I sure would like to find out where 53-11 lives. Might be worth a road trip to his cycling area. It would be very humbling for him to be smoked by a mere recumbent. Recumbents are slow after all and only ridden by old farts with big bellys. We call them aero bellys. Seriously, if he lives in the midwest area at all, I would be more than willing to hit a cycling event and see what kind of rider he really is. Also what is this 550 watt 55mph crap he was talking about? For a 200 lb rider on flat ground, no wind, would require over.........3054 watts. This is for hands on the drops.

In a superman position as in the 1 hour upright record position, it would require over 1985 watts to achieve 55 mph.

Now in a full bodied recumbent streamliner, 55mph is totally achievable. It only requires 472 watts.

A stock lowracer recumbent would require 1641 watts to reach 55 mph. Still not gonna happen.

A tailfaired lowracer would require 1422 watts to reach 55 mph.

I've reached 46mph tops on a flat with no wind. I calculated out that it required 879 watts. Yeah, I've only done it for a short time, like a few seconds ( maybe 2 seconds duration in a brain popping sprint) reached that speed solo and its probably the fastest I will ever go on the tailfaired lowracer on a flat anyhow.

A road bike even in the most aero tuck even to reach 46 mph would require 1824 watts. Not gonna happen unless you are drafting in a professional level paceline sprinting like crazy. Even then, 46 mph seems out of reach.

Any of you want to check my numbers, here is the online power and speed calculator.
http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm