AlmostTrick

Would this thing really be difficult to ride? Anyone here tried one?

I ask as a cyclist who has never ridden any type of recumbent, so zero experience.

robnol

takes all of 5 minutes to get used to it....the comfort and aerodynamics will ruin u for the df bike

canklecat

Everything about this is a big nope.

robnol

where did this dude learn to ride a bike geez no skills at all....he should stick to the df bikes they are more his speed

burnthesheep

tcs

Over on bentrideronline one can find secondhand a-friend-of-a-friend claims of 'a guy who jumped right on and rode', but first hand accounts seem to involve 100+ miles on a big parking lot and ~2000 quiet country road miles before the rider felt comfortable and confident. YMMV

A claim of "fastest bike or your money back' only interests recumbent riders?

robnol

yeah its not hard to ride it takes 5 minutes to get used to....

AlmostTrick

Thanks. It looks too squirrely for me. Canklecats video seemed to show the same.

Agreed, it's still a bike, and can be included in the general forum just like any other type of bike... Although I think shill threads deserve to be locked out.

canklecat

I can't criticize the guy personally. I couldn't get comfortable with a recumbent a friend loaned me last year after I was hit by a car on my regular bike. I tried it for a few minutes in the parking lot and said nope. I just waited a few weeks until I was ready to ride my other bikes again.

The fellow in that video looked and sounded terrified. He was grunting at times with labored breathing. He seemed uncomfortable with the limited sight lines and sat up a few times, especially on climbs.

And wobbling around while hugging the pavement edge... you could see a disaster coming. Especially when he picked up speed on the downhill grade. And that should have been a fast and fun downhill blast on that bike, if he'd taken the lane. He'd have been going as fast as most cars at that point.

I'm just glad it wasn't any worse. Most of the passing cars gave him enough room but the large bus not only didn't give him adequate room, it also passed in a bad zone with limited sight lines (blind hill or curve) and an oncoming bus. Classic example of why we should either take the lane or avoid some roads.

I've seen good recumbent riders, both in videos and in person locally. It can be done. But it ain't gonna be me. As Harry Callahan said in Magnum Force...

BlazingPedals

Sitting up is taught at a method to help in hill climbing, under the (mistaken, IMHO) assumption that closing the hip angle lets the rider develop more power. My assertion is that if you're holding the angle closed by muscle power alone, it's probably a negative-sum strategy - even if it were universally true in the first place.

My only experience was after owning recumbents for 10 years, trying to ride a Cruzbike around a parking lot. After 15 minutes' of practice, any approximation of going straight was a challenge, turns were a challenge, and even small hills were an impossibility. So the learning curve obviously varies between robnol's 5 minutes to ... never (using a fellow club-member as the other extreme.)

I mentioned that this thread should be moved to the recumbents formum. My reasoning was that the discussion is about a specific recumbent, and unlikely to be of general interest to most other cyclists. The 'fastest bike' claims should be viewed like any other advertising claim - taken with a large pinch of salt. In the 10+ years that Cruzbikes have been around, they haven't exactly set the recumbent racing scene on fire. They've taken podium places but they certainly haven't dominated.

DrIsotope

I jumped ahead to about the 5-minute mark in that video... and while I readily admit to having little knowledge and no practical experience with recumbents, everything about that Cruzbike looks terrifying. It looks scary going in a straight line, scary climbing a slight grade, and when he started going downhill... no thanks. It may well be fast. But a top-fuel dragster is pretty fast, at the expense of being tremendously impractical.

GamblerGORD53

Thanks for finding that video. It 100% PROVES my hunch that it is a COFFIN on wheels. WTF
Same motto as Ralf Nader and Corvair. UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED.
It is USELESS on hills with hairpin turns and in ANY city. It is impossible to stop the wobble from pushing on the pedals at any speed likely.
You can't even SEE the road in front of your wheels?? WTF
Half the video it was going slower than my 1973 CCM with SA 3. LOL
The designer is a MORON.

robnol

just stick with the df bikes and someday u will be able to take off ur training wheels and ride a big boy bike

robnol

u find a video of a guy with no riding skills and assume that's how the bike rides....think again

GamblerGORD53

So where is your video?? Crashing at 20 mph? LOL hahahahaha
My SA 5w heavyweight goes 46 mph. Even my 120 lb Rohloff tour bike goes 42 mph. LOL

AlmostTrick

Even though this thread cost me nothing but time, I still want my money back!

GamblerGORD53

Awww cu'mon man.... Where else have you seen such an inept fast bike going so SLOW and crashing?? LOL
Just wait till the OP shows us HIS 50 mph video. LOL hahahahaha... Nascar tracks are abandoned now. Where these POS bikes belong. LOL
Here is MINE going 45.5

calamarichris

That's easy.

robnol

amazing what a good tail wind can do for a ride.....where is this Kansas ….wheres the nearest slight incline or hill....this is speed country flat as a pancake

GamblerGORD53

Don't lean in the corners too far and TRIP on your DeFAILeurs. LOL hhahahahahahahahahahah

robnol

is this Kansas did I guess right

jgwilliams

In the UK the Advertising Standards Authority wouldn't let that pass unless you could back it up with reasonable proof. However, add the word 'Probably' to the front and you'd be fine. Hence the advert for Heineken for many 'Probably the best lager in the world'. Personally I thought it was horrible.

jgwilliams

Hmm, I'd have to dispute that. Personally I found it's something I had to approach gradually. For a test ride I was loaned a very upright HPV recumbent (can't remember what it was called, HPV no longer build it). It took about five minutes to get the hang of that. I then progressed to an HPV Grasshopper, which is what I ended up buying. I rode it 20 miles home from central London, which was a mistake - I definitely wasn't fully comfortable by the time I got home and it took around 1000 miles for me to develop the necessary muscles for the different style of riding. I did maybe 5-6000 miles on that before selling it and progressing to a Challenge Fujin lowracer. Having had the experience of the Grasshopper I got used to the Fujin quite quickly and we had many happy adventures together. I loved that bike and, again, ended up doing around 5000 miles on it. However, when I moved to my current house the commute to work just wasn't suitable or safe for a recumbent and having not really ridden it for a few years I ended up selling it last year and buying my current CF DF bike.

So, I'd say recumbents aren't for everyone or for all situations but I don't think they are any more unsafe than any bike in today's busy streets. I'd say it took me around 100-200 miles of riding to be fully comfortable with the Grasshopper, and even then I did fall off occasionally. One of the great features of the Fujin, though, was that it was so low that I could leave my feet clipped in and just put a hand down when I was stationary.

eja_ bottecchia

Notso_fastLane

When I switched to a bent (never going to go back to an upright!), it took me about 8-10 miles, and about 5-6 tipovers in those first few miles to really get the hang of riding it.

Another few hundred miles to get my 'bent legs' and really get the hang of generating power and I was, on average, about 3 mph faster than I had been on my upright.

When I lived in Seattle, there was a great, steep downhill, followed by the same distance and steepness going up (it was a brutal climb). I would hit 64 mph as I was leaning into the lefthander at the bottom.

The aerodynamics on a bent are much better than an upright. I was following a rider here not long ago, and he was pedalling pretty good down a hill, about 45 mph. I was coasting and catching him (well out of his draft still).

Currently I'm saving up for a velomobile for winter commuting, and I can't wait to try that on some of the downhills around here!