| Cuda W I
was lucky enough to recieve an email from Reg
Rodero and he asked if I'd be interested in piloting an extra Cuda-W streamliner
he had, at the suggestion of Warren Beauchamp from recumbents.com.
With approximately 4 seconds of hesitation (because I momentarily got light-headed)
I replied HELL YEAH!!! So, arrangements were made on the first weekend in
May '08 to go down to his place and pick it up. The fairing and the sub-frame
slid into my van with a little room to spare and up she came. The idea is
to get used to it, get riding it in races and events and advertise Reg's site
and machines and in the end, make arrangements to buy it from him if all goes
well. First thing I did though
was to take it and take some pictures of various areas of the subframe. This
is because the frame needs to be disassembled to a certain extent to get it inside
the fairing and I need to make sure a) I know where all the parts go back to and
b) I find all the spots that can be adjusted so it fits me. It was designed
by Warren who is taller than me (I'm 6'2") so I should be good to go. | This
is the fairing. One piece body with a large top and a small head cover grafted
onto it which was molded after the Varna bubble. The rear wheel fairing
comes off so the wheel can be removed for fixing flats. I am impressed at
how light it is for the size of it. Very simple for one person to lift and
move it. | |
| This
is the main subframe. The bottom of the frame is actually outside the bottom
of the fairing while the rest goes inside. It seems to be all steel tube
(possibly CroMo) with the rear triangle off a road bike. It has a very nice
little suspension headtube 20" front fork and a rubber block for the rear
suspension. From what I read about streamer racing, suspension is a good
thing. It's got a nice narrow, rigid fibreglass seat with a thin foam and
mesh cover on it. It also has an ultra narrow BB and produces a Q factor
of 4¼" (from outside of crank arm to outside of crank arm). I
checked everything out for serviceability, pumped up the tires and took it for
a spin. It's not too different from my Raptor 74 but the steering geometry
and cockpit positioning are a little different so after I got a wobbly start,
I could pedal away with a little bit of pedal steer. By the time I'd gone
around the block, the pedal steer was just about gone and I practiced stopping
a bunch of times so I could practice extending the landing gear and dropping slightly
over to the left side on it. The rubber block on the rear suspension seemed
a little soft for my fat butt, so it wasn't too hard to bottom out coming off
driveway and parking lot transitions. All in all, it was quite rideable
and with some more practising, I will get much mroe comfortable on it. I
was feeling a little jammed though, like maybe an inch to an inch and a half too
close to the pedals so I will see if I can move it back a little once I discover
the nature of the seat attachments. | | | This
is a picture showing the front mounting plate and tube that mounts to a light
wooden bulkhead in the nose of the fairing. It has a pinch bolt and can
slide in and out a little and rotate. It also shows the crazy narrow BB
and the single 155mm 48T chainring. There is space for a 2nd ring by modifying
the steel ring and moutning up a double AL with an adapter plate so a modified
gear range could be used with a more usable lower gear. Lots of room for
a front derailleur too if it was needed. | | | This
shows a few things. First is an AL chainguard that helps keep the chains
off the legs. I'll see if I can make a new one because the bottom right
corner has been chewed up a bit and has some rough and sharp edges. Next,
you can see the lower guide pulley for the return side of the chain and the idler
pulley for the power side. For a RWD lowracer, I would have thought that
running a low chain with a single pulley would have been the way to go, but with
such a narrow BB, the ability to turn the front wheel would have been just about
zero so it necessitated running upper and lower pulleys to route the chain around
the front wheel. The bike had no issues with the turning radius on the test
ride and the chainline is pretty smooth considering the number of pulleys. I
have some extra pulleys with sealed bearings so once the test fitting are done,
I'll check the guide pulleys and swap in the ones with bearings if need be. I
am aware of the dynamics of designing and building a bent, especially one of extreme
design, but these streamliners are a completely different world and I am already
seeing construction ideas that normally wouldn't be used but are required when
trying to stuff as much functionality and the bare minimums into as small of a
space as possible. Very cool. Lastly, you can see the front seat mount.
It is a small post that is pipe-clamped to the main frame tube so it is
very easy to move the front seat mount back. The only thing I don't know
is whether the power side of the chain will hit the seat bottom when I move it
and what fairing issues will need to be addressed by moving the seat mount to
the rear. Due to the fairing, I might be able to raise the seat back a little
and get the seat bottom up a little and still be ok to put the top on. I
won't know until I get the frame into the fairing. | | | This
is a shot of the landing gear on the left hand side under the seat. It looks
a little scraped up, but it works great and the bike doesn't need to tip to the
left very far before you are on the gear either. The cool thing is you can
loosen up the pinch clamps and rotate the landing gear mount so that the angle
changes and it makes the bike lean more or less before it lands on the roller
blade wheel. The roller blade wheel looks like it's had some hard lovin'
so I'll maybe replace it. :) The hole in the side of the fairing looks
like the arm will go through but not the wheel so I'm not sure if the wheel sticks
out from the fairing all the time or what. Again, I'll know fir sure when
the fairing goes on. If need be I can make a little spring loaded door that
opens and closes with the wheel. The landing gear is deployed by lifting
up a small bar on the left side of the head tube. You hook the bar on a
little metal catch and that locks the landing gear in the extended position. A
piece of elastic shock cord is all it takes to pull the gear back in one you release
the catch. The only thing I don't like about the gear is that you have to
let go of the handle bars to deploy the landing gear. These bikes aren't
the easiest thing to control at low speeds whith both hands at the best of times.
I was thinking that if I put thumb brakes on the bottom of the stem, I could
use a brake lever for the landing gear but I might need to increase the amount
of pull a little (which is easy to do with a simple 3rd class lever). I'm
also thinking it wouldn't be hard to add a 2nd landing gear, just for insurance,
but it would have the added benefit of being able to deploy the left, the right
or both at the same time depending on need. | | | This
is a busy area of the Cuda W frame as a number of functions are served all in
the same area. The swing arm mounts to the back of the frame via two 3/16"
thick tabs that are brazed to the top of the BB shell. A 3/8" bolt
goes through these tabs and through a steel tube that is brazed to the top rear
of the main frame. A small tripod also bolts two of it's legs to the same
3/8" bolt, and the third leg mounts in a tube on top of the main frame. This
little tripod is the front support for the elastomer suspension. The rear
seat stays mount to two small pieces of square tube that stick out to the left
and right of the main frame where the small pieces of wood are. These bottom
mounts are also the same place where the fairing gets sandwiched between the little
frame tubes sticking out to the sides and the bottom of the seat supports. The
small pieces of wood are ¼" spacers to lift the fairing's rear end
for better fit. The seat supports rotate fore and aft and have a number
of holes in them so you can adjust the seat back angle. There is some space
between the seat and the rear wheel, so in conjunction with the front seat mount
and the seat angle, I'm hoping I can sort out the leg length issue. | | | There
is a small strut that connects the top of the boom to the top of the fairing with
a bolt that goes through the hole, pictured to the right. This area is already
built up, so I would like to see if I can also use that area for laying up a small
hinge that will support the front end of the canopy. That way, it can easily
be raised to get in or out and the wind pressure will help force the top closed.
The inside contour of the canopy might need a reinforcing bead as well.
You can also see teh nomex core reinforcing the sides. | | | This
is a shot of the underside of the nose. It's seen a littel hard lovin',
but it might also have had a wheel hole filled in as well. | | | To
the right is a shot of the landing gear deployed. It was in a pretty good
spot so it wasn't a big confidence issue to slow down and let it lay over on it
to the left. The brown horizontal bar is hooked on a catch and holds teh
gear out. When the landing gear handle is lowered, bungee cords pull the
landing gear back in. | | | To
the right is the rubber block that adds suspension to the bike. The original
one was pretty badly deteriorated to I added a new one of the same size, but a
little stiffer. The block and assembly fastened to the frame behind the
seat and supported the seat stays as well as having the front of the swingarm
push against the rubber block. | | | This
picture shows the frame disassembled to the stage that it can be inserted in through
the hole that the front wheel sticks through. Once the frame is inserted,
it is reassembled from the inside. | | | The
rear swingarm is first to be inserted and shoved all the way to the back before
putting the rest of the frame inside. | | The
boom and front forksa re about to be inserted through the bottom. At this
point, the back of the frame is rotated up til it touched the bottom of teh fairing.
The bottom of the frame sits outside the fairing. The plan was to
possibly make a new frame and move it completely inside the fairing and close
up all the holes in the bottom. | | | The
plan was to section the fairing down the middle on the top, because I had to add
about 6" to the width at the top otherwise my arms wouldn't fit inside. In
conversation with Reg though, I realized I didn't have the time or the money to
be able to take advantage of the Cuda, so I took it back to Reg. Hopefully
another pilot can be found for it that can fit inside it with minimal or no modifications. |
The specs are the following:
| | Fairing/complete
Streamliner | Sub-frame |
| Length: | 113½" | 80½" |
| Height: | 36½" | 32" |
| Width: | 19½" | 12"
(seat) | | Wheelbase: | | 52" |
| Seat height: | | 6" |
| BB height: | | 15½" |
| Ground clearance: | | 1½",
¾" with rider | | Seat angle: | | 35º
(adjustable) | | Headtube angle: | | 68º | | Turning
circle: | | |
| Trail: | | |
| Weight: | 18lbs | 40lbs |
| Front wheel: | | 406
AL w/Stelvio 120psi | | Rear wheel: | | 700C
AL w/7 spd cassette & Bontrager 100psi | | Gear
inches: | | 46.28" - 117.8",
11/28 cassette & 48 single | | Weight bias: | | 64f/36r |
Main |
