I ordered a Silvio...Built it Up...and my First Ride...and 300 miles later!

[Rick Youngblood]

Bob, not at all, I made a

Bob, not at all, I made a plastic adapter to Velcro to the stock seat which worked pretty good, you can see it on post 55 of this thread.

 

[trplay]

So good to hear others are

So good to hear others are finding the double rings work just dandy on the Silvio. Now I keep waiting to see if someone experiences the same as I do with braking. The standard rim brakes (SRAM Red) stop my bike with more than enough stopping power. I do have a brake problem in that it is way to easy to get a dangerous rear wheelie. It happens fast and is very easy to do. I have weakened the front brake just so a panic stop doesn't put me on my head. I have never deliberately weakened a bike brake on any bike I have ever owned before. I can see no advantage of a disc brake on the front, even for mountain riding. I believe the risks far outweigh the advantages.

 

[BentBierz]

Excellent job Rick!
Several

Excellent job Rick!

Several questions:

1) Is that the Soma Junebug bars you mentioned in another thread? How is the leg clearance?

2) Do you have any close up shots showing how you mounted the seat?

Thanks!

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Hi Larry - thank you!
Yes

Hi Larry - thank you!

Yes those are the Soma Junbug bars, the clearance is great for me.

I don't currently have any close up shots of the seat mounts, but will take some shots.

I used the existing two-hole-mount for the front, and mounted a plastic block for the rear to set my seat angle. The contour of the VeloKraft carbon seat does not follow the contour of the bike exactly, it's close, but not close enough to just lay in and screw it down.

 

[BentBierz]

I'm working with Nanda at

I'm working with Nanda at Sonoma Trikes (still not used to saying that) to get a Novosport carbon fiber seat and cushion...hope to report soon on if/how it worked out.

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Looking forward to your

Looking forward to your report Larry.

Sonoma Trikes? Not SpinCyclz anymore?

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Larry. The close up images

Larry. The close up images you asked for.

Disclaimer, it's oblivious I'm not a mechanical engineer, use at your own risk and discretion.

Below is the seat pan spacer. The bottom seat radius for my CF seat is not the same radius as the Silvio's, so I built a spacer to fill in the void, so my seat bottom will have support and rest on something solid.

At the back I cut up a small plastic (ultra high molecular polyethylene) block. I mounted it to the frame using the new 3m Scotch Daul Lock (it's like Velcro, but stronger), and then screwed and bolted a piece of aluminum 1/8" x 2" flat to the bike and block.

And screwed the seat to the plastic block with machine screws.

The front mounting screws.

Bolted to Silvio's existing front 2-hole bracket using nylon and rubber spacers.

 

[BentBierz]

Rick...thanks for the

Rick...thanks for the images...it gives me some potential ideas for mounting my seat when I get it.

One comment...during a conversation I had with Nanda, he brought up a concern he had with putting focused weight onto the front seat tabs and whether they were designed to carry this type of load. He thought that it might be better to support the front of the seat across its width so that there was frame contact across the whole front seat support tabs. Curious what you or others may think.

 

[John Tolhurst]

Correct, carry the weight

Correct, carry the weight near the trunk, not on the tips of the branch.

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Yes I agree 100%. I have all

Yes I agree 100%. I have all frontal weight distributed to the seat area and Velcroed using the 3M dual lock so there is no weight on the tabs. I replaced the nylon spacers with rubber spacers.