Is there anybody else that can ride one of these? It’s where you turn the handle bars left, and the front wheel steers to the right and vice versa. I learnt to ride one years ago, about the same time I learnt to ride a unicycle. They’re really fun, and the home-made one I learnt to ride didn’t have any brakes. It was a converted road bike, which was painted bright orange.
I don’t have the bike anymore, but one day I might make one.
Well, it was made by a friend of my dad’s many years ago, but i could see that a headstock from another bike had been welded onto the front. Then along with a couple of cogs welded in the right places, you have a reverse steering bicycle!
Here’s a diagram
The red shows the original bike. the green shows what was welded to the front. and you can see the placement of the two grey cogs, to get the reverse steering.
Oh, and it worked fine. My dad and I would take it to charity events, charge people £1 to have a go, and if they managed to ride it, they won £5.
My dad made one of those and I learned how to ride it. He made it differently because he couldn’t get cogs, he used two rods going back to a lever, each one atatched to a separate headstock. The mechanism was kinda loose and sloppy but it worked. He had a chalange that if anyone could ride it the length of our driveway he would give them $100. Nobody won…
Once your brain figures out that instead of streering into the direction you are falling, you steer the opposite way, it’s fairly easy to ride. It didn’t take me too long (compared with first riding a bicycle, or learning to ride a uni) to master, and yes, there were a fair few faceplants into the grass in those first few hours :o
At the charity event, no-body won the £5, but it was great to see the looks of deep concentration, and even some of the techniques people would try. Like putting left hand on right handlebar, and right hand on left handlebar. There were the few that managed a couple of revolutions, but got no further.
I’ve heard of the same kinda thing but with cars, at a specially designed test track. The trouble is, if you are driving home from something like that, it could be dangerous…
Hey, does anyone know why this one on UDC has the front headtube at all? It looks like it is all contained in the box structure, why would it muddy up the looks with the front tube?
Or is it left there so that you can move the forks to the front one, and have a normal bike? I guess that would be kinda cool.
Me and my freind made one and brought it to a party and it was cool looking cause it was turned into a chopper and a drunk guy was all “Sweet bike man can I try” unaware of it being reverse streering we let him ride oh man that was funny.
I once took it to school to let people have a go. Of course, there were the trouble makers from the year above me, so they came along to have a go, and one tried to ride of with it. Oh how he failed. I just walked along next to him as he tried to ride off with it as fast as he could. He gave up in the end, and him and his buddies sulked off having failed
The handle bars drive the front tube, which cog drives back to the ‘normal’ tube, the reverse of the diagram posted earlier in this thread. This would give more normal bike handling than extending the wheel base and altering other geometry by moving the position of the headset.
I’ve driven a reverse steer 4x4, it’s surprisingly easy to get through even quite a tight slalom course on your first try if you get your brain in gear before hand.
I understand how it works, but it doesn’t need the other head tube at all. Handlebars turn a cog, which turns another cog connected to the original head tube and forks. It’s all contained in the box. Why the need to have a clunky looking additional head tube, unless it is to swap it, and make it normal steering…
(Which I did) There were some hell nasty bails though
