3 ms·

Actually it shouldn't matter to stability whether a recument (or other) bike is front or rear drive. In fact it appears some recuments are front drive. I woul

Actually it shouldn't matter to stability whether a recument (or other) bike is front or rear drive. In fact it appears some recuments are front drive. I would think that rear drive is prevalent because that's the wheel carrying most of the weight. Also I think the larger effect on your experiemt is the "trail" thing the author mentioned. If you spin the front wheel 180 degrees (possible for some bikes) and try again I think you'll mostly see the reverse result: pushing the bike backwards will let it roll a while, but pushing it forwards will result in immediate crash. But the leaning effect you mention could be important too, I don't know.

pge 16y ago
there are two effects, the lean and the trail. A front-steering bike with trail is self-correcting through both effects. A rear-steering bike with trail will correct itself to a straight line as long is it is perfectly vertical, but will be unstable as soon as it leans. When it leans, it will go into a hard turn and collapse. There are front-drive recumbents, but there are no rear-steering two-wheeled recumbents (it is possible to address the lack of lean stability on a tricycle configuration).