BlazingPedals

Uh... If you check out the Recumbent division, John Schlitter (50-59) would have won his age group outright if not for the fact that recumbents have their own class. Why don't recumbents win the other age divisions? Don't look at me; my idea of bicycling does not include riding without sleep until the pink elephants catch me.

Engyo

Only because he was drafting a motorized vehicle........

To me the real test would be the same rider on a series of different bike designs; riding the same group of bikes over a variety of different courses, and recording times/speeds ( and maybe HR/calories/etc as well).

Psimet2001 

I'm guessing it has soemthing to do with the AARP beating up USAC.

Psimet2001 

...one in which someone actually cared about the outcome. Just sayin.

BillyD

6 pages, minimum.

sherbornpeddler

Peer pressure. I go both ways.
I ride recumbent for solo commutes and comfort. Lemming that I am, I ride diamond frame in the herd down and up hills; drafting duty and justify my fancy pants. Truth is here in New England hills, diamond frame is faster on hilly routes, bent is faster on the flats.

Riding across country flat route, I'd ride bent. Riding hills, in a group spandex, funny pants and diamond frame.

garysol1 

Now THIS is a bad *** bent. Check out the office chair

caloso

"So what kinda saddle is that? Selle Italia? Selle San Marco?"

Nope. Selle Herman Miller.

RichinPeoria

Recumbents are dangerous....read below.....


Nature's Fury Makes South Most Dangerous Area in U.S.

But new 'death map' shows that no region is truly safe from extreme heat, weather
By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Americans worried about being caught up in a killer heat wave or deadly natural disaster might do well to avoid the South and the Great Plains states, according to a new U.S. "death map."

The map, devised by University of South Carolina researchers, finds that most deaths from environmental hazards are not the result of dramatic events such as hurricanes or earthquakes

"It's the everyday hazards, such as severe weather -- both in the winter and the summer -- and heat that account for the majority of natural hazard fatalities; it's not the big wham-o event like an earthquake or a Katrina that contribute to the long-term pattern," said lead researcher Susan Cutter, director of the university's Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute.

In that sense, "no place is safe," she noted. "There is no place with few fatalities. Every place has threats -- it's just that the threats are different," Cutter said.

Still, some areas may be a tad more hazardous than others. "For example, you are more likely in some areas in the Great Plains and the mountain states to die from a natural hazard than you would be in the Northeast," Cutter said.

In the southeast, severe weather such as hurricanes remains the main cause of deaths caused by natural hazards. The U.S. west coast also experiences severe weather, and it is also more prone to earthquakes that result in deaths, Cutter added.

The report was published in the Dec. 16 edition of the online journal International Journal of Health Geographics.

For the study, Cutter and her colleague Kevin Borden matched death and weather data from the 1970s straight through to 2004 to create the map.

According to the data, just under 20,000 Americans died from natural hazards during the more than three decades studied.

The team found that deaths from natural hazards were most likely to occur in the South. Here, people typically fall victim to severe weather and tornadoes. In addition, residents of the Great Plains are sometimes done in by extreme summer heat. In the mountain states, cold and flooding account for most of the natural-hazard deaths, and floods and tornadoes top the list as the greatest threats in the south-central U.S.

Cutter and Borden found that, overall, extreme heat remains the leading cause of deaths due to natural hazards in the United States, amounting to nearly 20 percent of total mortality. Ranked by seasons, severe summer weather accounted for 18.8 of deaths, while winter cold accounted for 18.1 percent of deaths, the report found.

More dramatic events -- such as earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes -- may grab headlines, but lumped together, they accounted for only 5 percent of hazard-related deaths, Cutter noted.

In fact, deaths from hurricanes and earthquakes continue to go down, the researcher said. However, Cutter noted that "there are still quite a number of fatalities from storm surges -- people just don't understand the role of water and surging tide."

The United States actually fares much better from natural hazards than other areas of the world, where events such as earthquakes, floods and tidal waves can prove catastrophic. Cutter believes this disparity is the result of the U.S. being better prepared for these calamities. In addition to overall preparedness, building codes in the U.S. take into account threats from earthquakes and wind, she noted.

But there's always room for improvement, said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.

"Some environments are more hazard-prone than others, as the constellations of dark red patches in the South and Midwest suggest," Katz said. "It may be that those who can afford to live in less hazard-prone environments do so," he said.

The map's useful display of the distribution of hazards is an invitation to action, Katz said. "We have the opportunity to learn the lessons of hazards past, and avoid the folly of waiting passively for them to recur," he said.

halfspeed

An utterly pointless exercise.

Exactly my point.

wanders

Even in 1919, they knew their destiny.

StanSeven

With jeans as their cycling shorts/bibs and a flannel shirt

garysol1 

Let's never forget the ever famous Randy The Recumbulator...

youcoming

I ride with a guy who brings out his wonder bent once in awhile. Full carbon 700 wheels DA all the fancy stuff. He is fast on th eflats and downhill but like said climbing he drops like a brick. Even on long flats he starts losing it. I really do hate when he brings it out, he's all over the place when doing anything under 20k.

sfcrossrider

I liked Randy. However, it's obvious by his ranting that drugs are also a problem in the "chair bike" world.

spambait11

Don't hate 'cause ya got no skills.

BlazingPedals

And that's if only the recumbenteurs, er, recumbulators that normally lurk here post. Can I get a horn like the one in that 1919 picture?

big john

John was the first solo 'bent rider to finish the race. His time was very close to the time of my clubmate David Jones who is 61 and rides a DF bike. Oddly, they both fell asleep on the bike and had low speed crashes near the finish.

As far as weight, a 'bent rider in my club brought out a demo from Bent Up Cycles that weighed around 17 pounds. After the demo he ordered one for himself!

Here's John at RAAM.

iab

The UCI banned streamlining in 1913 and bents in 1933, get over it.

merlinextraligh

Cue pics of fat guys with white beards.

roshea

You forgot "wearing sandles with socks"

cparekh

He IS Chuck Norris' father!

Psimet2001 

kudude

i'd ride the lowracer w/ zipps and a powertap that I saw on here. for fun-zies. I like the idea of going 30mph on the flats. I'm also pretty sure i'd get run over if I tried it

downtube42

can't we just all get along <sob>