A background to Velolution’s evolution.

I ‘ve enjoyed cycling since I was a child and had always accepted the discomfort of ‘conventional’ bikes as just something you put up with - not just saddle soreness but worse for me, the stiff neck from hours on a bike.

When I discovered ‘recumbents’ my eyes were opened to another world of cycling, and long rides were not such an endurance test.

Yet despite the obvious advantages, I missed the riding experience of uprights - the recumbent position can feel frustratingly inflexible at times, particularly on hills when jumping out of the saddle can help, at least psychologically.

Increasingly my thoughts turned towards a way of combining the benefits of each position in one bike, I was sure this wasn’t a new idea but I hadn’t seen a bike quite like I had in mind.

Eventually these thoughts crystalised into a design that would allow the rider to switch between two positions, one upright and the other semi-recumbent, the switch being simple enough to allow changes even while on the move. All very well on paper but the question remained ‘Could it work?‘

Prototype #1

There was only one way to find out, so equipped with rudimentary framebuilding skills and some scrap frames I assembled the first prototype.
To my amazement it worked, in fact I rode about 1000 miles on this botched up machine before the winter took care of some of the wooden components ! What became apparent though was that the bottom bracket position (fixed on this prototype) would have to move - as well as the seat - to give better weight distribution between the wheels in both positions. (Sadly I have no photographs of this bike)

Prototype #2

After the demise of the first prototype I knew how I wanted to improve the design so after several months on and off the drawing board I was ready to invest in some descent tubing and build prototype No. 2. This is more or less the bike shown here, except for a few minor tweaks to bring the seat height down to about 600mm in the recumbent position - lower than in the picture on the right, this is about as low as is practical on this bike, not particularly aerodynamic but it seems to be about as fast (or slow!) as my upright tourer.
Since building it I’ve ridden some 4000 miles with no major problems, and it’s become my bike of choice for most rides. I will normally change position on average about every twenty minutes it just depends on the terrain and my mood.

Like most designs, once finished I could see straight away how it could be improved, prototype No 3 is on the drawing board (this being the CAD image on the home and technical pages), and one day, time and money allowing, it will get built. Read the FUTURE page to find out more.