Steamer

For sure.


Yeah, the mountains themselves aren't all that terribly high, but if you cross a couple of those and throw a million little hills in the valley parts in between, it's not hard to get above 6000 feet per 200K. In fact, our route designs are largely about reducing climbing as much as possible without sacrificing pleasantness and safety. As in a lot of places with hills, safe and scenic and fun means hilly. But too much scenery means undue suffering. And a man can only take so much Type II and III fun in one day.

Edited to add: here: http://www.bentrideronline.com/messa...2&postcount=38 willie says his quest is faster than the Carbent over most routes where the climbing is less than 50 feet per mile. That makes sense to me. At some point, as the climbing per mile goes up, the superior aerodynamics of the velo yields to the much lower weight machine. Then again, a F-40 isn't all that terribly light, though. So, the crossover point between that and a light weight velo (thinking of a carbon Quest) might be a bit higher. Anyways, my overall impression is that an F-40 would be a better way to do faired rando than a velo in these here parts.

That said, just as compelling of a question is if the superior aerodynamics of an F-40 compared to my Metabike (CdA of about 0.16 to 0.23-ish, respectively) makes up for the higher weight of the F-40 over my typical routes? My Metabike is about 26 lbs naked. (heavy duty rando build....) and Lighting says the F-40 is 33 lbs. With me, plus clothes, water, bags and other crapola riding around on the Metabike weighing in at almost 207-208 lbs., that 7 lbs difference is only about 3.3%. Not much. . I estimate that 3.3% slower climbing would only amount to about 12 to 15 minutes of added climbing time on a typical 200K. Probably wouldn't take too many flat and open downhill sections to make up for that amount of lost time.