Tet

Thanks

friday1970

It would probably be like this. In the flats, provided they kept in the peloton, they would easily keep up, and use less energy than an upright. Going uphill, they would move the end the back, even lose it, especially on long climbs like Alpe de Huez. But on similar long descents, they'd pull out and quickly move the front and watch the pack get smaller in their mirrors.
To see how they would be in a pro peloton is an apple to oranges comparison.
When I look at my strava rides and compare my rides between my bent and my upright, I find with the upright, my speeds are pretty consistent. Basically, the differences between my slowest speeds and fastest speeds aren't near as drastic as they are on my recumbent. With the bent, while my overall speeds are about 1-2mph faster than my upright, the differences between my slowest speeds and fastest speeds are far greater with the bent than my upright, all based if I'm climbing or descending. And as I said, on flats, I'm usually 1-2mph faster than my upright.
So, it would be hard to plug those numbers into a peloton. I'd probably find myself moving to the front or to the back based on the grade.

Then again, I'm in no shape for any peloton, unless the peloton is made up of middle aged, pudgy beer drinkers.

As far as handling goes, at speeds 5mph or faster, I'm just as capable on either bike. I can take turns faster on the bent, simply due to larger tires and lower center of gravity. But at slower speeds, 5mph or lower, I need more room to make 90' turns. And at 2.5mph, I'll fall over. With my upright, I can nearly barely move at all and still stay on the bike. I can also take sharper turns slower too.
But on either bike, a good gust of wind will affect me equally.
After riding the bent for more than two years now, I'm comfortable on either bike as far as handling goes.

BlazingPedals

The other thing with pro races is, they can, and do, slant the courses to favor climbing. They could just as easily favor flat speed, which would favor larger powerhouse riders; but then that would freeze out the current crop of small skinny guys.

I really don't care about having recumbents in the pro races. The UCI just oversees a single-vehicle-class racing series. The problem happened when the UCI proclaimed, not that bents did not meet the standards for the UCI competitions, but that they weren't bikes.

kingston 

OK first of all, I never claimed that a recumbent is not a bike. I refer to recumbent bikes as “recumbents” and bikes as “bikes”, not because I deny that a recumbent is a bike, but because the communication is quite clear when I call recumbents recumbents and bikes bikes. Sorry if that offends you. I never heard of a DF bike or an upright bike or whatever you guys call bikes before this thread so it’s very unnatural for me to use an adjective to describe a bike.

I think there would be two main groups of riders, one for the recumbents and one for the bikes. The recumbents would try to stay far enough ahead so that they didn’t get smoked at the sprint to the finish, and the bikes would try to stay just close enough behind so they could smoke the recumbents in the sprint to the finish. My intuition is that the bike peloton would always be able to stay close enough to the recumbents to win the race, because the pack negates the areo-advantage of the recumbents, and I’m nearly positive that a well-orchestrated lead-out train of bikes can launch a sprinter on a bike far faster than a recumbent train could do the same thing. I actually think a recumbent could be just as fast as a bike up a really long hill where it’s just a long spin to the top. It’s the shortish hills where the guys on a bike can go anaerobic and blast over the top where the recumbents can’t keep up. Of course it’s all speculation. We’ll never know for sure.

This made me laugh out loud. Even in a pro race recumbent riders would still have their mirrors.

No argument here. Recumbents handle well enough as long as you're riding in a straight line with some speed, they just don't handle as well as bikes any other time. I'm surprised to hear you say that a cross-wind affects both types of bikes the same. I can't ever remember being blown all over the road like those recumbent riders in the video you posted.

friday1970

And I love my mirrors too. I actually feel safer on my bent than my upright because of my handlebar mounted mirror. I can see traffic coming and monitor cars as they pass. I don't have a good mirror system for my upright yet. So, I hear cars and pray the pass by safely.


When I had an aerodisk on my back wheel, that did affect me in cross winds. But without it, no different than my upright. Now in headwinds, the aero advantage of my lowracer works great. Trust me, when I'm barrelling into a sharp turn, I feel much more comfortable on my bent. I think the low center of gravity works better, not to mention the 32mm tires compared to the 25mm of my upright. It's a hoot when I'm out at Kensington Metropark outside of Detroit at first light during the summer months. With no one else out and twisty trails through the park, I feel like I'm riding a on a forest speeder bike from Return of the Jedi. It's a whole different feeling than being on an upright. Very addicting.

BlazingPedals

You're going to lose all credibility here if you continue to give UCI bikes the sole claim to being called, "bikes." If it's appropriate to distinguish between styles, you should use the correct names. The proper term for them is "Safety Bicycles," or "Safeties." "Uprights" or to a lesser extent "DFs" are also considered acceptable to use in mixed company, as long as the poor benighted upright riders realize that "F" doesn't stand for an obscene word. Safeties were given that name when they started replacing Ordinaries, because putting the rider's center of gravity between the two equal-sized wheels drastically cut down on the riders doing 'headers' from 5-6 feet in the air. They still do them, but now it's from only 3-4 feet in the air.

kingston 

I have to admit that does sound pretty awesome.

OK. In this thread I will now refer to bikes as “Safeties” and recumbents as “Recumbents”. While I’m not going to the trouble of editing my previous posts. Please consider them mentally edited. Since the topic of recumbents never comes up in any other part of my life, I will continue to refer to Safeties as “Bikes” so as not to confuse other audiences.

Road Fan

This isn't surprising. Some books on long-distance endurance training recommend to remain aerobic at all times - don't climb at a heart rate that will take you past LT. So climbing speed is a matter of optimizing your cadence and effort to the terrain, and having more than a few climbable gears on a bike. Or become a monster.

Tet

Recumbents are inherently more stable especially after alcohol consumption. But the old one I had tipped if I "slammed" the brakes on and pulled to one side when I applied them gently. The problem was caused by my inability to get both the rear brakes to work together. If I had disc brakes would that solve it?

BlazingPedals

"Both" rear brakes? Was it a delta-style trike? It sounds like uneven application of the brakes caused brake steer. No, disc brakes would not fix it in that case.

Tet

"It sounds like uneven application of the brakes caused brake steer" definitely I assumed that if they had disc brakes this wouldn't happen. Don't know what a delta type is?

Steamer

Are we even talking about a trike?


A delta trike has the paired wheels in back.


A tadpole trike has the paired wheels in front.


I have owned both. My Deltas (Kettweisels) all had disc brakes, and I have had tadpoles from Logo and ICE with drums and disc brakes. And I have tested lots of others from other manufacturers.


Deltas seem to be inherently pretty brake steer resistant because there is only one steering wheel and it typically doesn't have brakes on it.


Tadpoles can have either ferocious brake steer or minimal brake steer, but that has only to do with the steering geometry and not the type of brake. The ICE trikes have very little, the Logo had a lot. Some others, which I won't name, had terrible brake steer.


Hopefully nobody was trying to use a rear brake on a tadpole outside of very special circumstances (loaded touring descent drag brake or as a parking brake). Rear tadpole brakes will definitely flip you around, and even tip you over. Not good.


If we are talking about a bike, I cannot fathom why braking would make the bike pull one way or another. And it likely would not be fixed by changing the type of brakes.

Tet

It was delta with rim brakes. I sold it as I could not get both brakes to work together.

Rollfast

You realize that I have nothing against 'bents but Colson and Shelby just never made any?


To each his own.

Steamer

Sounds like a good move.

DMC707

I wish I had a pic of it in photobucket, but I have seen a 3 wheeled rig (single wheel in the back) -- fully suspended that looked like it would be an absolute blast to try out on certain trails --- I didn't ask the price

Would look to be fun on some flowy , less technical stuff -- even green trail downhill runs (now I may be getting ahead of myself )

kingston 

This was for an able-bodied person who could ride a mountain safety if they wanted too? That really makes no sense to me.

Do you guys call a 3 wheeled recumbent a bike? I would call a three wheeled safety a trike.

DMC707

You still have to pedal it with your legs and control the steering with your hands -- so I assume that it is for able bodied people, yes


I don't know what "you guys" call it , I'm just visiting this sub section of the site, my MTB duties are handled capably by a small fleet of Yeti uprights, -- but I enjoy looking at new ways to skin a cat

JanMM

A bike has two wheels and a trike has three wheels. There's different kinds of bikes and trikes but bike=2 wheels and trike=3 wheels.

Steamer

Kingston, you need to get out more. There is a big, strange world out there to puzzle you at every turn.

Steamer

Yeah, those damn prefixes.

rydabent

A bicycle is described as a pedal powered single track machine with two wheels attached to a frame.

For the old fools in the UCI that probably took money under the table to say a recumbent is not a bicycle is a joke. The money came from DF bike mfg that didnt want to invest in new tooling.

Jarrett2

What's a DF?

JanMM

Diamond frame.
From Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_frame
A bicycle frame is the main component of a bicycle, onto which wheels and other components are fitted. The modern and most common frame design for an upright bicycle is based on the safety bicycle, and consists of two triangles: a main triangle and a paired rear triangle. This is known as the diamond frame.[1]

kingston 

@Steamer, you're not kidding. There are lots of things people do that make no sense to me. Whatever floats your boat, as I like to say.