ok, hands up

Bill Bushnell said:

[ ]

Quoted message said:

Jobst Brandt said:

Why are recumbents so rare in contrast to standard bicycles? [...] The reasons have been
presented often and just as often have been rejected by recumbent advocates who say they are
invalid.

The logic I hear often is that one doesn't see recumbents on the road (rare as hen's teeth),
therefore people must not be buying them (little or no market), therefore they're no good for
general bicycling.

Lots of stuff here!

My two bits are: on century rides and in enthusiast clubs in moderate terrain one is seeing a BIG
JUMP in bents. There are actually a lot of them out there being ridden tons of miles.

I'm a member of one of the biggest clubs in the US, with sometimes a dozen daily rides going in our
area. In the ride near me the fastest riders are unfaired benters and there are often 3 or 4 bents,
10 uprights and 3 or 4 tandems.

Our big state rides almost always emphasize images of bents on their big fliers and posters these
days. They didn't do this 10 years ago.

In Michigan they are definitely included in the club/century scene as a very viable bike type,
that's maybe more popular than tandems now.

More two bits: I still think the uphilling aspect of bents is UNKNOWN. It sure seems like they stall
out for me, too, but my bents are all over 30 lbs. What would happen with a 20 lb bent? Also how do
the various angle/seatheights affect uphilling? I'm not convinced either way yet. I do know that it
took me about 2 years to adapt from uprighting to benting at the same level. I would have to put 2
years into uphilling to really know. I'd be game to do though! But I live in Michigan instead of my
old Colorado.

Final two bits: most riding is done in moderate terrain. I bet 80%. In very hilly areas, cycling
drops way off, going to a near-total ultra-enthusiast sector.

--

Jeff Potter
****
*Out Your Backdoor * outyourbackdoor.comoutyourbackdoor.comOpen ↗ for modern folkways and culture revival...
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Jeff Potter said:

Bill Bushnell said:

[ ]

Quoted message said:

Jobst Brandt said:

Why are recumbents so rare in contrast to standard bicycles? [...] The reasons have been
presented often and just as often have been rejected by recumbent advocates who say they are
invalid.

The logic I hear often is that one doesn't see recumbents on the road (rare as hen's teeth),
therefore people must not be buying them (little or no market), therefore they're no good for
general bicycling.

Lots of stuff here!

My two bits are: on century rides and in enthusiast clubs in moderate terrain one is seeing a BIG
JUMP in bents. There are actually a lot of them out there being ridden tons of miles.

I'm a member of one of the biggest clubs in the US, with sometimes a dozen daily rides going in our
area. In the ride near me the fastest riders are unfaired benters and there are often 3 or 4 bents,
10 uprights and 3 or 4 tandems.

Our big state rides almost always emphasize images of bents on their big fliers and posters these
days. They didn't do this 10 years ago.

In Michigan they are definitely included in the club/century scene as a very viable bike type,
that's maybe more popular than tandems now.

More two bits: I still think the uphilling aspect of bents is UNKNOWN. It sure seems like they
stall out for me, too, but my bents are all over 30 lbs. What would happen with a 20 lb bent? Also
how do the various angle/seatheights affect uphilling? I'm not convinced either way yet. I do know
that it took me about 2 years to adapt from uprighting to benting at the same level. I would have
to put 2 years into uphilling to really know. I'd be game to do though! But I live in Michigan
instead of my old Colorado.

Final two bits: most riding is done in moderate terrain. I bet 80%. In very hilly areas, cycling
drops way off, going to a near-total ultra-enthusiast sector.

My faired recumbent seems faster on level ground and down hills. But sooner or later you have to go
uphill and there's no way to beat gravity.

Best way to decide is let them in races. They were originally banned because they were faster than
uprights. If they are faster people will switch. Slower and they go the way of Biopace chainrings.

Jim

Jim Cronin said:

My faired recumbent seems faster on level ground and down hills. But sooner or later you have to
go uphill and there's no way to beat gravity.

Quoted message said:

Best way to decide is let them in races. They were originally banned because they were faster than
uprights. If they are faster people will switch. Slower and they go the way of BioPace chainrings.

Oh no. The best way is to do as with the MTB, that the UCI ignored until NORBA had more members
than the UCI, in the USA and elsewhere. If they were allowed in races, a flat TT would require that
every rider also have a special TT recumbent. HPVA has shown that for flat record attempts,
recumbents are superior.

We don need no steenkin UCI to discover the strengths of recumbents.

Jobst Brandt [email hidden]

Jim said:

My faired recumbent seems faster on level ground and down hills. But sooner or later you have to
go uphill and there's no way to beat gravity.

I suspect it goes slowly uphill mostly due to weight. There are a couple 30lb fullfair carbon
lowracers out there these days that I suspect would do great in very rolling terrain. My 60lb
fullfair lowracer does great in modest rolling terrain---I mean 30-40mph average, what lovely
momentum it has. Bring such a bike down to 30 lbs (as several do) and you really can increase the
hilliness I suspect. But for steep climbing a 20 lb unfaired bent would be good to test for a couple
years in each of a variety of geometry configs. Who knows. I just haven't seen enough data yet. I do
recall some folks mentioning the need for big heatsinks for disk brakes for faired bikes in the mts.
(Is that correct? Would disks need big heatsinks for controlling 80mph descending?)

Quoted message said:

Best way to decide is let them in races.

Maybe it's more like Jobst said, with a twist. You don't even really have to have their group get
huge for them to be considered impt. Is there a huge tandem racing association? Yet there's a chance
bents could be quite a bit bigger of a sector than tandeming. Without a big race group for them.
They could just get bigger and bigger in terms of clubs and centuries. Probably quite a few
innovations have caught on and spread in these places without them having races built around them.
But of course the race angle could grow, too. (Tandem racing has grown some it seems, but tandem
club riding has probably grown lots more.)

--

Jeff Potter
****
*Out Your Backdoor * outyourbackdoor.comoutyourbackdoor.comOpen ↗ for modern folkways and culture revival...
...offering "small world" views on bikes, bows, books, movies... ...new books featuring: XC ski
culture, a Gulf Coast thriller folding bicycles ... with radical novels coming up! ...original
downloadable music ... and articles galore! plus national "Off the Beaten Path" travel forums!
HOLY SMOKES!

<[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Maybe, maybe, but lets get back to a more basic question. Why are recumbents so rare in contrast
to standard bicycles?

Might be a worthwhile question, but there are some duff answers - based on people making bad
choices. Why are SUVs so popular? Why are MTBs with suspension so popular?

Quoted message said:

The research has been made by many bicyclists who discovered they preferred not to ride or buy a
recumbent.

What sort of % of cyclists have actually tried one at all? Do you really think that there are enough
people having a go to make this point a real reason? And btw "cyclists" will have got used to the
pros and cons of a standard bike, and have moulded what they do around that. A recumbent is a
slightly different beast with different pros and cons.

Quoted message said:

The reasons have been presented often and just as often have been rejected by recumbent advocates
who say they are invalid.

I must admit that I've come to the conclusion that they might be 1-2 mph faster, but as a so-so
cyclist that would still leave me rather bad.

[email hidden] wrote:
: Risto Varanka writes:

:> Maybe recumbents aren't too well researched yet - we lack the solid empirical data to base
:> discussions on. Or then it's the complexity of the issue, one study can't cover all the aspects.
:> Or then, scientific research is not very helpful when deciding whether to ride recumbents. (How
:> do you research whether riding trikes is fun, for example?)

: Maybe, maybe, but lets get back to a more basic question. Why are recumbents so rare in contrast
: to standard bicycles? The research has been made by many bicyclists who discovered they preferred
: not to ride or buy a recumbent. The reasons have been presented often and just as often have been
: rejected by recumbent advocates who say they are invalid.

I'm not sure if such large research has been done, and also which the results have been. I think one
should ride a recumbent (preferably multiple, different, famous models) for weeks (or months or
years?) to get a good impression on various issues. I think people who do that kind of research have
already decided on buying a recumbent, so the sample would be distorted...

Many people could be interested, but they are delaying their purchase because of the high price. One
might want to make some preselection in order to obtain a fair and representative sample of the
"cyclists who have done research". If you only included people with a bike of over $1000, from
recumbent-dense areas, you could come up with over 10% of recumbent riders (and growing), even if
you count also those people who have done no research at all on recumbents.

--
Risto Varanka | helsinki.fihpv.htmlOpen ↗ varis at no spam please iki fi

Bill Bushnell <[email hidden]> wrote:

: Many new recumbent cyclists don't make it past the initial learning curve: training the muscles to
: work differently and learning to balance and steer with confidence.

So this leads to faulty research, ie. rejecting the platform for the wrong reasons?

: don't know where to find one to test ride or to purchase. How many bike stores that sell high-end
: road bikes also sell high-end recumbents? For most customers the choice is made before they even
: see a recumbent. There is no convenient point of purchase and no local support infrastructure.
: Mail order is a possibility, but then the customer is on his own or must prevail upon the local
: bike shop for servicing.

: But, I believe most of the reasons people stop riding recumbent or not start in the first place
: are social. The recumbent looks different, a black sheep in the fold. Some people just don't like
: the look of 'em, or they feel uncomfortable sticking out in public, bystanders staring with mouths
: agape, the questions, the occasional mockery, and that's reason enough.

Are those valid reasons for not riding one - or not recommending one? Some people *insist* on being
pioneers! (I guess some of them end up riding bents 🙂 In the end it might not depend on just one's
riding context, but also obviously also on the long-term goals as a cyclist and even one's
personality structure, whether a recommendation is valid or not.

--
Risto Varanka | helsinki.fihpv.htmlOpen ↗ varis at no spam please iki fi

Quoted message said:

If they were allowed in races, a flat TT would require that every rider also have a special TT
recumbent. HPVA has shown that for flat record attempts, recumbents are superior.

Because of the HPV community's attachment to fairings of various sorts, I have been unable to
determine that unfaired 'bents really are any faster than normal bikes.

I started with the assumption that 'bents must be faster, but their boosters' refusal to compare
apples to apples got me wondering whether that was really the case. Now I just don't know, not
having seen any good numbers for known unfaired bents in TT events.

I am especially skeptical about whether racers who mostly rode normal DF bikes would be any faster
aboard 'bents. At that level of performace, training for one type might well diminish performance
with the other.

Chalo Colina

In article said:

Quoted message said:

If they were allowed in races, a flat TT would require that every rider also have a special TT
recumbent. HPVA has shown that for flat record attempts, recumbents are superior.

Because of the HPV community's attachment to fairings of various sorts, I have been unable to
determine that unfaired 'bents really are any faster than normal bikes.

I started with the assumption that 'bents must be faster, but their boosters' refusal to compare
apples to apples got me wondering whether that was really the case. Now I just don't know, not
having seen any good numbers for known unfaired bents in TT events.

Well, the death-knell for recumbents in road racing as sounded by the UCI which thought the unfaired
Velocar recumbent had a unfair advantage over riders on conventional bikes. Of course, that was
decades ago and there was no quantification or actual analysis done.

It would be possible to build a 'bent that would be legal in USCF races, both mass-start and TT. It
would be an interesting experiment.

"Chalo" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

If they were allowed in races, a flat TT would require that every rider also have a special TT
recumbent. HPVA has shown that for flat record attempts, recumbents are superior.

Because of the HPV community's attachment to fairings of various sorts, I have been unable to
determine that unfaired 'bents really are any faster than normal bikes.

I started with the assumption that 'bents must be faster, but their boosters' refusal to compare
apples to apples got me wondering whether that was really the case.

Would strike me that such info is very hard to get anyway. Its difficult to get real data about
compact frames, aero-watsits and whether 2 (or 10!) extra pounds will slow you down by x seconds on
the flat. like-for-like comparisons would depend on someone with the same amount of training and the
same skill on each type to cycle at the same level of exersion.

Quoted message said:

Now I just don't know, not having seen any good numbers for known unfaired bents in TT events.

I am especially skeptical about whether racers who mostly rode normal DF bikes would be any faster
aboard 'bents. At that level of performace, training for one type might well diminish performance
with the other.

Quite - hence lack of like-for-like.

I have also seen claims that unfaired recumbent is "no better" than fully-aero TT set ups. Which
would be quite nice for touring as it would mean you wouldn't need your "alien" helmet.

(OTOH a huge time saving would be 6 minutes on an hour commute, I'm not going to spend 1000s
to do that)

Chalo <[email hidden]> wrote:

: Because of the HPV community's attachment to fairings of various sorts, I have been unable to
: determine that unfaired 'bents really are any faster than normal bikes.

IHPVA seems less interested in nonfaired records. In places like Lelystad, the vast majority
competes with lowracers, though maybe most of those folks have a tailbox. A tailbox doesn't have
very many practical disadvantages though, and it could make a useful cargo space...

About aero eq... bents and DFs both can have wheeldisks, for the rest I guess it's up to you what
you consider a fair comparison...

: I am especially skeptical about whether racers who mostly rode normal DF bikes would be any faster
: aboard 'bents. At that level of performace, training for one type might well diminish performance
: with the other.

If you want to be fast on a DF bike you train on a DF bike. If you want to be fast on a bent you
train on a bent. On flats, I believe people who train on bents are significantly faster.

--
Risto Varanka | helsinki.fihpv.htmlOpen ↗ varis at no spam please iki fi