Recumbent - Trek R200

My wife bought one of these about 4 years ago and had good intentions of riding it. However after sitting for a year a year and a half I have been thinking about getting it out and riding. It probably has less then 100 miles on it. It seems like a good bike and I was wondering why it didn't catch on. Was Trek just behind the curve when it came to recumbent?

Trek was never fully committed to the recumbent. There was a division among their ranking management from day one as to whether or not to build and sell a recumbent. Their efforts were half hearted at best.

Try it - you might like it!

Regardless of Trek's motivation and commitment to bents if you want to ride that R200 - awesome. Get it out tune it up and hit the road. Google Trek R200 and you'll find some info on this bent that will hep you if it has any problems.

From what I've read, the Trek 200 is relatively heavy but quite sturdy. Particularly if you are a big guy, it might be a good first recumbent. It may have been a bit heavy for your wife if there are significant hills in your area.

The R200 wasn't a bad bent, but it suffered from a number of preconceptions that an upright bike manufacturer might have. I can look at the bike and follow their thought processes. But of all its shortcomings, the only serious one was its price. At $1600 it didn't exactly leap out of showroom floors. But when Dave at Valley Bikes got ahold of Trek's remaining stock and did a blow-out truckload sale for $650 apiece, they all sold within a few weeks.

There is also specualtion that trek mostly bought that company to make it go under anyhow.

Dave sold the R200s in blatant violation of Trek's sales policy of no mail orders. Between that and the blowout price, it sure left a bad taste in their dealer network's mouths, because all Trek-authorized dealers were required to take one R200 and most of them expected the bike to sell itself for full list price. Dave's price made their R200s almost worthless; so the threat of legal action may have been a factor in Dave eventually selling his shop. But Valley Bikes is still around and AFAIK it's not owned by Trek.

Edit: One of my fellow club members has an R200. He mentions it in his member page here (http://www.biketcba.org/TRICORR/members/enoonan.html).

My first recumbent was a TREK R200. I bought it used for $450 plus $120 shipping from WI, I rode it for little over 500 miles before realizing that it is heavy and slow after trying a 15 year old Vision R40.
I'm 140 lb. the TREK was simply way overbuilt for my purpose.

Most of the reviews I've read on it say that it was designed to fit only medium to large sized riders, recommended inseam of at least 32".

I always get a chuckle when people selling them advertise them as a classic/collectable Trek. I've seen ads along the lines of "You know its of top quality because its a Trek." True for many of their bikes, but not the R200. Of course, I might try the same tactic if I was selling one.

Still people did find them comfortable and it would be worthwhile to ride if you've got one lying around.

Recently picked us a r200 through Craigslist in Texas and after some much needed work am enjoying it here in Florida. I built recumbents for myself in the early 1980s out of old bikes and am now retired, so decided to try a "company ride". I wish to thank everyone who has written about the r200 and other bents, it was very helpful. For someone like me, 52, 230, 6', in decent shape(32" waist at 18 now 38-39" ) this is a great bike for getting back into riding, very comfortable and while it is about 35-36lbs, feels lighter. replaced the 170mm cranks with 150 and it feels better( I "pedal" a Hobie mirage kayak and am used to a 300mm recipricating push stroke). Looking forward to putting some milage on it.