LoGo P-38 Recumbent Bicycle Owner Review

LoGo P-38 with Angletech Aerotrunk III

A little while back I the opportunity arose to test ride a locally built LoGo P-38, a sort of clone or copy of a Lightning Cycle Dynamics P-38 recumbent bicycle. My “LoGo P-38” as I call it, was built by Martin Arnold of LoGo Trikes fame. Given the cost of purchasing a “real” Lightning Cycles P-38 ex the USA is very expensive, even a frame is around US$2,200 + shipping + GST, the opportunity to purchase a locally built variant which rides well, was too good an opportunity to miss and so I now own my second recumbent, a LoGo P-38.

This page was last updated on January 9, 2015.  Added in the missing tables at the end of the post.

Okay it is not the real thing but it comes pretty close from what I can work out and I do enjoy riding it more than I do my Bacchetta Giro 20 ATT, but then the Giro 20 ATT is now e-assisted and has a specific role as my commuter. The upright riding position of the LoGo P-38 works for me as does its ability to climb. I think for the medium term at least this may be my recumbent; well until I can afford a Sinner Bikes Mango or a Trisled Rotovelo 🙂

So here I am with a blog post on my experiences with the LoGo P-38 and any changes that I make to it. I will also use this post to keep track of the costs of owning my P-38.

Overview of LoGo P-38

I purchased the bike “as new” from Martin, he had ridden it only a few kilometres so it is a demo model I guess. He made a couple of minor changes for me before I got: added water bottle cages and swapped out the front crankset to a 170 mm crank, otherwise the bike is as he advertised it on the WAHPV For Sale pages.

Original Handle Bars

The LoGo P-38 does differ in a couple of areas that I am aware of from the Lightning Dynamic Cycles P-38. The first is in terms of the handlebars, Martin has set it up with a make-shift handlebar configuration of a fairly straight bar with bar ends pointing down and the bar-end shifters mounted on the ends of the bar. That setup has now been replaced with my current cockpit setup.

The second is that the bike has a rear pannier rack built-in for rear panniers. I suspect these racks could be used in-combination with a rear rack to set up the bike for pannier touring.

The third change is the frame itself which has an additional stay under the seat. I think that is pretty much the variations from the real Lightning Dynamic Cycles P-38.

Riding the LoGo P-38

LoGo P-38 at Nambeelup Brook – Ngaa-Bilyapp Bilya

My first ride suggested to me this is the recumbent style I like. I actually want to ride this bike whereas the Bacchetta Giro 20 ATT did not give me that feel until I recently fitted a Bacchetta Recurve seat to mirror the riding position more closely to what I have on the LoGo P-38.

A few rides of the LoGo P-38, a couple of punctures on the rear and I concluded that the wheel fit in the chain-stays was a tight one, in fact I had to try and spread the chain-stays by hand whilst re-installing the wheel to get it in.

Being a steel frame spreading the chain stays is not a difficult task thankfully. Sheldon Brown suggests using a block of wood, but I took Martin Arnold from LoGo Trikes’ advice and made use my car’s scissor jacket. This easily spread the frame, the only issue being I really had no control over the extent of the spread. It is a brute force approach rather than a fine tuning one. As it turned out I spread the frame about four millimetres which was more than enough to resolve my tight fit problem and not too much to cause issues with the skewers tightening up. All up a nice easy fix.

With the other changes I have made the bike is now riding very sweetly for me.

LoGo P-38 Modifications

LoGo P-38 Crankset

Stronglight Impact Triple with 165 mm crank arms

The front crankset is a Stronglight Impact Triple with 165 mm crank arms. I found I was lacking a little bit of top speed so I have swapped out the outer ring for a Stronglight 52T 7075-T6 alloy material chainring in black. I do like the black which I feel contrasts nicely with the silver of the inner rings and the arms. I did have a little trouble getting this setup to work as the chain was catching on the lifter on the middle chain ring. I found I had to lift the derailleur a touch more on the derailleur post to give more clearance and to allow the chain to move freely between the chainrings.

LoGo P-38 Cockpit

RANS B37 Based Cockpit for the LoGo P-38

The cockpit on the LoGo P-38 as purchased was a set-up consisting of a cut-down straight mountain bike handlebar reamed out to take a set of Shimano Ultegra SL-BS64 9 speed bar-end shifters. Attached to the handlebar’s bar-ends where a couple of modified Alhonga brake levers. Whilst the cockpit was functional it was not ergonomic.

I really need an integrated handlebar, shifters and brake lever combination. My first attempt at achieving this involved the purchase of an On-One Mungo Handlebar, however this really lacked a sufficient bend for it to work for me, so I purchased instead a RANS B37 handlebar from Angletech Cycles which has a much more suitable bend.

RANS B37 Handlebar Specifications

With the fitment of the RANS B37 handlebar I needed to make a couple of changes. Namely I need to change the shifters, the brake levers and I need a new set of handlebar grips so I took the opportunity to install a set of SRAM DoubleTap 9 speed shifters [these may be no longer available], a set of Avid brake FR-5 levers that I had on-hand and a pair of Ergon GP1-L Ergonomic bicycle handlebar grips.

SRAM DoubleTap 9speed Shifter – Right Hand Side

SRAM DoubleTap 9 speed Shifter – Left Hand Side

Avid FR-5 brake lever

Ergon GP1 Handlebar Grips

With the change to SRAM DoubleTap 9 speed shifters I need to swap out the incompatible Shimano Tiagra rear dérailleur for a compatible SRAM one, in my case a SRAM X.9 9 speed long rear dérailleur.

SRAM X.9 9 speed long rear dérailleur

SRAM X.9 9 speed long rear dérailleur

SRAM X.9 9 speed long rear dérailleur

All up an excellent upgrade to the cockpit and drivetrain of the LoGo P-38 which has worked really well for me.

Mirrors – LoGo P-38

Busch & Müller Cyclestar 901/3 (5 cm) 50 mm mirror

I had a Busch & Müller Cyclestar 901/3 (5 cm) 50 mm mirror fitted on the Bacchetta Giro 20 ATT which migrated over to this bike. I then added a second Busch & Müller Cyclestar 901/3 (5 cm) 50 mm mirror as two mirrors are a must in my view on the recumbent bike such as the LoGo P-38.

While these are smaller than the 80 mm Busch & Müller Cyclestar 901/3 I have on the Bacchetta Giro 20 ATT and I do like the larger size, I feel the 50 mm mirrors are the best compromise for this bike.

LoGo P-38 Front Dynamo Wheel

I am a bit of bicycle dynamo tragic with a SON 28 on my Surly Long Haul Trucker and a Shimano Deore XT DH-T785 on my Giant XTC 2. As I prefer to have quality dynamo powered lighting on my bikes and as I hope to use the LoGo P-38 as my Audax ride I built up a front dynamo wheel based on a Alex Rims DA16 6061H-T6 406×16 rim matched to a Shutter Precision PD-8 dynamo.

As the rim is drilled for a Schrader valve and I prefer to use Presta valves (also I use a Presta on the rear so for consistency sake prefer Presta on the front) I have fitted a Shimano WH-T565 Valve Stem Adaptor which adapts the valve hole to Presta size. A neat and nice fit for the Presta valve.

Front Light – LoGo P-38

The front light is a Busch & Muller Luxos U Lumotec IQ2 bolted to a Bacchetta One Arm Bandit (OAB). This allows me to use the standard European mount that comes with the Luxos U light. I took the same approach with my Bacchetta Giro 20 ATT and it has worked well.

The only negative is that my Luxos U is the later variant of the light which has the sealed cable to the remote switch. This modification was done by Busch & Muller in response to water entering the light via the point where the USB cable plugs in. The downside with this modification means that the previously available extension cable for the remote switch (handy for recumbents and the like) is no longer suitable. So short of cutting and extending the cable myself I cannot at the moment mount the remote switch on the handlebars. Instead it is mounted at the base of the stem on the “top tubes”. I will see how this plays out before considering making a homemade extension.

Rear Lights – LoGo P-38

The rear lights are two Busch & Muller Secula Plus for Seat Post or Stay (331/2ASK) lights wired in parallel. I have padded out my seat stays to make them thicker at the mounting point and then used the supplied cable ties to mount the lights. Not overly keen on this as the lights cannot be mounted with as much tension as I would like. Will have to see how this plays out before deciding if any changes are required.

I went with the Busch & Muller Secula Plus as I don’t have a rack on this bike and would prefer if possible to not go down that path.

Garmin Edge 810 and Bontrager ANT+ Sensors – LoGo P-38 Installation

Bontrager ANT+ Speed Sensor Retail Packaging

Bontrager ANT+ Cadence Sensor Retail Packaging

Bontrager Cadence Sensor

Bontrager Speed Sensor

I use a Garmin Edge 810 GPS as my bike computer and whilst it can be used without a speed or cadence sensor my preference is to use a speed sensor (no reliance on the satellites required) and I also like to record cadence data.  The single cadence/speed sensors such as the Garmin GSC-10 don’t work on recumbent bike like the LoGo P-38; rather separate cadence and speed sensors are required. Bontrager are one manufacturer that do a separate ANT+ cadence (model No. 426479) sensor and separate ANT + speed sensor (model No. 426433).

Installation of the Bontrager cadence sensor is simple with o-rings supplied for mounting the sensor. Similarly the speed sensor is also mounted using an o-ring.

The first set of Bontrager cadence and speed sensors failed within about a month of purchase, however the replacement ones (supplied under warranty) have worked without any issues.  They pair without dramas with my Garmin Edge 810.

Water Bottle Cages – LoGo P-38

Having read very positive comments on the Catamount CatCage side entry water bottle cages I secured two black ones from an eBay seller, bicyclists_retreat. Whilst expensive ($32 for the pair) the CatCage has proven to a reasonable purchase. On the recumbent with the cages mounted on the back of the seat, make accessing my water on the go easy for sure.

Mounting them however was not a done deal.  One thing missing from this bike is braze-ons for the water bottle cages. A first attempt at resolving this was the use of self-tappers to secure the bottle cages, but this has not really worked out as the self-tappers work loose fairly quickly.

My next thought and attempt at resolving this was to install M3 nut-inserts to create a thread to bolt the cages to the seat frame. However the nut-inserts I got had a 4.9 mm diameter which meant a 5 mm hole (common drill bit size) was too big for the insert and the next size down, 4.5 mm just too small. With this discovery I abandon this idea reverting to Plan C which was to dill a 5 mm hole through the seat frame to take a 5 mm x 25 mm button head bolt and nyloc nut. I have the button head side on the seat where I lean back and the nyloc nut where the bottle goes. The shape of the cage means the nyloc nuts do not interfere with the water bottle. Hopefully this will be a long-term solution.

Seat Bag and Top-Tube Bag – LoGo P-38

Vaude Cruiser Bag

Closer look at the Vaude Cruiser Bag

I like to have a bag up front where I can keep my camera and phone and other bits and pieces easily accessible on a ride. For this bike I have chosen to go with a Vaude Cruiser Bag which I have mounted between the top tubes and bottom tubes. It fits okay with just enough clearance from the chain. The zips are accessible okay.

The other option I did consider was hanging it from the bottom tube but it does need to be set-back a bit to avoid the wheel hitting it.

Mudguards (Fenders) for the LoGo P-38

The Planet Bike Hardcore Recumbent mudguard I originally fitted to my Bacchetta Giro 20 ATT has now migrated across the shed to the LoGo P-38. These mudguards are a pretty good fit on the rear, but the front turned out to be a bit of pain getting the fitment just right. With some effort I have that done now and now all I need is a good winter of wet weather riding to put them to a proper test.

With hindsight I think a set of Bacchetta mudguards, the Bacchetta Fender Set would have been a better choice for this bike.

Rear Bag – LoGo P-38

Angletech Aerotrunk III

Angletech Aerotrunk III

I have fitted a Angletech Aerotrunk III to the rear of the seat of the LoGo P-38. Angletech Cycles do suggest that it may add 3 to 6 kilometres per hour to your speed but I have no benchmarks to test this claim so will leave it simply out there, without confirmation.

I went with the yellow Aerotrunk III because it adds a very visible element to the bike whilst at the same time providing plenty of carrying capacity.

When I purchased the Angletech Aerotrunk III it had been my intention to use the LoGo P-38 as my commuter so carrying capacity was high on my priority list. Now its role has changed that is not so important but I really see no need to remove the Aerotrunk III.

I may however make one modification to the Angletech Aerotrunk III and that is to add some coroplast or aluminium stays or braces to the base of the Aerotrunk to give it some support.

Component Specification – LoGo P-38

This tables summaries the specifications of my LoGo P-38 as it is now configured.

Capital and Maintenance Costs – LoGo P-38

With this table I am attempting to track the capital cost of the LoGo P-38, i.e., the bike itself and changes to same which either extend its life or improve its functionality and the maintenance cost, i.e., the operating cost. With the operating cost I am also tracking the approximate cost per kilometre. This amount is updated whenever new costs are incurred.

Service History – LoGo P-38

In this final table I tracking the LoGo P-38 service history; a bit like the service history for a motor vehicle.