On Oct 28, 12:59 pm, Tom Sherman <
[email protected]> wrote:
> [email protected] aka Frank Krygowski wrote:
>
> > On Oct 27, 5:17 pm, Tom Sherman <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >> Ride a well designed tadpole trike for an extended distance. You will
> >> either get it, or you are a lost cause. 
>
> > Perhaps the one hanging in my garage isn't well designed... but the
> > original owner rode it on only a few occasions before giving it up for
> > his normal bike.
>
> More details - what exactly is it?
We don't know the make. It was apparently a low-production custom
from the mid or late 1980s. The original owner is now deceased.
>
> > The next owner took only a couple test rides and stored it in his
> > basement.
>
> > The guy he gave it to passed it on to me.
>
> > My wife, a couple friends, and I each took our turns at test rides.
> > For all of us, it failed the test.
>
> > The low-racer configuration seems good only for "toy" use.
>
> Seems, as opposed to actual practice? Plenty of people ride low seat
> trikes and lowracer recumbents on the road. The very oddity of it appear
> to make drivers give one more room when passing.
Well, none of us was willing to ride it through town traffic. Getting
a bag of groceries was out of the question. And in general, the vast
majority of low-racer types don't seem to go for utility use.
> > The
> > turning circle is inconveniently large (you can't do a U-turn on a 20'
> > road)
>
> I have never found this to be an issue.
It was an issue for my wife. She rode it in our neighborhood, tried
to do a U-turn at a quiet intersection, ended up nosed into the curb
facing downhill, couldn't go forward, couldn't reverse (it has no
reverse gear), and had to struggle mightily to get out of the thing.
And she's quite slim and fit. She vowed never to use the thing again.
> > The need for three tracks through the potholes, plus it's
> > low visibility, seems risky for the roads, and the extra width makes
> > it inconvenient on MUPs.
>
> Again, the "seems" risky.
Well, it's not uncommon for riders of conventional bikes to prefer
upright, not drop bars, for city use. If they reject drop bars due to
the 3" drop in eye height, how would they feel with a 48" drop in eye
height?
> As for width, most trikes are no wider than
> the bars on the average ATB - are those too wide for the MUP?
I just measured. My road bike bars are about 16" wide. My mountain
bike bars are 20" wide. The trike's front track looks like 27". (I
didn't take it off the ceiling to get a precise measurement.) It's
significantly wider.
> > And of course, you'd better have a pickup
> > truck to take it anywhere.
>
> Or a Honda Civic (works for my trike).
It's possible. I know a guy who carried his upright base fiddle in a
Civic. Can we agree that most cars would have trouble carrying this
machine?
>
> > It's interesting as a design exercise. But that's its only virtue,
> > from what I can tell.
>
> > So I suppose the whole crew of us are lost causes!
>
> Indeed. Preconceived notions are hard to overcome.
Sorry, dude. I'm describing what the original owner, plus
several of my friends, actually perceived.
I've seen the pro-recumbent preconceptions before - the disbelief that
anyone could try a recumbent and prefer an upright. But I've known
many people who bought them, rode them, then abandoned them. The
original owner of this machine was unique among my acquaintances only
because his was a trike - and the most expensive machine of the
abandoned recumbents.
That doesn't mean they're not fine machines in their own way, and it
doesn't mean that some people won't love them. Recumbent
proselytizers just need to recognize that the machines don't meet most
riders needs - and it's not merely for lack of people trying them!
- Frank Krygowski
