Riding BinBike

Now the bike actually rides. So I put a bin on it and went round to an old flat to get 40kg or so of books that have been in the shed for 18 months. Not a bad test given the nice steep hills between here and there. With a load on the front the steering tends to oscillate, I suspect because there's no weight attached to the steering. The solution will probably involve reducing trail or adding panniers to the front wheel. Or just living with it, because it's quite bearable (it just stops be riding no hands with a load).
The other main observation is that the 36T chainring is just too small. And my old 42T chainring is very worn... all that time on the tandem has taken its toll. But with the wheel right at the back of the dropouts as shown, I can use the 42T ring without changing the amount of chain (or using an idler) - I just slide it right forward. The problem is that I only have about 2mm of further adjustment when the chain wears. Which is not good, since I'm probably going to switch to a 38T or perhaps even 40T for main use and want an even smaller chainring for the ugly bits. But then, 36T does seem to be good for the hills (I test rode up a steep hill too), so perhaps for off road or gravel road touring it would be good - much smaller and I can't balance, but 36T does get me to about 30kph in top gear. Much faster and I should be coasting anyway.
There's rumors of a wild plan to tour Cape York (but that's just an idea), and because of that (and really, because I could) BinBike can accept quite fat rear tyres - hopefully 4" but definitely 3". 4" will cause chainline problems I think, unless I get a really, really long bottom bracket. I'm not convinced by recumbents in the dirt, I think I'd rather ride an upright. And not just because of my Barrington Tops adventure, or CANC fun. Really.
The thing is that it's hard to get off the seat for bumps and it's similarly hard to swing your weight around to navigate the bike in tricky terrain, so you miss chances to avoid the bumps. The sort of single-track touring that's possible on an upright is more difficult on a recumbent. In my opinion, anyway.