Steve's Recumbent Archives

Harri Mommo has written from Finland to share his new homebuilt short-wheelbase recumbent.

As you can see from the photo below right, he built this bike from rectangular steel tube.
Harri has put together a nice web site showing the steps he took constructing this bike.

In June of 2005 Harri wrote:

"I wanted it to be a low ride framed but not front wheel driven. It took me couple of weeks to finish the drawings and two months to build. I've got the whole process documented and a couple of dozen pictures taken along the way. I am planning to set up a small site to share the information.

"As for riding the bike, I really don't have anything to compare it to but it feels stable and most of all fun to ride. It goes straight without effort (not yielding to left or right).

The frame turned out to be just the right size according to my plans which I based on my own body measurements. Attached is a picture taken during measuring. I made drawings in 1:10 and 1:1 scale.

One thing I've found negative is the lack of carriage possibilities. I've tried wearing standard back bag on my chest but it doesn't feel comfortable.

Update: July, 2006

This last spring Harri ordered some nice pulleys from a company called McMaster-Carr in the US; they are shown (the larger idlers) in the photo at right used as chain guides. Nice application for a quality product.

Harri wrote:
...to tell you about how good the McMaster-Carr idlers worked for my bike. Compared to the earlier chain discs they run almost silent. Also the chain tends to lean on either side of the idler so it wears one side at a time. When worn out one just has to flip it over for the latter half of mileage.

The guy I built a bike like mine for was so enthusiastic about it he asked my permission to call the major newspaper in northern Finland about the bikes I was building. A week ago I had a friendly visit by a cute reporter. Attached is a scan of the newspaper for a little dictionary workout.

Harri sent along a copy of an article which had a large photo his friend and him riding these cool bikes. Of course the text was all in Finnish and unfortunately I don't (yet) read the language. It is hard to believe that any language which uses the same characters as American English could be so totally unreadable by this somewhat literate American. We live among Finnish folks here in Michigan's Upper Peninsula so it does make sense to have Finnish be my second language. Someday yet, eh?

Harri Mommos' Homebuilt Recumbent - 6/2005 - See Update Below!