Chainline

[DarkerSide]

Hi folks. 

Somewhat self-serving post I'm afraid!  tl:dr version; post a side-on driveside piccy of your recumbent below and I'll colour it in.

I'm in the process of replacing worn out bits of the drivetrain on the Fuego, and have been pondering whether I can improve the chainline at all (which is currently very tube-y).  The current plan is to go for the double terracyle idler under the seat, and a single one on the boom to hoik the return line over the front wheel.  However, being somewhat tightfisted, I'm wondering what the implications of just running the return straight to crankset alongside the front wheel is, cutting out an idler for the sake of adding in a short length tube.  All the "fast people"^TM do this, but then they also probably have fancy wonky forks and don't have to deal with buses and sharp left-handers.

There's not a huge amount I can find on the web on chainline for commuting recumbents, and even fewer pictures of what works and what doesn't.  What I'd like to do is to get hold of a load of side-on pictures of bikes, highlight the chainline, idlers, tubing and any other fancy bits with bright colours, include them with the rider's comments on how it works, and then stick them all together in a blog post as a reference for anyone else who'd be interested.  So I'm asking - could you post / email me a side-on picture of your beloved steed along with any pertinent comments (model of recumbent, is the chainline standard or have you tweaked it, does it work well, etc), I'll then colour it in and post it (together with credit and references etc), and then maybe we can all steal each others ideas!

Sorry that was a bit long...

Cheers!

Rob

[tom_e]

Not sure if I've got this right.  You're just looking for a straightforward shot of the drive-side of the bike, yeah?



There's a power-side idler above the fork, and short tube section for the return.  There's also a protective thing on the top of the chainstay, which is hit fairly easily and possibly even gently rubbed against in the smallest cassette cogs.

Not had any significant chain issues with it.  Get oil on myself sometimes due to the lack of tubes.  The long unsupported return section can start oscillating up and down a little in some combinations of pedalling and gears, but I only know that because I've seen the shadow (can't feel anything).  Backpedals fine, but if you push it along backwards in the wrong gears it gets unhappy sometimes.

Did I pass?

[DarkerSide]

Spot on - cheers! When I get home I'll stick up an edited photo to show my plan, but i'm basically just going to highlight where the chain goes, where the idlers are and where tube is so it stands out. Manufacturer's photos tend to either be at jaunty angles or have a leg in the way...

[DarkerSide]

Something like this...



Maybe green for drive side and blue for return. Thin and light is bare chain, thick and dark is tube. Idlers are round.  And similar pictures for a whole load of different recumbents.

[swscotland bentrider]

I'd like to contribute an image but the two bikes already shown, though quite rare, are the two I own!

[Kim]

I don't seem to have any suitable images in my bike pr0n folder - too many of the wrong side, or with a pannier in the way or whatever.  I'll take some and come back...