BBC Focus Magazine

[Oddfish]

I know this would be hard to design because the front wheel is used to steer. I'm referring to conventional bikes, not power assisted or bicycles that steer using the rear wheel.

[M Paul Lloyd]

In a a word, no, Mr. Oddfish at least I certainly don't know of any. Sorry.

[Esther]

Not sure if it counts as 'conventional', but the recumbent bikes seem to use front wheel drive and front wheel steer.

[will1947]

I don't know if any still exist but I remember when I was a teenager in Liverpool I used to see a gentleman nearly every day riding an ancient push bike with a tiny engine fitted to the front forks, it appeared to work on a friction system. It was a noisy thing but in those days we didn't worry about things like that.

[Thinker]

I've seen bikes like that shown in the above picture, but of different variations. Its more of a lie back bike. A guy used to ride it up the steep hill near my house, much to my amusement!

wierdbike.jpg (40.62 KiB) Viewed 2074 times

[...]

a penny farthing?

[M Paul Lloyd]

Ah, well now, that me well and truly trounced.

In my defence I was thinking of internal combustion engine powered bikes.....

[Shadowwolf]

Its more of a lie back bike.

I hate those things from a motorists perspective, they disappear from sight much too easily being so low.

[The Beige Avenger]

word @ shadow.

So bloody dangerous.... some of them have a nice little flag they stick up to let you know they are there. Strangely enough, the height (and therefore danger) was one of the main reasons why the C5 bombed so badly. Maybe it will make a comeback... but only if it gets a roof!

[Oddfish]

Not sure if it counts as 'conventional', but the recumbent bikes seem to use front wheel drive and front wheel steer.

I'd say that just gets in as a conventional bike. Do you know what that design is called?

[Esther]

Oh dear - I've been caught out. Actually I didn't have a clue. All I did was to google 'recumbent bikes' and browse the first non-wikki entry to see what piccies they had. I've just repeated the process and discovered it's a conversion job using a kit supplied by Cruzbike.

The kit is fully reversible, so it can be removed to return the recumbent bike to back to the original mountain bike, or used on another frame if you want to try something else.

http://www.cruzbike.com/conversions

Sounds interesting, but I'm still saving up for one of these...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/ ... 1256739765

It's got two wheels with the power at the front, but it's not exactly a bike

[M Paul Lloyd]

Oh Esther, you and that Jeremy Clarkson . Lol. .....

[Oddfish]

I wonder if having a powered front wheel alters the handling of the bike, in the same way that the handling is different in front and rear wheel drive cars?

[Shadowwolf]

So long as the motive force is set ahead of the wheels it should be okay as I'd imagine that driving a wheel set ahead of you and your feet would be much more difficult than the usual set up. Even those shown that drive the front wheel have the pedals and feet set ahead of the wheel. There may be some other factors in handling but not to the extent it effects cars and their drives.