Bumble Beast" |
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| Yours truly on the Bumble Beast |
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| 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
