Doug5150

"Best" means different things to different people.

The main thing that makes a recumbent particularly fast is how reclined the riding position is, because the riding position determines the amount of aero drag caused by the rider. Some bikes allow you to adjust the angle of the seat-back but you still have a limited range of adjustment--because if the seat is too reclined, you cannot push effectively against the pedals. When you push hard you just slide up the seat back.

A trike is always going to be slower than a bicycle with a comparable riding position; most people who have both admit they're 3-5 kph slower on the trike. The trike has 50% more wheels (more weight) and 50% more rolling resistance, and there's no escaping that, it doesn't matter who built the thing or how much you paid for it. Also you often cannot steer a trike's tires through road debris as easily as you can a bicycle. In fact,,, a tricycle's main advantage is not in going fast, but in going slow. Without the need to balance, you can putter along and gawk at the scenery, or switch to a super-low gear to grind up a hill, with no worries of falling over.
,,,,,
The only time people commonly prefer trikes is if they want to run a velomobile/full fairing bodywork. Pretty much all commercially-produced velomobiles you'll find are three-wheelers, because two-wheelers are generally too unstable in crosswinds to work well for this.

A riding position that is very reclined can cause problems of its own, with foot circulation (otherwise known as "numb feet") where your feet sting or tingle while on longer rides. I don't know of any way to predict how much of a problem any person will have with this matter. Bikes with pedals set higher (relative to the seat) cause it more and bikes with lower-set pedals cause it less.

I started out on a short-wheelbase bike with 406/559 wheels (see example here) and got numb feet often. Wiggling your toes inside your shoes tends to help relieve it, but doesn't eliminate it. The pedals on this bike were not even really high, they were only at a "medium" level. I switched to a long-wheelbase with the pedals set low (see example here) and don't have it at all anymore, ever.
,,,,,
Probably the worst part about numb feet is, you won't get it to happen on a brief test-ride around the block. It may take 30 minutes or an hour or more. If you were planning multi-hour rides, having your feet start to hurt after 45 minutes isn't going to work out well. I used the same pedals and shoes on both bikes, so I am certain that was not the difference. I also rode regular bicycles for years, and never ever got numb feet on any of those. And I haven't ever had any other non-bicycling problems with foot circulation at all..... so this is just a brief explanation of how sensitive one can be to pedal height.

It might even make more sense to look for a cheaper bike that has a riding position you want to try out, ride that for a few months, and then upgrade to a more-expensive bike (that offers the same riding position) if it works for you. The problem with this is that when you get into bikes like lowracers, there really aren't any cheap versions, at least in the US.

Usually the reason people mention "a lot of gears" is that they live in hilly terrain.
I have never had a lowracer, but I have also read it more than a few times that lowracers are really poor at climbing hills. I suspect that this has to do with the leg-circulation issue; if the legs don't work well when elevated, then riding a lowracer up a hill is going to elevate them above the heart even more.


Finally the bike you pick might not just be right for you.
I have a semi-recumbent that almost everyone who tried it loved--except for one guy, who had a bad back, and said that the angle his back was at was exactly wrong. The riding positions that recumbents put you in varies much more than upright bikes do. You pretty much just have to try one and see.
~