Posted by NYC XYZ on 02/26/06 05:19

Johnny Sunset aka Tom Sherman wrote:
>
>
> With that heavy of a load, I would not want rear suspension. There will
> be plenty of frame flex (at least in any production recumbent) so
> suspension will not really be necessary. Suspension is also less
> reliable and could be impossible to fix in the middle of nowhere.

Ah, good point...indeed, at one point, Tim's bike broke in half!
Somehow he was able to peddle along without realizing the fact until he
finally decided to investigate that weird squeaking noise...! Even
more amazing, he managed to find some friendly truckers who gave him a
lift to probably the one Polish welder in all Siberia!! Apparently
he's like the country doctor out there; people get him to weld
everything from bikes to combines....

> If I were planning on doing such travels I would consider a trike such
> as the Greenspeed GTR:
> <http://www.greenspeed.com.au/NewGSweb/web-content/australia/models/design/gtedesgn.html>.
> Note the lack of rear suspension.

And again, not to steal the thunder of their glory, but it's very
puzzling why their vehicles barely even warrant a mention in both book
and film! Especially given that Chris had cycled across Australia once
and is an avid biker...now that you mention trikes, yeah, mate, what
the heck were they thinking?? Definitely could have come in much more
handy in the snow, right? And the sands of the Gobi, even?

All in all, the video's very good, the soundtrack is nice and fits, but
it's all over much too quickly at ~53 minutes long -- great tale, but
the telling leaves much to be desired (though the two heros alternately
narrate and they do fine in that regard).

> --
> Tom Sherman

[Back to original message]