The meet was held yesterday and was great fun. They had arranged a 200 m sprint and an exibithion
since this coincided with Göteborg-kalaset (a festival). At this exhibition that took place on a
very hot plaza (28-29C) I got to ride a few unusual recumbents.
First was the Cannondale Easy Rider. Yes, I know its not all that unusual in the States. However
since it probably cost the poor owner in the region of 4500 usd to get it to Sweden I think I'm
justified in calling it that. I also know they dropped the name but this one had it written on the
frame. ;-)
It looks great but was rather smallish. Light for a fully suspended recumbent. The seatback was
reclined all the way which isn't really much. Still it turned out to be enough to cause me trouble.
On my first ride the seat was too far forward so my legs hit the handlebars if I was not careful and
this affected handling somewhat. Moving the seat meant that the handlebars were too far away when I
was leaning back so turns became a bit dicey. I'm no stranger to the superman position since I use
it on my TE-clone, but this was too much. Maybe fooling around with the handlebars would have
resulted in a better fit but I was just riding it around the plaza cobblestones and grass. A nice
little bike but there was nothing remarkable about it. It would certainly make a nice commuter but
the price would still scare me away. ;-) (If anyone near Göteborg fancies one it was up for sale for
24.000 SEK. Contact HPV-Vest via the Swedish HPV-homepage.)
Second bike I tried was a Jouta delta. Its a FWD, mid-/rearsteered trike. This was actually for sale
too. But for a very modest amount. Pic here: liggister.orgliggister.orgOpen ↗ (Choose KÖPES BYTTAS SÄLJES
from the menu on the left. Its the first or second bike. Big yellow bananaseat.)
Now this was fun. It was pretty light for a trike and with the big wheels it took off like a rocket
(not RANS mind) and handled fine on the grass around the plaza. It has USS and was very responsive
to the touch. The rear wheels are rather close together so I was advised not to make sharp turns at
speed. (The guy dispensing this advice apparently learned this the hard way. ;-) ) But leaning into
turns wasn't a problem and I could easily see myself tearing around on one.
As for the 200 m sprint I did a rather dissapointing 52 kph or so on my VK. The tailfaring flexed
just enough to hit the wheel producing some impressive loud bangs when I honked the pedals and that
made me ease off. So I was beaten by a Zephyr with a Novosport tailbox. (...the horror... the
horror ;-) )
Regards Mikael