58Kogswell

I looked at your question again and I see a whole different subject I missed the first time which is the crank forward bikes from RANS. I had a RANS Dynamik before I had any true recumbent.




I enjoyed that bike a lot. It was excellent off pavement with wide Schwalbes (26 x 2.0 I think) and front and rear racks although I never did any overnight touring on it. I considered that bike a gateway to recumbents but in looking back it was completely unnecessary. I would have been fine getting a recumbent at the time I got the Dynamik and just skipping that step.

I rode the Dynamik 3K miles and sold it for just $200 less than I paid (the list prices had gone up by hundreds of dollars for new ones after I bought mine and before I sold it) so it was a good deal and a fun bike. It was much easier to ride off pavement than most recumbents. In spite of what RANS says, it is not easy to ride a crank forward standing up - at least not the Dynamik I had.

I have nothing bad to say about that bike at all. Like recumbent there is almost no weight on your arms, wrists, shoulders, etc. and that is great. However, because it does not have a back to the seat it is not as comfortable (as, say, the Stratus XP) and also not as easy to ride long distances in a single day without any discomfort when you get off the bike, which is one of the main advantages of a true recumbent - no sore neck, shoulder, wrists, etc. for me on any of the recumbents because of the completely different seating position, which the crank forward does not fully offer. Only partly.

Ride one of each (recumbent and crank forward) before you buy either and you might discover you don't need to go through the gateway step of buying the crank forward. Unless you want to.