I went through the same ‘bent or upwrong’ conundrum as Blodwyn Pig, (see ‘I’ve come to a conclusion’ topic), few years ago and ended up striping down my Challenge Sieran and donating its components to a Surly LHT in a quest for greater versatility.
At various times during the 5 years or so since then I considered rebuilding it but now that Mrs.B is back on a recumbent, (used Scorpion from Kinetics), I really think I might get it running again.
I’ve already started thinking about how I’d rebuild it. Previously it had a Rohloff/Schmitt Dyno 559 size wheels and BB7’s. More recently it’s been on loan to the good Mr Aidan.f of this parish, he ran it set up for BHPC races with 700x25, (no room for mudguards with those), calliper brakes and high, narrow gearing. Although it’s still in Aidan’s configuration for the rides and local roads I’ll be riding I think I’d prefer 26x1.5, disc brakes and some wide gear ratios.
It won’t be getting the Rohloff/Dyno wheels back as they will remain on the Trucker, reasonable quality 559 are plentiful on fleabay so no problem there. Brakes, if I can afford it will be Magura hydraulics, otherwise BB7’s from my box of odd bits.
It’s the gearing that I’m really not sure about:
Twist shifters work well on tiller steered recumbents and in the past I've had good results with SRAM X5/7 setups. These days though options for twist shifters aren’t so good so maybe bar-end shifters mounted on handlebar adapters? (Might have some 9spd bar ends in the afore mentioned box).
I’m really not up to date at all with the current state of play with derailleur/shifter compatibility. Likewise whether modern 10/11 speed derailleurs work when used with 9 speed chains & shifters?
BTW I’ve been a bit absent from this place over the last year or so, life, family, work and all that. Though mostly because my work IT allowed me to view YACF but not log in, and I can’t stand typing more than 12 sequential words on my phone. YACF now seems to be miraculously unblocked at work so hurrah, praise be the IT bods, peace be upon them and all that.
