robtown

I have several DF bikes but I recently got this bent. It may be ugly but it let's me cheat - a lot!

BlazingPedals

Wow, I go away for a couple of days and war breaks out! I guess I'd better weigh in.

208 pounds, down 16 since spring.

Recumbents. Yes, I ride them.

locolobo13 

If you're looking for a not ugly recumbent I saw one of these at JinB the other day.

https://cycledifferent.com/products/b...obil/index.htm

Guess it's a trike and not really a bike. The rider, about my age, got right into traffic and took off. It looked fast enuff for me.

VegasTriker

Beauty is obviously in the eye of the beholder. For those of us who ride trikes, the ultimate one is probably the Windcheetah. Up until recently the company has had a horrible reputation for customer service but the trike itself is a work of art. It is fast and steers using a joystick instead of conventional handlebars. If you have an extra $5K laying around you can have one like it.

Their website, www.windcheetah.co.uk, says this: "The official Windcheetah recumbent trike website. See why this world record holder is still the fastest, most advanced human powered vehicle on the market."

Mobile 155

Except for discussing Bent trikes I found this site to be very helpful.
https://www.biketcba.org/TRICORR/compare.html

lphilpot

I have a friend with a Bachetta, but I have yet to run into anyone using under-seat steering on a bent... Is it more difficult or uncomfortable?

Years ago I knew this guy with a recumbent that probably wasn't more than 3 feet tall (the bike, not him ). It had USS, but I've personally seen none since. He was a pretty .... ahem .... unique sight on that bike: 350 lbs in Lycra, long hair and a big ole' Blackbeard-style fuzzy beard! Of course, he was out on a bike when I wasn't so I can't find fault in that!

cranky old dude

I test rode a Linear a few years ago. It was a LWB model with USS. I found it to be extremely comfortable and the steering was great. When I let my arms relax down, the handle bar was right where my hands naturally went to.

If you ever get the opportunity you should definately try one.

BlazingPedals

Aside from tadpole trikes, where it's almost universal, Under Seat Steering a.k.a. USS, isn't very popular in the US. I think Linear is the only current US label with USS. There are a few European labels, but of course they're not as common here.

Bob Nichols

I have never tried a bent, but would like to. I think my problem might be going to sleep at the wheel - like I do when I turn the TV on and sit in my recliner.

CraigB

First two-wheeler with USS I ever saw was this past July in State College, PA, during the big art festival. I saw the guy arrive and park it, then go into one of the vendor tents, but we had to move along before I had the chance to see him get on and start up on it, which is what I really wanted to see.

Dan Burkhart 

+1. Mine is USS, and I love the natural hand position.

El Segundo

Seems to be a lot of different configurations of 'bents. I have ridden my friend's long wheelbase bike and it has a nice ride although the turning radius seems really large, could just be my inexperience. Also have ridden my 82 year old neighbor's recumbent trike which he had to ride for about a year while recovering from shingles, rode ok but would not be my choice. One of the guys in the local club rides a short wheelbase pedal forward that seems to be very agile and fast on the road. When I see the various types of 'bents it can be very confusing and not much opportunity to try the different styles before dropping a bunch of cash on one. Maybe there are some review information or "opinions" from the folks here on the qualities of long vs short wheelbase?

BlazingPedals

I'm forever telling my riding partners to wake me up when we get there, so maybe you're onto something. One word of warning: don't fall asleep when zombies are chasing you!

Homeyba

Seriously, if you are going to pull this stuff out at least put into the proper context. Yes, they did win three years ago. A great achievement by any standards. If you want to compare their actual speed though, look at the competition they had three years ago and their overall time. If you want to see where there truly stand overall you have to compare them to the fastest four man teams. They don't look so good there. The recumbent record is over 24hrs slower than the fastest DF teams. I can tell you that the fast DF teams didn't make up 24+hrs over the recumbents across Kansas!

The answer to the question "can recumbents climb?" is sure they can but not as fast as a DF bike. A recumbents advantage (speedwise) is in aerodynamics, that's it, period. Why try and make it something it isn't?

BlazingPedals

In the US, recumbents are almost exclusively a 40+ phenomenon, so I once asked the same question as the OP: how many 50+ rode them? By my recollection, not so many then as now. Unless you're simply looking for a 50+ opinion that you might trust, going into too much detail about them probably goes beyond the scope of this forum. If anybody is genuinely interested, the proper place to go for answers might be the recumbent forum on this site, or better yet, Bentrideronline.com . Bentrider is a large community with articles, reviews, and lots of members with opinions on virtually any recumbent built. Another site, recumbents.com, has a searchable database of recumbents.

Because recumbents are so different from uprights and even from each other, the almost-universal advice is to test-ride first. There are a few tricks to finding recumbent owners near you, including forums such as here, bikejournal.com, or bentrideronline.com, or local clubs and shops.

jim p

I love the idea of a trike with a fully enclosed faring. This seems to be the ideal riding tool that would keep me safe from chasing dogs. I could put a solar powered electric fence charger on board that would really make a dogs day if it decided to attack.

The down side to an enclosure is probably noise and heat.

The price of the recumbent trike is more than I want to pay. Other than that I think that it would fit my needs much more than a DF.

BlazingPedals

Okay, comparing fastest to fastest...
The record for (upright) men's was set by a 4-man team in 2004, 5:08:17 for 2959 miles, for an average speed of 23.06 mph.
The record for recumbents was set by a 4-man team in 1989, 5:01:08 for 2911 miles, for an average speed of 24.02 mph.

Doesn't really prove anything about hill climbing though. Hill climbing is all about power to weight ratios. Recumbents weigh more, but once you take the weight of the bike plus rider, the difference is pretty minor. Using Homeyba's argument, you just don't lose 24 hours due to poor climbing.

lhbernhardt

I bet a fixed-gear bent would be just murder! On an upright bike, you can just relax and use your body weight to get you up the hills. On the descents, you just sit up to activate the air brakes. On a bent, you're toast!

I've sat behind bents on level ground, and they really are fast. There might be more out there if more really strong riders were out there on them.

Luis

jmccain

fify

(I had a neighborhood kid tell me that years ago when I worked at a bike shop)

Homeyba

You're comparing apples and oranges. That's the HPV record. They were riding fully faired bikes. When I get a chance I'll go get their time splits in the mountains. Maybe that'll be a better test for you. Last I checked, most of the recumbents (short of the HPV's) that they were racing in RAAM weighed less than 20lbs...I believe one of the Bachetta's(sorry can't remember the spelling) riders told me during inspection this year that his bike was under 17lbs.

Homeyba

Just as an aside, in RAAM regular recumbents (if there is such a thing) race in the same class as the DF bikes. HPV's race in the "open" division.

I thought it would be really nice to look at the year that the recumbent record was set, 2005. That way it's the same course with the same weather conditions with the fastest recumbent team, one of the faster DF teams and just for fun I'll throw in the Kern Wheelman (DF) team that came in an hour after ALS Bacchetta. Team ALS Bacchetta finished in 6d 03hrs 26mins. A respectable time and good enough for third place to Beaver Creek who finished in 5d 18hrs 15mins. That's ten hours off the record pace. I'll pick the time stations with five of the highest climbing totals and see how they matched up. Feel free to go to the RAAM website and look up the times for the rest of the race if you want. It's all there.

..........................ALS Bacchetta...... Beaver Creek...... Kern Wheelmen
.........................Average speed.... Average speed ......Average speed
TS7 Prescott AZ....... 15.91.................. 19.59...................... 17.78
TS14 Cortez, CO...... 17.67 ..................21.42...................... 18.69
TS17 South Fork, CO 14.76 ..................16.63...................... 16.43
TS49 Gormania, WV . 15.27 ..................16.8........................ 16.00
TS50 La Vale, MD .......17.32 .................19.66...................... 16.21

I really have no problems with recumbents. They are what they are. They are very fast down hill and in the flats soley because they have an aerodynamic advantage. Thats it. They have no mechanical advantage and maybe a slight disadvantage climbing. Not because of weight but most probably because it is more difficult to move around on a recumbent and utilize different muscle groups like you can on a DF. It's not a big deal, that's just what it is. The problem I have is when people try to make them out to be more than they are. Why can't we be happy with the fact that they are great bikes to ride?

big john

A friend of mine has a Carbent which is about 17 pounds. It's amazing.

Another friend has a lower priced recumbent he commutes on and has equipped it with a battery and electric motor for the little climbs.

BlazingPedals

I don't think I did that. In fact, I pointed out that it proved nothing about hill climbing. About all you can take from it is that they're operating in the same general overall envelope as other bikes. We seem to be pretty close to agreement on their performance. They climb well enough, as long as you're not going after that KOM jersey. Which would be pretty unlikely in any event, since most go-fast types have no interest in recumbents anyway.

tcs

One of my LBSs is a huge bicycle superstore. I'll go in and there'll be some late-thirty-ish fellow buying titanium chainring bolts for his Cervelo R5 and invariably his kids will be playing with the store's inventory of recumbents.

rydabent

altamont

I am not a bent dealer. I am just older and wiser (74). As a life long engineer I had looked at bent ads off and on for years. I thot they looked really logical. Finally in 2005 I bought my first bent. After that my road bike and mountain bike hardly turned a wheel. I have since sold both. My only regret is that I didnt start riding bents 15 or 20 years earlier. And yes they are that good.

I guess the bottom line here is pain is for fools.