Viewing 18 posts - 41 through 58 (of 58 total)
  • Watching guy Martin, so a question?
  • DrP
    Full Member

    Actually..he told me the forks need to have the rake reversed for handling properties…!

    DrP

    bencooper
    Free Member

    esher_shore – I’m building one like that at the moment 😉

    lemonysam
    Free Member

    Pedalling around tight corners on that must require some interesting contortions.

    thestabiliser
    Free Member

    I see. You are however taking the word of a man who built THAT!! 😛

    bencooper
    Free Member

    You tend to lean recumbetns more than steer them – ones with underseat steering can have quite limited steering, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect except on very tight canal gates and the like, where you’re off the bike anyway.

    bensales
    Free Member

    Just watched it now. I’m a big Guy Martin fan, and it was a very impressive challenge, but I can’t help but think it wasn’t really in the spirit of the record. All the previous records had been set on a traditional tandem bicycle, but theirs was more of a human-powered vehicle than a bicycle.

    The US organisation that recorded the record they were setting themselves against categorises recumbents and traditional bikes separately:

    https://ultracycling.com/sections/records/stats/timed/

    MrSalmon
    Free Member

    Most cyclists don’t even know that the UCI exists, so I don’t think the exclusion of recumbents from UCI sanctioned competitions is the principal reason for their rarity.

    just more of a niche product. If they were produced by mainstream manufacturers and were available in more shops,

    While most people might not know/care about the UCI, the fact that recumbents aren’t right now being produced by more mainstream manufacturers and so remain a niche product is basically a consequence of the UCI banning them. So it’s pretty relevant IMO.

    On top of that, even if you are considering them, there are a lot of disadvantages compared to traditional diamond bikes and not many real advantages once you look past just speed. I could sort of see how you might fancy a blast round the lanes on a Sunday on one but it just wouldn’t work for me for commuting for example. I say this having of course never ridden one myself 😉

    toofarwest
    Full Member

    This one belongs to my brother.

    I tried riding the solo one he had before this and couldn’t manage more than two yards.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    not many real advantages once you look past just speed

    There are many other advantages:

    – Comfort. You sit on a very supporting, comfortable seat instead of a skinny saddle, you don’t have to wear special padded shorts, and delicate bits of your body don’t go numb.
    – Ergonomic efficiency. Studies at MIT and other places have shown that the recumbent position is better for your body – instead of pulling with your arms, down through your curved spine, and to the pedals, you push directly on the pedals with your lower back braced against the seat.
    – No wrist or neck problems, you’re not resting 1/3 of your body weight on places it’s not meant to be resting.
    – Luggage carrying. A touring recumbent can carry more than an upright touring bike, and it carries it lower and more centrally, without affecting the steering.
    – Better braking, you’re not going to go over the handlebars so can brake harder.
    – Plusher suspension. As your pedaling directon is forwards and back not up and down, your pedaling doesn’t make the suspension bounce – shocks can be set soft and there’s no need for fancy platform shocks and lockouts.
    – Longer-lasting drivetrain. There’s 3x as much chain, same number of sprockets, so the chain lasts 3x as long. But even more than that the chain is much better protected, it doesn’t get lots of muck thrown at it by the front wheel the way it does on an upright, so the whole drivetrain lasts a lot longer on a recumbent.
    – Faster, safer cornering as there’s no chance of the pedals hitting the tround.
    – Better for people with medical issues or disabilities, especially with back and neck problems.
    – Not so fashion-driven so don’t depreciate anywhere near as quickly as other bikes.

    I;m sure there are more, but it’s late and I’ve been drinking 😉

    Oh, and recumbents aren’t actually expensive either. The frames are mass-produced in Taiwan in the same factories which make conventional bikes. Comparing like-for-like, a touring recumbent from someone like HPVelotechnik is actually cheaper than a touring bike from someone like Koga.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    I tried riding the solo one he had before this and couldn’t manage more than two yards.

    Come see me – apart from people with actual medical reasons fornot being able to balance, in 18 years I’ve only seen a handful of people who can’t ride a recumbent, and for them it was psychological – they’d convinced themselves they couldnt do it before they tried.

    They’re not any harder to ride than normal bikes, just different – you need to unlearn some instincts and learn some new ones.

    jackthedog
    Free Member

    Interesting graphic where frontal areas and head heights are concerned.

    cookeaa
    Full Member

    There’s a fella near me who often commutes on a three wheeler. I sort of like them as an engineering and anthropometric exercise but as practical transport? They just don’t flick my bean TBH I often see him pulling over to let the stream of traffic by and the couple of steeper bridges he has to negotiate do look a little laboured to me…

    And it’s not the lack of UCI endorsement there’s plenty of ‘outlier’ niches in cycling that the UCI can’t bend their minds around. Recumbents aren’t all that special in being Non-UCI preferred.

    How well do they really handle hills? come on, you must have to seriously gear them down to make that reclined pedaling position work, you can at least stand and muscle a traditional bike up a hill when you get to the limits of its gearing. And they simply don’t look as engaging or exciting to ride as a “traditional” format bicycle. Sort of the difference between being sat in a car or sat on a motorcycle IMO.

    I have only ever sat on a couple though and rolled around a carpark in a three wheeler so I am no great authority…

    bencooper
    Free Member

    How well do they really handle hills? come on, you must have to seriously gear them down to make that reclined pedaling position work, you can at least stand and muscle a traditional bike up a hill when you get to the limits of its gearing.

    Standing up isn’t free energy – all you’re doing when you stand up is using oyur body weight to push against, and trying to get your arms into a better position to pull on the bars. Both things you don’t need to do on a recumbent as you have a rigid seat to push against.

    Try pushing a heavy bit of furniture by just standing and pushing. Now try sitting with your back against a wall and pushing with your legs.

    But it’s not just pushing force and efficiency. On a conventional bike you’re u=hunched up – for speed you hunch over, trying to get as aerodynamic as possible, so your legs get near your chest and your breathing is restricted. Again, not problems a recumbent has.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Interesting graphic where frontal areas and head heights are concerned

    That’s a good graphic, showing how higher recumbents aren’t really any lower than upright bikes. Lowracers are more restricted, and not so suitable for roads – in my experience not so much because cars dont see you, but becasue your visibility is rubbish. If you’re below car bonnet level then junctions are tricky.

    But most “normal” recumbents aren’t anywhere near that low.

    cookeaa
    Full Member

    Or put another way there’s no real chances to do the shifting about of weight that a traditional bike allows. That change in body position that many of us have used on a traditional bicycle is effective. I get that Recumbents put you in a very aerodynamic position by default and that pushing horizontally rather than making circles is in many ways more efficient but I still think the traditional bicycle is the better “all rounder”…

    I did briefly work with a guy who raced This and as a sport racing HPVs / Recumbents on closed circuits makes perfect sense, it’s something that I might even consider trying myself. But for the road as transport. Not a chance…

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Or put another way there’s no real chances to do the shifting about of weight that a traditional bike allows

    But why do you need to do that on a traditional bike? Only because the riding position is unergonomic.

    taxi25
    Free Member

    No doubt recumbants work well in certain circumstances, and rightly have their niche fans. But they don’t offer the sort of riding experience the vast majority of cyclists are looking for, especially true for mountain biking. Great effort by all concerned especially considering the weather, but don’t forget the solo human powered 24hr record is over 700mls.

    bencooper
    Free Member

    Well, no, I don’t think anyone would argue that a recumbent can do what a MTB can do off-road.

Viewing 18 posts - 41 through 58 (of 58 total)

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