StephenH

When I first started riding as an adult, I bought a $100 mountain bike. The seat on it felt like sitting on a 2x4. I assumed it was because it was small. So I bought a $20 cruiser seat and stuck it on there and all was good, seatwise.
Then I went to a Worksman cruiser. Of course, it came with a comfy cruiser seat and all was good.
Then I bought a Raleigh Sojourn. It came with a Brooks pre-aged B17. It was a lot narrower than the cruiser seats but just as comfortable. Getting it, I realized the seat on that $100 mountain bike was uncomfortable because it was a piece of crap, not because it was narrow.
There seem to be plenty of people that are perfectly comfortable on conventional bike seats and also plenty of people that are convinced that no one could ever be comfortable on any bike seat. I see no way to reconcile the two groups. I assume a good many of the no-way-on-any-seat people just haven't tried the right seat, but there's not much of a way to show that.

One of our local recumbent riders occasionally has problems with knee pain on long rides.
One of our local recumbent riders occasionally has hot-foot problems.
So they are not necessarily a cure to every problem.

I know some fast recumbent riders and some slow recumbent riders. I only know two people that have switched from upright to recumbent, and they are both slower than they were on uprights. So I don't know if that's a general trend or not. If so, then the fast recumbent riders must have really been something on upright bikes.