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Looking at recumbents for bit of something different.
Any experiences ,ones to avoid etc.
Bike or trike?
What sort of riding do you want to do? I have a trike for commuting. It is a lot of fun, feels like flying. Is slower than my uprights.
For a two-wheeled bent, I'd look at a speed machine or one of the more recent high wheelers.
They are all good. You will need to feel comfortable with attention
Speak to bencooper
My OH and I have some ICE tadpole trikes. Their website is good and informative. We ride much more mtb at the moment, and as such both are for sale due to needing the space.
I know the guys at ice a little. They're awesome people.
Trikes is what i had in mind ,plus was impressed with some guys seen up at Calvert Trust in Kielder with hand bikes some years back.
Now based in Ireland ,so a novelty over here too.
Trike curious too.
Can we have some pics?
Every time* that I pass a recumbent while riding my fatbike, I get the urge to yell "Ride a normal bike, you weirdo!" 😡
* except for the hand cycle one that I've seen a few times
May well be heading up to Galway to look at a trike as found one on done deal.
They're amazing fun off road too - I had ones of these in last week:
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😀
The guys we saw up at Kielder were totally mad in the nicest way off road around the woodland trials.
Some local colite forestry around here is ideal playground for one of these.
Three-wheel drifts around the corners, popping it up on two wheels for giggles, jumping off things, riding down stairs - and you've got a comfy seat when you stop for lunch...
Mine is sensational here in Snowdonia. Coming down Llanberis pass you can readily overtake cars and corner like a wildman. The C of G is so low and you have a seperate disc brake for each front wheel which seems to help turn in. Sadly due to lack of space they are for sale and i will post them in the classifieds section asap.
Catrike Villager (mk1), quite high up for a trike, lighter and stiffer than an ICE (alloy and 14 kg with no suspension). Upgraded to Durano tyres and close ratio cassette, added the rack and MTX trunk. Shifters are nine-speed bar end, reversed to spare my poorly wrist (it's better now). The 20" wheels and normal gearing is not the problem I thought it would be. Comfortable, but uses very different muscles. Also I don't ride it enough to condition my a*se properly for extended comfort. Not as fast as my road bikes. Above 55km/hr and one feels like a passenger. I sometimes reach for a seatbelt when I sit down 😳 . If you are near Windsor, you are welcome for a spin.
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And from this morning's commute 8)
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Like the pannier n rack set up ,looks neat.
As the bar end gear selectors,saves wrist twisting n poss catching on wheel sides.
Thanks for the offer, very kind but i'm over in south east ireland .
I've had a Challenge (Mistral or Furai, can't remember) and a Bike-E semi recumbent. Sold them both because I never used them. It might have been not liking the attention, but I think equally it was just not getting into the groove with them. They were nice to ride but I didn't spend the time getting used to the different ride and kept going back to my road bike.
I've had a quick go on an Optima Baron, which was lovely, and really fancy a ride on a Raptobike. For the moment though, with the type of riding I do (um, which is almost eff all) it'd be a waste to buy another. If my wife was keen I'd get a pair and we could do some touring, but she isn't!
I spent a couple of years exclusively riding recumbents.
I had a StreetMachine which I used for commuting and a leisurely end-to-end trip. It was perfect for the e2e (so long as you could cope with all the attention) as we were in no hurry, it was supremely comfortable and you were naturally looking up at the scenery rather than down at the road.
The Windcheetah trike was insanely fun on downhill sections. The narrow stance and joystick steering leant itself to all sorts of g-kart craziness. It was also great for commuting on icy roads as you couldn't fall off and sliding it around on the ice was even more fun. But I never really got on with it on the climbs. It wasn't that it was slower (although it was) it was more that you couldn't move around, so just had to sit there and grind it out. I started to view it like some sort of medieval torture device, so it had to go.