Brakes
Back in 1984 when I initially ordered my first Avatar (#0136) I decided to take Len Vreeland’s suggestion and have them eliminate the cantilever brakes and set it up for standard side-pull calipers. We felt side pulls worked fine and are ‘cleaner’, lighter and less complicated.
The front brake was no issue as the forks they shortened/customized had the standard thru-hole of 6mm for attaching the caliper. In order to provide for the rear caliper Dick Forrestall designed and machined a special mounting block with an expandable sleeve. This has worked fine over the years. I have found, however, that not just any caliper will work on the rear. Some newer calipers are physically a little too large and do not provide sufficient clearance with the leather/mesh seat.
I did remove some of the accessories such as the fenders as unnecessary for my type of local riding. Two things I did not remove were the flag (I did shorten it) and the kickstand. I know most “real” bikers never use a kickstand, but I’m too practical and with the low center of gravity, the kickstand is so – so convenient. The rider learns after coming to a stop to reach down while seated and flick the kickstand down and then proceed to just rise and walk off the bike. Likewise, to start riding after seated, one just reaches down and flicks the kickstand up. ( As I will discuss on my trip Avatar, I designed and mounted another kickstand on the other side of the bike)
Front Wheel
The original Avatar came with a 16” x 1-3/8 rim/tire. That was the only available wheel set-up Fomac could source and it seemed unnecessarily clunky and heavy. It was only a year or so after getting the bike that I stumbled upon the fact that the English eccentric by the name of Alex Moulton made a bike using two 17” wheels. Wolber (France) made the rims and tires. After researching as best I could, I purchased a rim and tire/tube. There was sufficient clearance and worked great. I built a couple more wheels and that has been my set-up until a couple years ago when I realized when purchasing another rim through Moulton, that their supplier was now Velocity – made in the USA. Velocity does not list a 17” rim in their catalog, but I called them and they can provide direct. It seems that the rims purchased direct have a slightly different cross-section profile than the one they manufacture(d)? for Moulton as replacements. The most recent rims I purchased have Velocity’s “A-23” profile.
Fortunately Schwalbe offers a folding 17” tire called the “Kojak” (it’s bald!) and I have been using it for the past several years. (** see update below) I have had only three front flats over the years and all were with the Moulton tire (Wolber). So far, I’ve had no flats with the Schwalbe, although I recently had one go bad by having a weak spot, causing a radial bulge (not side wall).
I decided early on to radially build all my front wheels, for both my around town bikes as well as for my touring set-up. The fact that there is no significant (braking) torque applied to a small front wheel and a recumbent’s rear wheel taking the majority of the weight, allows one to build a simpler and better looking wheel.
** 10/2022 – Update – For a while now, I have noticed that Schwalbe does not list the foldable 17″ Kojak tire. Perhaps Moulton and Schwalbe have some kind of an issue between them?
Because the Kojak 17″ tire may no longer be produced, I decided about two months ago to build a 16″ wheel. I used a Velocity 16″ Dyad-style rim with Velocity standard road hub spoked radially. A Schwalbe 16″ – 35-349 Marathon tire competed the wheel.. I recently used the combination on a 100 mile ride on the GAP rails-to-trails route in western PA. and it worked fine.
I understand there are a couple of other tire options that would be lighter for those that care about weight. The wheel weighs a full half-pound more than my original 17″ Kojak set-up.
