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After months of consternation about building a low racer... How low should the seat be, front or rear drive, what size wheels, suspension? My neighbor stopped by and offered the kid's scooter which was bound for the trash can. How could I refuse? This is the scooter that I ran over with the Volvo without damage to either vehicle. One of their kids left it behind my car the evening before. There was something really wrong with the headset and the tires were out of round and sun dried. But I had also been thinking of doing this particular conversion for a long time. the idea? Hang some pedals off a boom added to the head tube, add front wheel drive, make a seat out of the foot location, and viola a two wheeled human powered equivalent of a go-cart (a cheap, non street legal, lawn mower engine powered car.)

January, 1998

The first step was to lace up the front wheel. I buy mostly 36 spoke wheel parts so I had to dig deep to find a 32 hole Suntour grease guard hub to go with a 12", 16 spoke wheel that I had bought at the local recycling center. The scooter came with 14" wheels that had 20 spokes. So I've now got an extra 14" rear wheel. Next the fork had to be widened considerably to accept the new hub. One leg decided it was going to bend way easier than the other and that is when I decided that the spokes would not be dished and that I would remove spacers from the left side of the hub. I laid a weld along the stressed part of the leg that did bend to restore it's integrity.

As long as I wasn't using hyperglide, I decided I would use one of my brand new Sachs Huret Duopar Eco rear derraillers that I picked up for $1.95 on sale. Just because I always do, I set up the gearing to cover from about 20" to 117". I'll raise the high end if this vehicle looks more promising than I thought. I used a fairly recent unmodified Shimano STX front derrailler with the low clamp because it worked with the curvy tube coming off the top of the head tube. (Later I upgraded the rear lower derrailler to a Shimano STX which shifts great under load and clears my right heel better.)

The jack shaft is a 7 sp. cassette freewheel body with IG cassette. I shuffled the cogs and spacers to get the gearing to work out. It helps to have extra spacers from a defunct cassette. I brazed a flanged axle nut to the top right side of the head tube and used a piece of axle as the threaded fastener. I was able to make a secure attachment using a washer, cone, and lock nut to mate with the freewheel cassette.

I spent several days consternating about how to do the seat since I was not able to get free time to work on the bike. I had a Lightning Cycle Dynamics seat kit in the rafters, but I felt like the spirit of the thing would be more on the line of simple plywood and foam or get a molded seat out of some garbage can or secondhand store. In the end I opted for comfort and went with the Lightning seat kit. I made no extra brazings to the seat so that I could use it for another bike if need be.

Somewhere about the time I was widening the fork I found that the stem was securely rusted into the steering tube. It seemed to be ok clearance wise until I went ahead and added the Lightening seat. Then my knees were hitting the handle bars. I tried liquid wrench and tapping with a hammer. I tried hitting real hard with a hammer, and I tried heating the day-lights out of the stem with a torch and hitting real hard with a hammer. None of this worked. So I cut off the handle bar clamp and smoothed the stem tube round with a file, capping it with a washer, and putting the wedge and bolt back in to make everybody feel secure. Then I made an extension that clamped to the stem tube and allowed me to install a working stem into the top of the extension.

I finished that last night and went up and down our dirt road once just to relieve the pent up energy of having a bike that I hadn't ridden successfully yet.

The first not so successful ride involved a late night spin without a seat. I was riding on the frame rails, holding my upper body up by the handlebars and pedals. Shifting was a bit precarious because I had to remove my right hand from the bars to push the thumb shifter the other way. That meant I was holding myself up and going straight by applying a moment with my left arm in order to prevent the steering from going left. It was at that time that my right foot slipped off and hit the rear derrailler (mounted to the right hand leg of the front fork.) I wobbled out of control at maybe ten mph (16 kph) and landed on my left arm damaging my watch and leaving a little road rash on my forearm. This happened far enough away from the guy on another bike who passed by and said "cool bike" that I don't think he noticed my little accident.

Anyhow I road the Cheesy Racer with it's seat today and it handled pretty well. I can only go as fast as I can stand having road grit flying into my face with the roads wet and all. That amounts to about 15 mph (24 kph). I am hoping for dryness soon so I can open her up. Also the sun dried oval tires add a modicum of excitement.

3/March/1998: I have had a chance to put some miles on this beast and been enjoying the ride. I've installed new tires of the robust and round variety. It seems to go pretty fast when I can get it to some open space, and it's fun to dive into fast corners through clear intersections. I am just starting to get into some kind of shape again. And It is showing. I have also been experimenting with seat and bottom bracket height. And have raised the seat an inch and a half. That is depicted in these pictures. Just yesterday I lowered the bottom bracket. It is 10 inches higher than the seat now. I need to add some chain to move it forward away from the rear/lower derrailler. The crank hits the forward most pulley on slight right hand turns now. Also installed fenders supplied by Andrew Letton. They were made for 16" wheels but work on 12" and 14" just fine. Also this bike makes me feel strong when I spin the front tire on hard excellerations and if I pedal unevenly on steep hills.

Photo taken by Chris Gurin

The true test came on May 9th, the Tour of the Unknown Coast.  I signed up to do the 50 mile ride.  For the previous three weeks, I  road my long wheelbase USS 50+lb recumbent to work at least 3 times a week, 26 miles round trip.  Except for the week of the race when I got sick on Monday and it rained the rest of the week.  Also I made a coroplast tail box to give myself a place to put a change of clothing, carry a patch kit and improve aerodynamics.  I made what I call an "X" brake for the front wheel.  This brake is similar to a "V" brake except the pivots are above the rim and cross each other above the wheel.  This was necessary because I needed a brake that stops well, reaches around the large cross section tire, works with the wedge cross section of the rim, and doesn't interfere with all the other stuff around the front wheel. Also I added  a chain guard beside the jack shaft and front derrailler.  I had lost many a right trouser leg to the front derrailler and was wondering if the derrailler/cog combo would suck the skin off my bare leg while wearing shorts.

Low Fat Cheese performed great in all cases except that I couldn't pedal with high energy for long periods of time.  I have several theories of why this was.  1. I wasn't in very good condition. I was pedaling way worse than I anticipated so this was not the most likely reason.  2. I should have worked out on Low Fat Cheese.  Maybe this is the case.  The seat angle is much tighter than on my commuter bike. 3. The bottom bracket is too high.  I think this was the main cause in light of these symptoms:  My feet were falling asleep, and after rest stops I would have more power for a short period of time until the lactic acid build up returned.  I didn't feel exhausted except for my legs. This experience reminded me of a comment Gardener Martin had made regarding bottom bracket height and lactic acid build up. So the above picture shows the result of cardio-vascular limited legs.  Reduced circulation to my legs limited me to a slow pace on flat ground.