4/1 Does anyone have a recumbent bicycle? Does it let you bike
farther or faster? Do you like your recumbent bicycle and
would you recommend it?
\_ I tried one on the beach in Santa Barbara. It feels very
comfortable moving your legs lazily under the
sun while lying back; I almost fell asleep. The control
isn't as good as a regular bike, so I wouldn't want to
go too fast on one, but you may be talking about a
different kind of recumbent bike.
\_ I hear they are great on the flats and downhill, but
a bear for climbing.
\_ I ride a recumbent. It's more aerodynamic, which makes me faster
than I would be on a conventional road bike. It's a lot more
comfortable, so I can ride it much longer distances than I could a
conventional road bike. With respect to the comments above,
recumbent geometries vary much more than conventional road bikes,
and have a broad range of handling characteristics. Where one
rider might regard a short wheelbase as twitchy, another might
regard long wheelbase bikes as unresponsive. If you don't like
one design, try something else. I've heard the comments about
recumbents being bad on hills, but can't say I agree. I suspect
it's because older designs were considerably heavier (and heavy
bikes are slow uphill). --alawrenc |