is there a reason why kite buggies are 3 wheeled vehicles?

i remember when them off road 3 wheelers came out, back in the 80's; although i never got a chance to ride one, i know many ppl who have, and i know they were notoriously unstable. these days, all you have is quads, as far as i know.

with kite buggies, i understand that it's good to have a 3 wheeler for freestyle tricks, but what about all the racers? i know you can have a foot steered 4 wheeler, but, would it be any better around a track? i would think so, but, has anyone ever seen such a thing? am i wrong in assuming so?

reverend mykl

That is an interesting thought and I know I have seen some pictures of 4-wheel buggies somewhere. But there are some big differrences between the old ATV's and kite buggies when it comes to stability.
The high center of gravity being the biggest. Short wheel base and rear axle lengths are also crucial factors in stability. In a buggy these things can be relatively easy to change and adjust according to the riders desire for level of stability.
I would like to if the opportunity ever arose to try one though and see how it performs.

from what i understand, libre is coming out with just that, a 4 wheel kite buggy. I havent heard any reviews yet, but it looks OK (make that better than OK!)

hey jonesing, care to post a link to where you saw the 4 wheel libre buggy?

my brother races go carts, and man, are they fun (and stable) around a turn. i imagine a 4 wheel buggy would be equally stable and fast. who knows, the future of kite buggying may be 4 wheel buggies. then, if you grow weary of the sport, or on low wind days, just throw an engine on it=)

I am not even sure it has been released yet, but here are pictures of it:

http://www.kitemarket.com/enter/buggies.html

Looks super cool, but heavy.... I would like to beg a ride in one someday!

sean

wow, looks pretty cool.

looks like all you have to do is make a front axle/steering assembly, and mount it to your buggies' downtube. swapable, neat!

they ought to just sell the front 2 wheel set-up to mount on our buggies.

i bet that thing would be fun to do some downhillin' on.

and what about a 2 wheel buggy ?
:puzzled:

2 wheel buggies are out there already. i came across a picture of one a while back. if i come across it again, i'll post it here. wouldn't mind to have one of them either, they looked great.

i'd love to hear someone's experience on one.

Here's a little something about the 2 wheeled kite bike:
http://www.surf-wax.co.uk/sports/kite_buggies/kite_bikes/

I'd have thought a 3 wheel buggy with 2 front and a single back wheel would be more stable cornering than a standard 3 wheeler plus lighter than a 4 wheeler - a friend had a land yacht with this config. and it seemed to work well.

I've thought of the the idea of 3 wheeled buggy with two wheels up front and one in back for quite a while now. This setup would actually be much more tip resistant than a standard buggy, given that the pull of the kite would be directed towards the most stable center of gravity (the part of the buggy that resists tipping the most), rather than at its weakest point (the point where a buggy is most likely to tip over.)

From a weight balanced standpoint, it should probably be designed similar to a really low-slung recumbant trike, where your legs would actually stick out past the front axle, and use some kind of steering linkage. This center your weight more evenly, and prevent tipping while doing power slides.

I don't know. Just some ideas.

I'd think that added rolling resistance would be the biggest drawback to a four wheel buggy. When I was first getting into powerkiting I was toying with making my own 4 wheel buggy before I got a second hand PL comp.

As far as stability, [knock on wood] I haven't flipped my buggy since I was first learning, though I do end up leaning allot to the upwind side when really powered up. But I can attest to wheel base being critical. Being 6'5" I don't fit well in most buggies, especially the PL comp.

My first year at NABX I was using a stock comp with their extended down-tube to give a bit more leg room, but I was still sitting almost on the rear axle. This works well for doing tight turns in a soccer field, but on the playa 30 MPH had my front wheel dancing all over barely in control. (The less weight on the front wheel, the more responsive your steering, which is very bad at higher speeds!)

By my second trip to NABX, I'd done some serious modifications to my buggy, specifically I lengthen the side rails by 14" to shift the center of gravity forward and I build a heavy and wide rear axle (a bit over 5 ft). The wide axle alone made it very stable, but worsened the steering problem, the longer side-rails solved this, as well as added room for a trunk bag for storing extra kites. I topped 50 mph and felt totally stable and in control.


Though I would still like to play with the 4 wheel buggy idea.

-Chip

3 wheel bug, wide, stable, simple, durable.....Nuff said.

4 wheels, more moving parts, more to break, more weight, more cost

3 wheel, 2 forward, you'd have to move the pilot way forwards to put the side pull over the front axle, then imagine what the layout would have to be, how many more points for failure.


It's the same reason they haven't changed the materials in years, it works good, cheap and easy to make, gives the widest profit margin.

Libra does have a 4 wheel bug on the market, I've heard of one kicking around with BF's, just not really needed

4 Rad Buggy @ http://libre.de/f_index.htm

2 Wheel Buggy can be found at: http://www.xxracer.nl ... the nice thing about the xxracer buggy is you can change from 3 to 2 wheels or vice versa with a kit.

I thought a few years ago at sbbb i swore i saw someone with a homemade 4 wheel buggy.

4 wheel Libre http://kitebuggyspeedshop.com/buggy_4-wheel.htm\
can be ordered with bigfoots
jellis
:frog:

Hey Pablo:

I agree that the good old 3-wheeled design works well. Its what I use. However, I don't buy the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. Let me explain.

The current buggy design was not conceptualized from a standpoint of "what is the best, most effecient, most fun, most durable, most whatever... way to have a kite haul your butt from point A to point B".

It was conceptualized and designed as a varient on already existing technologies (i.e. land sailor, trikes, etc..) and built using what was most readily available materials that the designer though would be durable enough work. Because of these factors, the design is not perfect, nor was it ever intended to be.

The original Peter Lynn buggies were made, despite the fact that that land sailors thought "Why?!? Sails work fine! If it ain't broke, Don't fix it." After he made a few buggies, almost immediately, people began saying, "sure, it works fine, but what if we made the tires bigger, or widened the axle, or made it out of this material, or whatever. I sincerely doubt that Peter Lynn said "Wait a minute, If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

So why are most buggies designed with one wheel in front and two in the rear? Because thats the ideal?!? No. Because that's the way they've always been designed. And people like what's familiar.

You didn't inherently know how to operate a buggy when you first got one, so you learned to operate a three wheeled (1 in front, 2 in the rear) buggy. That became familiar to you, and so seems natural. Other designs seem weird, but then again so does the thought of driving a 3 wheeled car. (That comment was directed to U.S. readers)

I also don't buy the "more complicated = bad" "just one more thing that can go wrong" rationale that I so often hear. Lets face it, no one really believes this. How many of you have a depowerable kite? Why? Its just one more thing that can go wrong! How about a four line kite? Brake lines? Why? It just one more thing that can go wrong! In reality, we eagerly add complexity, as long as we find that it benifits us. So if a 4 wheeled buggy, or a 3 wheeled (2 in front, 1 in back) buggy gives greater stability, might that be worth the extra complexity?

And even if you answered "no", thats OK, because everyone chooses what's worth adding complexity for. There is no ideal. Thats why we still have skinny tires, narrow axles, non depowerable and 2-line kites, and land sailors available.

So my hats off to anyone who tries to do something a little different, to try to make something new and interesting. Heck that kind of thinking is the reason we have this sport in the first place. And this sport is far to too young to have developed such a nostalgic "Just leave it the way it is" mentality.

Bucky,

While I agree with pretty much everything you said and I encourage anyone to try whatever you can dream up, I still don't see many people going away from the simple workable model that we now know and love so much. Take the Crab Buggy for example, wicked idea, well designed and executed, but so far I haven't heard of many people using them. I'm not sure how trickable they are, not sure how they handle high speed or airtime. I'm sure someone will be able to get it to do all that, but it's got to have something more than the standard buggy before people will run out and buy it. The Crab Buggy brings a lot to the table, it can do things that a normal buggy won't. But people are in love with what's familiar.

Agreed. The crab buggy is an interesting (if somewhat limited) concept, and I see many more interesting in the future.

For example: On the Landboard side of things, something called a "Baseboard" just came out. It combines elements of mountainboarding, sandboarding (snowboarding on sand), and kitesurfing. A truly amphibious board that rolls, slides, and can plane across water!! Thats cool!! I wonder how long until we see a form of that in a buggy?!? An amphibious buggy! (even if its just for really shallow surf) Wouldn't that be hella fun on the beach!

In fact, I bet someone out there's gonna reply "I've thought about that too" or "I have a design for one" or even "they already make one. Here's the website" or something.

That's one thing I love about this sport, its so new, The people that participate in it are still actively creating and redefining it.

And hey J. Ellis:

When are you gonna get one of those 4 wheeler up to Oregon? Can that front axle assembly be ordered as a seperate part for retrofit? Only for libras?

Looking at the pics in the brochure it looks like you can remove the standard swan neck and replace it with the 2 wheeled front end, the rest of the bug looks like a libra hardcore. Pics also show it with standard barrows and BF's, I wish I could tell you more but the booklet I have is in what appears to be german.

Bucky I am sure we can get the 4 wheel front end that would fit V-Max, Full Race or the Hardcore. Each Shipment I get from Europe has quite a bit of Libre parts, that's what makes Libre buggies so customizable. Like Full Race foot pegs for the V-Max, or big foot forks to turn your buggy into a bigfoot, or for the V-Max a camber adapter for screwing in to your axle that makes it just like the Full Race, front suspension for standard and bigfoots which handles the ruts at Galveston with out beating you to pieces, kicked down tubes, Ice blades set for LIBRE buggies, and on and on. Check out http://kitebuggyspeedshop.com/pubs/Libre2006_MSRP_US_Cost-wi...
LB4R 1002 4-Wheel Buggy adapter set (inclusive wheels)
LBZ 0801 Extra weights for the front fork and the rear axle
These are just a few of the combinations you can choose, and if you are like me what I didn't see I build, like the adjustable front fork rake.
Jon

You do have some very interesting thoughts Bucky...have you ever drawn anything thing on paper....your ideas and thoughts

I actually have. Let me see if I can find some. I'll try to post them by tomorrow.

I would've thought 3 wheeled buggies would be better than 4 because 3 lets you turn on the spot, 4 wheeled ones need to move forward (or backwards) to turn.

Wouldn't they also make your turns wider?

Looks like Libre have put a lot of thought and effort into designing this 4 wheeled buggy.
I would love to try one just to see how it would perform in my terrain.
If it turns out to be an improvemnt on my 3 wheeled buggies, I'd go for it.
If I could see one up close to get an idea of the dimensions, I'd already be making one. I know that if I design one & make it on my own bat, I will discover parts of it that I don't like. As Libre have done a significant amount of design & testing , I'm not ashamed to say that I will steal their concept & whatever I can lay my hands on to get started.

I don't want to re-invent the wheel.

Or more precisely re-invent the 4th wheel?