have had some very fun excursions on rail trails , disused railways turned into pedestrian/bike paths. The trails typically go through very beautiful areas and rarely do you have to concern yourself with motorized traffic of any kind. Reader Will appears to be interested in rails as well, but he wants to ride on them - literally. Check it out - Will included the following text - A rail-bike is a bicycle that has been modified to be able to ride on the rails of a railroad. The front wheel has a device attached to it so that the bike won’t steer off the rail while an outrigger is used to support the bike using the other rail. I used conduit, cut up “razor” scooters parts, one bike fork two bits of steel and numerous nuts, bolts, washers and retaining pins. Nothing is welded. The hardest part is getting the spacing right so that friction and play are minimized. A lot of person hours certainly went in to this working model and the details are pretty amazing. [Keep re
I hope my next bike is a bamboo model from Calfee Design at http://calfeedesign.com/bamboo.htm
ReplyDeleteCraig Calfee, of San Fran, was Greg Lemond's personal builder, and pioneered the carbon fiber bike frame.
Now he's successfully marketed a $2700 bamboo frame in the west, while teaching citizens in Ghana to build low-cost bamboo bikes from local materials. From reading his blog, it seems like he's sharing all of his bamboo knowledge with the Village Bike Project, without regard to protecting his trade secrets.
But back at home, he's discouraged other western builders, like Daedalus Cycles, from hijacking his bamboo designs and techniques.
That seems like a pretty good balance of helping folks in need without giving away the farm to the competition.