You're sitting on a comfortable seat, with no pressure on your wrists, butt, neck or shoulders. Your back is fully supported and at the end of the ride, nothing hurts. Plus there are some added bonuses. You don't have to sacrifice aerodynamic efficiency to be comfortable and you have a great view of the scenery. Most people feel it's easy to learn to ride a recumbent and many have increased their riding mileage since switching to a recumbent.

Reasons for Recumbents
There are several good reasons to ride a recumbent bicycle. I will cover these below in greater detail.

But first I would like to mention the fact that often people choose a recumbent after they have many years of using other bikes, and after they have reached an age where they are no longer socially insecure. In prior years, recumbent riders were overwhelmingly middle aged. Lately you are starting to see more young riders ....

One of the most frequently cited reasons for riding a recumbent bike is the comfortable seat. Many people find the having weight on their arms or wrists is unbearable for longer periods with advancing age. Others just never seem to get used to a typical bike seat and find the lawn chair like seats of recumbents more comfortable.

Make no mistake about it recumbents are very comfortable. However, many recumbent enthusiasts go way overboard in denigrating the typical bike seat, claiming they would never go back to that "horrible" seat. However, the upright's seat would not seem so uncomfortable if the rider rode more frequently.

Long tours are especially comfortable on some of the long wheel based recumbents. You can ride all day and not have any sore spots. Also, as you sit in a more natural posture, your neck does not get sore. and you see more of your surroundings.

Stress Injuries
Recumbents are often a way whereby people with repetitive stress injuries to the wrist, neck, or back can continue to ride bikes. Quite often such injuries make it impossible to bear any weight on ones hands, as is necessary when leaning on the handlebars. Injuries to the back or neck can also keep people off a regular bike, but seldom present a problem for recumbent bikes.

Cycling is still possible with many such injuries if the position on the bike is changed. The upright seating posture of most recumbents is more like sitting in a chair, and reduces stress on arms and neck. Offsetting this, often there is additional stress is placed on knees, especially among new recumbent riders. We will cover this below.

Speed
Recumbents hold all human powered speed records. Period! The world’s cycling organizations, or even national cycling organizations such as the USCF recognize none of these records. These organizations have decided that the diamond frame bike (traditional road bike) is the only device they will admit to the record books. Recumbent enthusiasts insist that this is because they know that recumbents are faster and would take all records if given a chance.

Of course that's true, but the winners of recumbent records would be the same world-class cyclists who race in the Tour De France. So a recumbent isn’t going to make you a world record holder. You still need world class legs and lungs. Therefore the argument that the USCF "fears" recumbents seems rather weak in that the same super athletes (USCF members for the most part) would still be winning.

The truth is that every sport has the right, in fact the duty, to limit the equipment that may be used. Equipment that lends a tremendous advantage does not reflect the merits of the athlete. Sport, after all, is supposed to be a competition of strength and skill among human beings. Competitors should rightly be limited to similar equipment. There was a time, sadly long past, when the Tour provided the same bikes to all competitors.

None of the above does anything to diminish the fact that most recumbents are fast bikes. This is due predominantly to the better aerodynamics of a recumbent bicycle. The cyclist is usually seated lower, (wind speed near the ground is usually less than found just a couple feet higher up), and the seating position on most recumbents provides a smaller wind target than most upright bikes.

This translates into measurably faster speeds. Many cyclists who ride both types of bike (diamond frame as well as recumbents) report 3 to 8 mph faster average speeds on the recumbent bikes.

Add to this the low seating position, and the effect is not unlike being in a low slung sports car. Sitting low to the ground just seems faster than the same speed at a higher elevation.

Safety
Virtually all falls from a recumbent dump you unceremoniously on your butt next to your bike. It is almost impossible to go "over the bars" and land on your head. Very few crashes result in extensive road rash as is often experienced in falls from higher bikes. Crashes with Trikes are virtually unheard of.

It is possible to slide out in a tight turn, but if you do so on a recumbent, you will usually have a lot shorter distance to fall than you would from a regular bike.

Because of the novelty factor (see below) recumbents often get more attention and consideration from motorists.

View
When was the last time you were able to ride along the road looking up at soaring eagles rather than down at the pavement ahead of you? On a recumbent bike the view is wonderful, and you see things you never notice on an upright bike. After a long ride, your neck is not tired from holding your head up all day.

Fun
‘Bents are just plain fun to ride. It’s a whole different experience. Among recumbent enthusiasts there is something known as the "recumbent grin". You will see it on the face of every new recumbent rider just seconds after they master the steering and balance. You bank into corners like a jet fighter pilot. You are riding low and fast like an Italian roadster on a mountain road. You can stop and rest still sitting on your bike.

Novelty
here is also a certain novelty factor in riding a recumbent, which is diminishing with each year as more and more of them are seen on the road. Still, hardly a day goes by without some 10 year old blurting out "Cool Bike, dude!" as you ride by. Motorists point you out to car-mates. Some folks just stop and stare. Everyone smiles and waves.

Recumbent riders end up answering a lot of questions. Many people want to know if they are hard to ride, how much they cost, how do you steer that thing (especially the USS bikes), etc. While paused at a stop sign one day, a guy in a pickup pulled up in the next lane, rolled down his window and asked me "Did your wife put that thing together for you"?

Disabilities
Finally, there are other types of Recumbents that are designed for people who can't use their legs. These are Handcycles, and are either "pedaled" with hand cranks or by hand-on-wheel (like wheel chairs on steroids). These tend to be Trikes, and some are amazingly fast. There are several companies specializing in these bikes, such as Greenspeed , and Varna , and others. There are sites that sponsor rides and races.