@duerer I’m no expert on bike pedal angles, sorry.
Other than aiming to get it done, I think I based the pedal arrangement in the first owl sketch on the crankshaft principle(?); how if to piston are set 180 degrees from one another they can’t turn over at a certain point in the stroke. Which is roughly why crankshafts aren’t 180 degrees apart. If that was clear, I don’t know, sorry.