Recumbent - Just wanted to say sorry

I was out for a nice relaxing Sunday ride on my cat 700, when a roadie went by me snickering. Well that was not a good thing. I decided to let them go, then I thought why should I. So out comes the testosterone, and I was the one snickering in the end. I am sorry I embarassed you (not). But if you come in here to read this remember not all trikes are slow. :roflmao2:

There's a reason why recumbents aren't allowed in races. I don't ride one, and I know better than to try and outpace one.

I have passed recumbents on my cruiser bike, and been passed by them, and same with upright bikes. I've had people zip around me doing about 30. I've ridden my industrial trike at 8 mph and passed other people. Today in fact, I was out riding it, and passed a man and lady as they were going uphill into the wind. Fifteen minutes later, the guy comes zipping around me, followed shortly by the lady. So that guy's probably on some forum right now saying "A guy on one of those danged industrial trikes passed me, but I guess I showed him!" I've learned that passing people is an important boost to the ego if you're slow, but otherwise doesn't mean much of anything. I've learned there is a big difference between how fast somebody IS going and how fast they CAN go.

I've learned there is a big difference between how fast somebody IS going and how fast they CAN go.

+1 - it isn't too hard to find people you can pass

+1 - it isn't too hard to find people you can pass

Depends on the day. Last week I passed no body that I remember anyway. This week very few passed me. But it mainly depends on the type of riders that are out there. Serious roadies I'm usually left eathing their dust along with strong recreational riders. Most of the rest I pass.

Sorry, man! I was my riding my DF and laughing to myself about an old joke when I passed you and it took me a while to notice you were trying to keep up. I hope I slowed down quickly that you didn't strain anything important. My favorite ride is a trike and I'd hate to spoil your fun.

No, I was not the DF rider in question. I'm just pointing out that people snicker for reasons of their own, passing another rider counts for nothing unless you both are racing, and trikes are enjoyed by a wide variety of people.

WOW I didnt think I was going to get so much negative feed back. I just thought it was funny but I guess I was wrong.

How could anyone get mad at someone with a name like Hang Up and Drive... :)

I was out for a nice relaxing Sunday ride on my cat 700, when a roadie went by me snickering. Well that was not a good thing. I decided to let them go, then I thought why should I. So out comes the testosterone, and I was the one snickering in the end. I am sorry I embarassed you (not). But if you come in here to read this remember not all trikes are slow. :roflmao2:

I must confess that I do this quite frequently (actually every time I get a chance). One of my favorite technique is to let them pass me and then slowly draw up next to them. They freak out when out of the corner of their eye they see that 20 x 1.5 inch front tire on my GRR creep up beside them and then suddenly I drop them out of sight. I have never talked with my prey afterwards but I can only imagine their disbelief that a 60+ year old overweight man on a over built touring recumbent just blew them away. Ok, I will say it. I am sorry(not)

I have passed recumbents on my cruiser bike, and been passed by them, and same with upright bikes. I've had people zip around me doing about 30. I've ridden my industrial trike at 8 mph and passed other people. Today in fact, I was out riding it, and passed a man and lady as they were going uphill into the wind. Fifteen minutes later, the guy comes zipping around me, followed shortly by the lady. So that guy's probably on some forum right now saying "A guy on one of those danged industrial trikes passed me, but I guess I showed him!" I've learned that passing people is an important boost to the ego if you're slow, but otherwise doesn't mean much of anything. I've learned there is a big difference between how fast somebody IS going and how fast they CAN go.

I don't normally give an inch, even if I'm winded a bit, but the mail carrier is in such awesome shape and has such strong legs I keep telling her I wanna race and bring your husband so he can watch the dust in front of him :roflmao2:

Actually, I've known her since she was a bartender and I have no doubt she could beat me racing. It would still be fun to have a racing partner...she's also one of the smarteest people I know arounf here and just a pretty nice lady (and she loves to see all the junk I buy, especially if if uses tubes)!

You guys have people catch you from behind? Strange. My mirror is only used for watching bikes getting smaller.

You guys have people catch you from behind? Strange. My mirror is only used for watching bikes getting smaller.

Only because they started out ahead of me in the first place. ;)

Meh, I outclimbed every single Df in the A group this weekend, but the stereotype of bents being crap uphills is still true. It's all about the engine - mine's just better than some others.

wait wait wait, they snickered at a cat 700??? they deserved it!!!

wish i would have been there : )

Hey, HngUp, I wasn't trying to be negative, just to put things in perspective. I'm slow, and enjoy passing anyone, even if it's grannies pulling trailers, but I've just learned not to make too much out of it, either. It's all good.

The joys of passing are sweet. Sure everyone gets passed and almost everyone can pass someone, but why not enjoy the nectar when it comes your way.

I enjoy passing people when I'm riding my folding bike with 16" wheels ... and I enjoy passing them when I'm riding my 55 year old three speed ... and I enjoy it when I'm on my recumbent, though it seems like shooting fish in a barrel. But when I'm on my tandem ... well, I would enjoy passing someone, but it doesn't happen much. I think it's the stoker's fault.

While riding my vintage DF on the bike path in Columbus, Ohio I have found that the nicest people are the Bent riders where as the Carbon Fiber, spandex wannabees are the rudest, snobbish pricks who act as though they are better then everyone else. It's called cycling. They should be thrilled they're not the only ones on the trail (especially when they get a flat).

While riding my vintage DF on the bike path in Columbus, Ohio I have found that the nicest people are the Bent riders where as the Carbon Fiber, spandex wannabees are the rudest, snobbish pricks who act as though they are better then everyone else. It's called cycling. They should be thrilled they're not the only ones on the trail (especially when they get a flat).

I normally ride two wheeled lowracers and tend to be performance oriented. However, when I ride my trike, I become Mr. Laidback smoothie. Today, I ran in to a guy on a heavy duty delta trike. He must have weighed near 400#, I kid you not. He was going about 4 miles an hour and barely turning the cranks. As I approached him, I waved and gave him a thumbs up. The guy got the biggest grin on his face that I ever saw as he returned my wave. I got to give the guy credit for trying and sharing trike brotherhood with him was a pleasure. :thumb:

I actually have to force myself not to slip into competitive mode if I get overtaken. I have to say to myself that I am competing with myself, noone else, there will always be someone faster. It is a psychological boost though, especially when you overtake someone going up hill. Also it depends on the ride, it's easy to smoke someone who is doing a four-hour ride when you yourself know you only have another 20 minutes to ride so have no reason to hold back.

I never hold back, I just ride my bike.

Slow but steady...

I normally ride two wheeled lowracers and tend to be performance oriented. However, when I ride my trike, I become Mr. Laidback smoothie. Today, I ran in to a guy on a heavy duty delta trike. He must have weighed near 400#, I kid you not. He was going about 4 miles an hour and barely turning the cranks. As I approached him, I waved and gave him a thumbs up. The guy got the biggest grin on his face that I ever saw as he returned my wave. I got to give the guy credit for trying and sharing trike brotherhood with him was a pleasure.
I don't have a recumbent :recum: yet and two months ago I didn't even know a trike existed but it solves all my [touring] problems and so a Trike is what I will buy next.
I sold my car just over a year ago and got this old 71 Schwinn (10 spd) for $30. Sure it's way too big for me, weighs in at 34 pounds (stripped) and is poorly designed but, it got me riding 50 miles a week to 200 a week in about 6 months. It wasn't until I moved closer to work (and a 40 mile bike trail) that I started riding more for pleasure [and pain] then just commuting.
When I first started riding the trail I had a great attitude and really started pushing myself to do better.
I thought the bicycle culture would be like my old days when I rode a motorcycle. We commonly wave to each other when passing because it's a whole culture "we ride because we love it". I thought for sure it would be same in the bicycle world, boy was I wrong. I couldn't believe how different cyclists could be. Someone on a cruiser would smile, someone on a Bent would wave, an older commuter would say hi but those were few and far between. Most of the riders were the spandex wearing kind with their $5000 Carbon Fiber sub 15 pound bikes. In the beginning they thought I was an alien; geesh! the looks they gave me. So what if I'm a chick, good looking, and young , why the f*** did they treat me like I was some purple, two headed alien they'd never seen before. Well fortunately for me (and bad for them), I am a very independent chick who doesn't need acceptance. So I quickly learned who to be polite to and who to ignore plus whenever I came across one of those "snobs" walking their bike because it had a flat, well............. I surely didn't help them!
From everything I've heard about the "typical" Bent rider :50:, I hope they're still polite when a cute chick half their age is riding one too! :D

... I couldn't believe how different cyclists could be. Someone on a cruiser would smile, someone on a Bent would wave, an older commuter would say hi but those were few and far between. Most of the riders were the spandex wearing kind with their $5000 Carbon Fiber sub 15 pound bikes. In the beginning they thought I was an alien; geesh! the looks they gave me. So what if I'm a chick, good looking, and young , why the f*** did they treat me like I was some purple, two headed alien they'd never seen before. Well fortunately for me (and bad for them), I am a very independent chick who doesn't need acceptance. So I quickly learned who to be polite to and who to ignore plus whenever I came across one of those "snobs" walking their bike because it had a flat, well............. I surely didn't help them!
From everything I've heard about the "typical" Bent rider :50:, I hope they're still polite when a cute chick half their age is riding one too! :D

The 'waving' issue has been discussed ad-nauseum. Bottom line is, just because someone doesn't wave doesn't mean they are snobbish, unfriendly, or anything else. It simply means they prefer to not wave. Cute or not, they probably don't know you and you're not an important part of their world at that moment. Under most circumstances, I'm about 50/50 for waving. But when the traffic gets heavy or I've already waved at 500 cyclists, I stop doing it. Ditto for if I am on a big ride (like Hilly Hundred coming up next week!) Sometimes I am overtaking them so fast that even calling "on your left" is senseless.

From everything I've heard about the "typical" Bent rider :50:, I hope they're still polite when a cute chick half their age is riding one too! :D

I assure you that most of the bentriders that I ride with, and most are 55+, will gladly wave and smile at a young lady half our age. :D

And some of us will be your age, or younger. Not all of us are fat beard toting freds! Some of us (like myself) are quite studly....

And some of us will be your age, or younger. Not all of us are fat beard toting freds! Some of us (like myself) are quite studly....

And modest, too!!! :lol:

Greg is like me: the only fault I have to prevent me from being absolutely perfect is that I'm too humble! lol

The 'waving' issue has been discussed ad-nauseum. Bottom line is, just because someone doesn't wave doesn't mean they are snobbish, unfriendly, or anything else. It simply means they prefer to not wave. Cute or not, they probably don't know you and you're not an important part of their world at that moment. Under most circumstances, I'm about 50/50 for waving. But when the traffic gets heavy or I've already waved at 500 cyclists, I stop doing it. Ditto for if I am on a big ride (like Hilly Hundred coming up next week!) Sometimes I am overtaking them so fast that even calling "on your left" is senseless.

I'm not even talking about waving. At least be polite. 3 stories (out of a few).
This one time I passed a guy on the trail, about 10 minutes later he comes flying by me so close his elbow touched my arm.
Another time I almost hit a guy because he was on the wrong side of the trail coming around a blind corner. Being the excellent balanced rider that I am I SWERVED, hit my brakes and slid to the side off the trail. NOT EVEN A THANKS.
Another time it had been raining the trail was pretty slick in some spots (especially with an abundance of leaves). I slowed down into a curve and still had some slippage. Just around the bend a guy was coming towards me fast I said "careful it's slippery around the curve" and he gave me the nastiest look.
A few more things happened and I quit being nice to the Spandex People. I have a friend who IS one of the Spandex People and he even admits they are a**es.

And some of us will be your age, or younger. Not all of us are fat beard toting freds! Some of us (like myself) are quite studly....

hmmmmm.....So you don't wear shiny spandex?

hmmmmm.....So you don't wear shiny spandex?

I should figure out how to do a poll. Just to see how many bent riders wear spandex. I don't think it's very many. At least for the ones I come across around here. I do have one jersey(a BF 50+ and it's loose) but other than trying to stay warm I don't wear spandex otherwise.

And some of us will be your age, or younger. Not all of us are fat beard toting freds! Some of us (like myself) are quite studly....

Even though I'm young(ish) I'm a slightly fat, beard toting, recumbent riding fred.:o I do wear lycra though: cycling jerseys, arm warmers and tights (under regular shorts) on longer rides. I wear lycra just for the functionality of it. I'll wave to any bent rider I see and most cyclists on recreational rides. I'm concentrating on what the silly drivers are going to do, and general traffic awareness when commuting so I don't tend to wave then.

Oh, I'll wave and smile at any cute chick on a bike, of any type.:D

Are all your stories on MUPs? MUPpets aren't exactly complete cyclists, in the sense that riding on trails ******* their cycling skills. You can't draw conclusions that apply to other cyclists if you just base your observations on MUPpets.

Greg is like me: the only fault I have to prevent me from being absolutely perfect is that I'm too humble! lol

According to my wife and my riding friends, humility is my greatest asset. :o

I should figure out how to do a poll. Just to see how many bent riders wear spandex. I don't think it's very many. At least for the ones I come across around here. I do have one jersey(a BF 50+ and it's loose) but other than trying to stay warm I don't wear spandex otherwise.

I do. I rode and raced uprights for 21 years before going bent and old habits die hard. The only difference is that I no longer have a chamois in my shorts. I even wear lycra on my trike. :)

Are all your stories on MUPs? MUPpets aren't exactly complete cyclists, in the sense that riding on trails ******* their cycling skills. You can't draw conclusions that apply to other cyclists if you just base your observations on MUPpets.

I don't even know what a MUP is. All I know is that these guys are the die hard, morning- afternoon riders (while everyone else is working), colorful spandex wearing (with advertisements all over), I see them every day riders.
I think they must be pissed off because I don't wear the shiny spandex and they wonder why I'm on the trail the same time they are, because clearly I don't compete.
Or maybe they have adrenaline-cortisol-electrolyte-caffeine hard ons and I feel like being an a**h**e.

*starting to wonder if Blaze here is one of THEM*
Please tell me it isn't so!

Another vote for Lycra. Street clothes may be OK for short jaunts or putsying around on a trail; but lycra just makes more sense once you reach a certain performance level. Regular shorts are nothing more than parachutes and bee scoops, and when the wind blows the legs open, they're more revealing than the lycra. Once you're wearing the lycra shorts, the jersey logically follows because you still need pockets when you get off the bike. I only use the outer pockets, for reasons that should be obvious to recumbenteurs.

Ah....well don't confuse Lycra with Spandex. Spandex is shiny and lycra is matte.
Not even Vin Diesel or Jessica Alba would look good in shiny spandex! I'm not talking about a bikini either ....that doesn't count.

I wear lycra/poly/nylon, relaxed fit, flat seam cargo capris, running skorts ( yeah yeah yeah, guys won't wear them), straight leg running pants, t-shirts and tank tops etc. that go from bike to work (or society in general) without changing.
Now I don't have a problem with the training clothes IF they really are training. But more often then not I see fat guys in the shiny Spandex, I mean they DO have special cycling shorts that are loose and have the fitted spandex on the inside. They DO have loose fitted jerseys!

O! Blaze, no wonder you hate me you're from MI and I mentioned OH!
For the record, I don't call COLS home and I currently don't live there.

Echo, the behavior you're describing is immature kid-behavior. They don't do that sh..tuff out on the roads where I ride because if they did, they'd be flattened in short order. Or we'd ride off and leave 'em for road kill. Another reason I say 'kid' is because that's usually who's doing it - 25y.o.s or less wannabees who think that bombing down the MUP (Multi-User Path) at 20 mph shows how fast they are. Most paths/trails have speed limits in the 10-15 mph range.

As for your conjectures about me, I really don't like people making unflattering assumptions about me because of my clothes or my speed, or whether or not I wave to strangers. I'm more performance-oriented than most recumbent riders on this list, but that doesn't automatically make me a Bad Person(tm). You won't see me acting poorly on a trail because I avoid trails. Riders like me don't belong there.

Have you considered the possibility that a cute young woman waving to older guys might be taken as an invitation?

This is a fun thread to read!
...so I thought I'd contribute.

Earlier this week, while approaching the intersection of my street and the official start of my ride,
I saw two bicyclists speed by.
They were obviously fit and even better, headed in the direction I'd planned on going!
Oh boy: my favorite bike game.

I gave chase.

One bicyclist looked back every so often (neither one used a mirror)
-and they both picked up the pace.
Good!
The chase was truly on.

Two miles later, I was in their draft.
They were fit! Averaging 20 MPH, which is pretty fast for that stretch of road,
for a DF bike.

Soon enough, we came to a gravity-cavity. A nice steep place for me to pass.
The DF riders quit pedaling and coasted;
I shifted to my tallest gear (52t - 11t) and passed them doing 30+ MPH.
One of them said something... but it's sense was lost in the slipstream.

A mile later, the two DF riders re-passed me.
Surprise!
Mother and daughter, riding together... The daughter, the rider with the limber neck,
said, "nice bike!"

We all had fun that day.

No one waved at anyone else. I think we were all working too hard, at the time.

I do. ... I even wear lycra on my trike. :)
Same here.

Have you considered the possibility that a cute young woman waving to older guys might be taken as an invitation?

I find it odd that you are stuck on The Wave. I never once said I wave. I usually smile or nod to the other non Spandex riders. I ride mostly on the road considering that I use my bicycle as my only form of transportation. However the, Olentangy trail is a not only pretty it is lightly used during the day and it happens to be the fastest (and safest) way to get north of the city. Typically, only commuters use the road (sometimes the trail) and the spandex riders use the trail. I rarely see them on the road seeing as how Ohio's roads are rough and have a number of potholes, those carbon fiber bikes wouldn't last on the roads. :)
Of course down here in MS, I rarely see any bicycles at all. But given the rude drivers, no trails anywhere and even worse roads then Ohio, that doesn't surprise me!
Now as for you, I don't know you, I've never met you and I never said "Blaze is an a** because he wears Spandex". I merely gave the state of affairs in one city far removed from yours.
So why are you so defensive?

I find it odd that you are stuck on The Wave. I never once said I wave.

That's how I interpreted this:


I thought the bicycle culture would be like my old days when I rode a motorcycle. We commonly wave to each other when passing because it's a whole culture "we ride because we love it". I thought for sure it would be same in the bicycle world, boy was I wrong.

And I know that wasn't your main complaint. You even said so. But when you started theorizing why everyone hates you, ya lost me.

BTW, my oldest is currently working on his PHD at OSU.

Well, on a motorcycle waving is standard since we are generally either going too fast, oncoming, or wearing a full face helmet it would be impossible to see a smile or a nod.
It isn't really a "wave" per se as it more of an acknowledgment, it's a very slight movement one that only motorcyclists really notice. What's interesting is that I've found motorcyclists will even acknowledge road cyclists as well. At least they have me.
Hmmmmm... I wonder of your son has ridden on the trail. It goes right through the west side of campus near the Lincoln towers.

Now that I think of it, I've never seen any recumbents on that trail.

Oh, I'm curious, why would the Olentangy trail ****** training?

I love passing uprights too. Especially when they come up to me at the next rest stop, look at my bike and tell me "I'm going to have to look into one of those things when I get older!"

hmmmmm.....So you don't wear shiny spandex?

Well, I wear lycra, but it ain't shiny. I can usually be found in many a race cut jersey and spandex, or often in a skinsuit as well at the local TT tearing it up. Why, did you want a picture of my in something like gold lamee? Send me some and no problem - I've worked hard to get this butt - I don't mind showing it off a little...:thumb:

I love passing uprights too. Especially when they come up to me at the next rest stop, look at my bike and tell me "I'm going to have to look into one of those things when I get older!"

I think that line, or similar ones, are just too funny. I always respond back, "why wait until they're too old to enjoy it?" They must realize they're not mature enough to endure their buddies laughing at them for having an old person's bike.