Originally Posted by
gitarzan
I think they were the original road bike. The bike front wheel was an early means of increasing the gear inch ratio as to achieve some speed. I'd suppose riding them in town would be like riding around in high gear. A little tough to crank.
Actually, quite the opposite. You're right about the gear inch thing, but it's the opposite problem. The gearing of a p-far is limited by the rider's inseam, so depending on how tall you are you're pretty much stuck in a low-middle-ish gear all the time, roughly like being cross-chained in the big ring. Might be a bit steep for going up hills, but not difficult at all to turn over and top speed is limited.