Rans Stratus

Rolling legend that kicked off this adventure into two wheeled recumbents. It has earned the CLASSIC status. A respected machine for handling, comfort, and speed. Tour, commute, cruise, race...a lot.

New Standard Equipment for 2001 includes the lighter & stronger one-piece aluminium seat frame, vibrant wet paint finish, and Primo Comet tire upgrades.

I ordered my Stratus from the Australian distributor Jeff Fox of Reynard enterprises.

On the 21st August 2001 my Stratus finally arrived in Western Australia.
It arrived delivered to my door transported in 3 strong cardboard boxes. It was in pieces ready to be re-assembled.

Considering the long trip from Hayes, Kansas, which was a mixture of road and airfreight, the boxes appeared to have travelled well, as had the contents.

My first move was to unpack the boxes, lay out the contents on the floor and to check the bits and pieces and then to begin the re-assembly. This wasn't a chore, I enjoyed the task.

Cartons arrive

Unpacking
	Assembly
Almost complete	Finished
Complete
By the time it is was assembled I was burning the midnight oil so a test ride had to be reluctantly left until the following morning.

The test rides begin to tweak and fine tune the bike.

A X-Eyed midship rack was installed for a small set of panniers. A pair of Ortlieb front roller panniers were chosen as there is a height limitation of about 300mm to allow enough ground clearance. The second consideration for the choice of panniers was of water proofness, A Schmidt Dynamo hub and a Lumotec Oval Sensor light was also installed.

Starting on October 6th I began a 9 days tour carrying all my gear including camping equipment.
All went well with only a minor problem with the front fender and a couple of punctures.
Unfortunately the delivery of my panniers were delayed so I had to carry an additional bag on the rear rack which upset the balance a little.

In all I was very pleased with the Stratus in touring conditions

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For more, go to links below.

Stay tuned, more to come.