Recumbent - how many others do you see?

i get a few folks who ask about my bike and just about every one says they see others running around. but the last recumbent ive seen being ridden around here was over 5 years ago. i talked to this older fella who made his own. which is what got me interested. how often do you see them in your neck of the woods? id love to meet some other bent riders.

Saw one in Pasadena, going oncoming way. That is compared to apprx. 200 regular cyclists.

I seen about 12 sunday in Burlington, VT. All in 1 group.

I just starting commuting with a Vision R40 SWB/USS today. There was one other SWB/USS commuting and one LWB/OSS. There are many more around on weekends, including several tandems. The south coast of Maine seems to be a popular place for bents, most likely due to the ocean vistas and flat terrain.

For a relatively small population, Nova Scotia has a lot of recumbent riders.
In our touring club alone there are 6. Every year there is an organized recumbent rally held here. Most years over 30 riders show up. Some travel from the US and central Canada.:)

I live in Birmingham England.
Only seen one and i wasnt riding mine.
That was 3 years ago .Never seen one since

I pass one old guy (ie, about my age) on a 'bent regularly on my way to work. He looks happy and the cars in Center City Philadelphia seem to give him a lot more space than they give me.

RichC

There must be about 10 or so in the Fargo - Moorhead area - strangely my most recent coversation was w/ a Boise couple on a Vision tandem pulling a BOB - got to ride w/ them a few miles and guide them to the bridge over the Red River on their way south - Have only had 2 other conversations w/ a bent cyclist in the last couple of years

When I got my bent two years ago I thought there probably weren't others nearby, but I was mistaken. Thank goodness for the Internet! It has put me in contact with so many other bent riders hereabouts. I now ride regularly with a small group of 4-5 others on Saturday mornings here on the central coast of California. Last weekend I rode with 7 others (none of my Saturday group) on a ride through San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge through Sausalito and across Richardson Bay. We returned on the ferry from Larkspur to our starting point on the Embarcadero. We shared a short ride to Pac Bell Park catching an inning of the Giants ball game before going our separate ways.

It really is nice to share something in common with other people who are otherwise strangers. Enthusiasm among bent riders is something apart from just plain cycling.

In my entire life I can only recall seeing one bent passing through, as far as I know I'm the only bent rider around here. :D

some day i like to meet some of these guys everyone tells me about but i never see. till then i need to start on making one for my wife so i can get her out here with me some.

Let's see.....

A lot.

I live in Minneapolis/St. Paul area. They're all over.

My wife has a BikeE RX, our friends Melinda and Jim have BikeE
RX and LX bikes, our friend Jeremy has a BikeE CX (entry level
one), our friend Doug rides a Linear recumbent too.

That makes 5 just in our group of friends.

We see a lot of riders out and about - one guy on one of the
Linear prototypes (the prototypes were black with red logo
lettering, the shipping versions were gold colored aluminum),
a lot of folks on just about every brand you can think of.

The Cedar Lake/Kenilworth trail is a hotbed for recumbents on
weekends - just oodles of them. Name any brand and you'll
probably see one.

I live just west of Minneapolis. I've seen maybe 10 other recumbent riders in the past two years.

I've seen two others and one other emailed me, but I've never seen him. I've never spoken to any of the ones I've seen. They've all been headed in the opposite direction as me.

Mike,

Chicago is an odd town for bikes. In some areas intersections are crowded with more bikes than cars. On the far-South side, where I live, I may be the only bike commuter that passes for hours. I have never seen a bent on my commute. A neighbor rides a delta trike everywhere he goes and has for 5 or so years.

I have seen one bent on the Lake Michigan bike path that runs through the downtown area. It was a lowrider and he was moving fast in a pack of df bikes. It looked like a Zox or Flevo.

The bents come out of the woodwork when there is a group ride. At last year's Ride the Drive I saw probably 50 to 60 bents. BikeE is popular. At various charity rides there are always a couple 2 to 5 bents that make an appearance. I know there is a Chicago Bentriders list but I have not hooked up with them. (I would like to get some miles under my belt before embarassing myself infront of them.)

i get a few folks who ask about my bike and just about every one says they see others running around. but the last recumbent ive seen being ridden around here was over 5 years ago. i talked to this older fella who made his own. which is what got me interested. how often do you see them in your neck of the woods? id love to meet some other bent riders.

I ride with three others in the bike club, when I show up! now, three weeks ago a bought a bent from Kansas, surely you must see some rans bents out there!

I saw a guy on a Linear LWB a the County fair back in October.

Here in Prince George, BC, I have seen two, both are Mikado Quzetals. A friend has the SE model & the owner of my LBS here has the LE (http://www.mikadobicycles.ca/en/randonnee_bikes.asp?id=5).

Regards

Mike, if you want to see literally hundreds of bents, come up to Iowa the last weekend of July and ride RAGBRAI. The best way to ride 500 miles (and enjoy it) is on a bent. With 15,000 participants (including un-registered) you'll see a wide variety.

Tons in Denver. Aren't RANS bikes made in your area of KS, Hayes I think? I would think you should see a few around. Maybe Kansas is like California, everybody drives.

Darren

I see a few bent riders fairly regularly in my area. I see a guy on a trike fairly regularly and ive started doing weekend rides with him around the place. I also see a guy on a homemade SWB pulling a trailor-bike with his daughter and another daughter on a kids bike riding next to him. I know there is a lowracer around but he rides too early in the morning for me. I see more people getting around on trikes(tandem trikes too) at the bigger organized bike rides. I also see a guy on an old Greenspeed 26" SWB every now and again. I have to say, every 'bent rider ive even seen looks happy and content. :)

I stood on the bike path last week with camera in hand, and in 30 minutes, I ran into 3 recumbents- two were those ones you pedal by foot, and one was pedalling with his hands. I actually ran after him, screamed for him to stop, and took his picture. It was awesome. He looked goooooooood. :)

Koffee

I live in a small town and since I got mine I've never seen another recumbent
around town. If I venture to a bike path I may see a couple but it's rare. I've
only seen one other like mine (Burley Canto) and that was in Cincinnati.
It's kind of funny to watch people stop & stare & point whenever I ride by.
One time while riding, a car pulled up along side of me and was asking questions
about the bike. Apparently people in Bellbrook aren't used to strange beasts like
recumbents!

Garry

i get a few folks who ask about my bike and just about every one says they see others running around. but the last recumbent ive seen being ridden around here was over 5 years ago. i talked to this older fella who made his own. which is what got me interested. how often do you see them in your neck of the woods? id love to meet some other bent riders.

Here in Arlington Va, about one per 10 miles. If I cross the river to DC, maybe one every 100+.

If I head west on the W&OD trail it is about 1 every 2-3 miles once I get to Falls Church, and in the Vienna to Reston area it increases to about 3 per mile (one of the two DC are recumbent specialty shops is in Vienna).

I've seen a few 'bents on the Elyria-Oberlin bike path. There is one SWB that seems to be pretty regular. Usually catch him going the other direction when I'm on my homeward bound commutes in the summer. I've seen a couple on a pair of Bike-E's. This weekend I saw someone on one of the EZ type bikes. I know there are others around, I just haven't run into them yet. At the moment I think I'm the only active recumbent cyclist in the club I belong to.

'bent Brian

My wife and I, along with our two teenage daughters, have lived here in Fairfield, Northern California, for almost 15 years. In that time, I've only seen a couple of middle aged guys riding on their Tour Easy's, and one guy, in his late twenties, zooming through an intersection on his Catrike---a nice looking white one, possibly one of Catrike's first trikes. Other than them, I've only seen me , chugging along on my Wave/Django/Fusion/GTO/Stratus.

The only 'bents actually sold here in town are Burley Koosah's and Jett Creek's, through our most respected/beloved LBS. The folks there are always telling me how well their Burley 'bents sell(they're completely sold out now, and have placed much larger orders this season, on all of the Burley 'bent models)...but I have yet to see one on the road!

Where I usually ride I see one or two every time I'm out. When I rode in the northern Illinois area, a couple of months ago, none. I understand that bents make up about 1% of the total bike sales. And older folks are liking them cause they're easy on the body. So as our population age increases I think the number of other bent riders out there will increase.
But boy, do the bent riders I've come across love their bikes!

I stood on the bike path last week with camera in hand, and in 30 minutes, I ran into 3 recumbents- two were those ones you pedal by foot, and one was pedalling with his hands. I actually ran after him, screamed for him to stop, and took his picture. It was awesome. He looked goooooooood. :)

Koffee

Which path were you on that you saw 3 bents?
They must be hiding from me.

I see them regularily during the summer months, but I guess I'm the only one who rides in the wintertime. There's an HPV-dealer in the local area, so there are a few StreetMachines around here. I've also seen some older Radius designs. A few months ago, I spoke with a 'passer-though' from Prague. He had a fully-loaded custom LWB. And now that I think about it, I saw some chick riding an older Zox through the shopping district. She came from Hamburg, but wasn't sure about her exact destination -- we have long vacations around here, so time isn't a big issue:=). Occasionally some Dutch tourists ride through on their way to Prague.

It's surprising not to see even more bents. I'm convinced that if people only knew how much fun they are, there would be far more on the planet.

NR
Dresden, Germany

Besides my club having 10 or so, I also see a couple of trikes and a few bents regularly while out riding. My regular riding group has 3 high racers, a couple swb, a lwb and 2 tandem bents.

I too live west of Minneapolis and see a lot of bents. Some days only one bent will pass and other days 1 out of 20 bikes is a bent. Most are SWB with 1 out of 5 to 10 a LWB. Last summer I saw 5 different trikes. The year before 1 trike.

Our club in mid-Michigan has approximately 85 bent riders, and members often have more than one bent. It's not unusual to have 6-10 bents on a Saturday ride, along with 20-30 DFs. Many are fitness/performance riders, too; so when they're not riding with the DF pacelines they're dropping 'em. One of our Sunday rides is traditionally dominated by bents; we once had a dozen bents and no wedgies at all. OTOH, rides where there are *no* bents are unusual.
http://www.biketcba.org/TRICORR/members/members.html