2travelers

I suppose I should go to the 'bent' section. for health issues I am considering switching to a recumbent and am wondering if anyone has ever toured with the Rans Xstream 26 or if its even possible to load them for lighter loaded touring - such as a weeklong Inn to Inn tours.
Thanks, Joe

58Kogswell

Lots of RANS bikes loaded for touring appear here:

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/p...2&v=1r7#bottom

Many are dual 26, including mine

which is shown at the end of an 8 day camping tour

2travelers

Thanks Kogs...pretty much answers my question. I follow CGOAB and guess I missed the photo section. I appreciate it...

Medic Zero

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How do those do off-road? Not mountain biking obviously, but dirt and gravel roads.

I've been curious about their crank-forward designs for some time, I expect some day I'll get one.

58Kogswell

I have that long wheelbase RANS Stratus XP which is fine on the crushed limestone trails and so are all my other bikes on that kind of surface.

I also have a short wheelbase Bacchetta Giro 20 ATT which goes just about anywhere with finesse and a smooth ride (Schwalbe Marathon Supreme front and rear in a 1.6 inch width) and a Bacchetta Giro 26 which is designed for speed and is more at home on pavement.

Remember that, because you cannot stand up to apply your body weight directly to the pedals, you have to push hard against the seat back which must give a firm support for the legs, butt and back which push from a seated position rather than from a standing (body weight-assisted) position. Anything that makes pedaling harder whether it is a hill or an off-pavement trail of some kind will require more force to ride over and that means pushing hard against the seat back with all of your lower body strength. Once you get used to riding in that position and pushing hard against the back of the seat, navigating that terrain is fairly easy, but more tiring and slower than riding a diamond frame bike on the same surface.

I am lucky enough to have other bikes including a Surly Moonlander for my off-pavement adventures so I am not usually on a recumbent when I am not on pavement unless it is the crushed limestone which they use for the rails-to-trails around here. As I said, the recumbents run fine on that partly because the surface is so smooth and partly because on rails-to-trails you don't get steep grades.

On the gravel farm roads I seldom mess with a recumbent; I just take the Moonlander or some other wide-tired diamond frame. The point is, as you can see from the picture I posted earlier, that the front end is very light when the (recumbent) bike is loaded and that leads to an instability and a kind of wandering (of the front end) on rough gravel. The front is not as stable as it would be on a diamond frame. I can get used to that and it never gets so bad as to cause the bike to topple but it requires such close and constant attention that I usually don't mess with it. When I am touring on a recumbent in MN I don't mind the occasional gravel farm road just to get away from traffic but those are not the roads I am usually on.

Recumbents are ridden and guided more with steering input than with body weight transfer and lean compared to a diamond frame bike because, sitting on that lawn-chair-like seat you can't do the weight shifting (to steer) the way you can on a diamond frame, so constant steering corrections are needed even more than on a diamond frame if the riding surface is irregular and the front wheel is frequently going up and down on and off small rocks or large gravel in the road.

Generally it is more difficult to restart a recumbent when you are headed up hill than it would be to restart a diamond frame bike after a stop for whatever reason. Again, you can't use body weight to get a really good push-off on that first crank revolution so in any off-road situation it is both harder to crank up a hill and harder to get started again if you bog down or have to stop because obstacles presented by the trail.

I should add that I am old and there are probably lots of younger folks who think that my views expressed here do not apply to them because of their greater body strength. And they are correct.

I should add that some folks tour off-pavement on recumbents a lot. One such is Kelly, who is one of the people who create and tend the "Loaded Bikes" pages I linked to in my earlier post. She rides hundred mile days off pavement on a RANS Stratus XP and seems to have no problems, including in the Colorado mountains far from any rail-to-trail. For pictures of her loaded bikes and her terrific narratives regarding her tours look at her page here:

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/direc...lyiniguez&v=9b

and scroll down for a list of her CGOAB journals. She also owns and runs a bike touring company in CO so it is and should be clear from the start that she is not just an average rider, but she proves that off-pavement recumbent riding is alive and well in the CO mountains.

58Kogswell

I looked at your question again and I see a whole different subject I missed the first time which is the crank forward bikes from RANS. I had a RANS Dynamik before I had any true recumbent.




I enjoyed that bike a lot. It was excellent off pavement with wide Schwalbes (26 x 2.0 I think) and front and rear racks although I never did any overnight touring on it. I considered that bike a gateway to recumbents but in looking back it was completely unnecessary. I would have been fine getting a recumbent at the time I got the Dynamik and just skipping that step.

I rode the Dynamik 3K miles and sold it for just $200 less than I paid (the list prices had gone up by hundreds of dollars for new ones after I bought mine and before I sold it) so it was a good deal and a fun bike. It was much easier to ride off pavement than most recumbents. In spite of what RANS says, it is not easy to ride a crank forward standing up - at least not the Dynamik I had.

I have nothing bad to say about that bike at all. Like recumbent there is almost no weight on your arms, wrists, shoulders, etc. and that is great. However, because it does not have a back to the seat it is not as comfortable (as, say, the Stratus XP) and also not as easy to ride long distances in a single day without any discomfort when you get off the bike, which is one of the main advantages of a true recumbent - no sore neck, shoulder, wrists, etc. for me on any of the recumbents because of the completely different seating position, which the crank forward does not fully offer. Only partly.

Ride one of each (recumbent and crank forward) before you buy either and you might discover you don't need to go through the gateway step of buying the crank forward. Unless you want to.

Medic Zero

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Thanks so much for the very detailed replies! Very illuminating! For the moment I'm pretty content with my converted mountain bikes, both for touring and for commuting, but some day I dream of moving somewhere out in the country and commuting 10-20 miles each way on country roads to a small town. In that environment I think I'd be ready to try a crank forward or even a recumbent. In the city traffic I deal with right now, I don't think I'd be comfortable with both having less visibility and being less visible. I also occasionally hop off or up onto a curb, not something I imagine one can do with even a crank forward bike.

58Kogswell

Hey Medic,

In Seattle you should be able to find a recumbent dealer who can help you with these possibilities. From what you say a crank forward might be the perfect bike. With any kind of decent tires that are 1.6 inches or wider you could easily bounce up and down curbs on a crank forward.

My suggestion is that you consider: https://www.anglelakecycle.com/Bikes___Accessories.html

Angle Lake Cyclery (13.3)
20804 International Blvd.
Seattle WA 98198
(206) 878-7457
anglelakecyclery@hotmail.com
www.anglelakecyclery.com

I don't know them but they are authorized Bacchetta and RANS dealer in Seattle and you could learn a lot in an hour or less. You will know what your next bike will be after spending some time with them. Also, if you don't want to buy from them or don't want to buy new, consider the For Sale - Classifieds at BentRiderOnLine.com

https://www.bentrideronline.com/messa...isplay.php?f=5

Good luck

Medic Zero

Thanks for the heads up! I'm not really in the market for a new bike at the moment, but as it turns out a good friend of mine who I regularly visit lives not far at all from that shop, but I have yet to stop in there. I'll have to visit them and ask to test ride a crank forward! I had no idea anyone in the city was dealer!

Thanks again!