The most basic demonstration of why you should consider a recumbent..

neptronix

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Great vid.. no electrics here, but he has some kind of device for measuring his pedal watts. Just imagine how far another 250w would go!

[youtube]QZCGPcEmCRg[/youtube]

The bike is a sort of mid-end bachetta, nothing really special.

2016-giro-a20-compressor-1094x700.png


..and for kicks, here's a guy yawning at 40kmh/25mph behind a very fit upright bike rider.. :mrgreen:

[youtube]vvY4lJe8qS4[/youtube]
 
Grantmac said:
Until you hit a hill or traffic.

Or the traffic hits you. :mrgreen:


Currently I'm driving a car in Texas. As the clerk was walking my groceries out at Brookshires, she asked "Which truck is yours?" "Actually its a..."I started to reply while looking around for it, but noticed there were no other cars anywhere in the lot. " its The car." "Oh" She said. " Is it a loaner?" :roll:
Yeah, Texas roads are no place for a low slung recumbent.
 
You do not need a low slung recumbent to have an aerodynamic advantage.

get_image-1442.jpeg


A semi recumbent creates a total height comparable with that of a modern economy car.
I have a semi recumbent and people in cars are constantly staring at me, probably wondering what the hell it is i'm sitting on. No problem being seen.

We have the tall car problem here in Utah as well. People here are particularly fond of wasting gasoline.
 
I'm sold on Recumbents have one on the way.
Drunkskunk is right about Texas being on the road will get you hit. bicyclers are getting hit and killed in town often. but you get hit even if you are in a truck, car or semi or in your house. yes they jump the curb and drive thru the walls its crazy. I'm getting one anyway.
I had a chev 4x4 got hit twice but traded it in for a Nissan leaf now would like to E-bike less drag.
 
Drunkskunk said:
.......
Currently I'm driving a car in Texas. As the clerk was walking my groceries out at Brookshires, she asked "Which truck is yours?" "Actually its a..."I started to reply while looking around for it, but noticed there were no other cars anywhere in the lot. " its The car." "Oh" She said. " Is it a loaner?" :roll:

BBaaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaahhahah :lol: :lol: :lol:

I have family in Texas. I understand.

However, here we have state income tax that can keep the roads from being Texas bad. But, the cagers around here would never see a low slung bike and.....well.....RIP. Unless it is kept to the bicycle path along the beach citys where it would be fine, until some idiot walks out in front of you and....well....

:D :bolt:
 
One less truck on the road is a good thing. Where did people get the idea that you need a truck to get back and forth between work anyway?

My riding conditions are also horrible. Car drivers don't see other cars because they are too busy texting. It is just dangerous to drive. When i am in my car, i just assume somebody is about to do the most stupid thing possible, and i am right often enough and avoid a lot of danger.

I also ride my bike in a very calculated defensive manner.

Losing 1-2 feet of height while riding a semi recumbent makes me a bit less visible, but the advantage is that it allows my vehicle to ride in the car lane at speeds cars travel at so that nobody is confused about what to do with the 20mph vehicle in the 40mph road..

I learned while riding here that the car lane is the place to be, since there are so few bicyclists that nobody checks the bike lane before taking a right. Even if you are on the sidewalk with your front wheel pointed forward and you have the green and you are seen, the car driver just goes.

A bicycle lane here is an afterthought, only present on maybe 10% of the road's surface, and often used as a place to put trash cans or park cars. You can't even rely on it to be there for you. So i design my vehicles to not need a bike lane.

My leafbike did 45mph reliably and was 100x safer to ride in the road than my non electric bike, or bikes that went 20-30mph. The problem was that going high speed sucked too much power, so i constantly would have to ditch into the bike lane,sidewalk, or dirt, and go slower speeds to cover the full distance.

With a recumbent, you trade a little visibility for a chance to ride in the safest lane on the road at the speeds traffic travels at because your whr/mi drops drastically. You flow harmoniously with traffic, instead of being an impediment to it.

My most safe riding experiences have been on my recumbent and my fast leafmotor powered bike. My least safe experiences were on pedal bikes here.
 
No need for a truck, why not a 4 door Geo Tracker / Suzuki Sidekick, with a modest 4" suspension lift, no body lift. Could even go green with Propane. Could even get a wider stance with a cut Ford 8.8 non c-clip axle, which is slightly stronger then your Dana 44's on the Jeep Rubicons. Spend a bit extra for a cushy suspension, perhaps bags then slap in some kind of locker, and cromoly axles. You would get further with its low gearing and light weight then any 4 door 1 ton 4x4 jacked up by 12" with Texas sized shit roads, and their ccw. Come to Canada, you'd get a slap on the wrist, same crime Texas your doing life and life is life.

:oops: Ooooppsss I forgot this was an EV forum.

~200W of leg power and the guy is yawning :lol:
BTW net, neat vids. Thx!
 
neptronix said:
My most safe riding experiences have been on my recumbent and my fast leafmotor powered bike. My least safe experiences were on pedal bikes here.

Don't get complacent. Sucky bikes offer the likelihood of leg suck, and we know how much extra work you have invested into your new leg.

Becoming detached from the pedal of a normal bike doesn't pose such problems. You can even wear regular shoes and use regular pedals without risk of maiming yourself.
 
Got rid of my recumbent... did not like being on the perfect height for breathing the maximum amount of car fumes possible.
A regular bike puts me above the typical car exhaust and in the cleaner air.
 
Chalo said:
Don't get complacent. Sucky bikes offer the likelihood of leg suck, and we know how much extra work you have invested into your new leg.

Becoming detached from the pedal of a normal bike doesn't pose such problems. You can even wear regular shoes and use regular pedals without risk of maiming yourself.

I pedal 100% of the time on every bike i've built.. you'll notice that a prominent feature of every bike i've built is a very large chainring..
..actually, pedaling is the only activity that my legs actually like. The constant low level pain actually goes down, the more i pedal. 4 years of doing this on a bike at the gym when the weather is ultra rough has given me a pretty impressive continuous watt output, for a person who had heart issues and (was) also at a sizeable biomechanical disadvantage.

A bike like this with a big ol' fairing and a little geared motor would just be a dream come true for me. Surely you could cruise along at 25mph on pedal power alone given the right aerodynamic situation...

azub-mini-recumbent-bike-with-20-inch-wheels-side.jpg


As you can see, i've caught the HPV bug pretty bad..
 
neptronix said:
Chalo said:
Don't get complacent. Sucky bikes offer the likelihood of leg suck, and we know how much extra work you have invested into your new leg.

Becoming detached from the pedal of a normal bike doesn't pose such problems. You can even wear regular shoes and use regular pedals without risk of maiming yourself.

I pedal 100% of the time on every bike i've built.. you'll notice that a prominent feature of every bike i've built is a very large chainring..
..actually, pedaling is the only activity that my legs actually like. The constant low level pain actually goes down, the more i pedal. 4 years of doing this on a bike at the gym when the weather is ultra rough has given me a pretty impressive continuous watt output, for a person who had heart issues and (was) also at a sizeable biomechanical disadvantage.

I'm not taking about pedaling, which is slightly impaired in a 'bent but which otherwise works just fine. I'm talking about "leg suck"-- the possibility of your foot falling off the pedal, then hitting the ground while you're moving, and folding your leg around into an unnatural configuration. It isn't as dire a problem with a high-ish two wheeler as it is with a tadpole trike (some people have broken femurs from running over their own legs), but you can still hurt yourself when your own foot stands in the way of progress. The faster you go, the more serious the risk.
 
Ohhhh... i get you now. I wasn't aware of the phenomenon. I see how that could be a serious safety issue.
I wonder exactly how that could be prevented. Pedal clips aren't a good solution when you need to constantly put your foot down to come to a stop.

Seems like it would be more of a problem on recumbents that have bottom brackets higher than the seat?

I usually ride with the heel of my foot on the pedal rather than the toe.. making it a lot harder for my foot to slide off. Though i imagine that rain would easily defeat the small advantage of pedaling with your heel as i do ( i understand i may do this because of my tibial torsion and it's probably more biomechanically correct to pedal with your toe )
 
Hm.. wouldn't heel slings be a nice countermeasure?
 
neptronix said:
Hm.. wouldn't heel slings be a nice countermeasure?

That is one traditional safeguard that has the advantage of compatibility with regular shoes.
 
A quick browse through bentrider seems to confirm that it's a pretty good idea.
I am really opposed to the idea of having to change clothes to ride a bicycle. Even shoes.

My current semi recumbent has the pedals below the seat... maybe that is a good design to stick with, as you're more likely to avoid this danger.. and the heel slings train you to instinctively raise your leg to get it off the pedal.
 
FWIW, a form of leg suck is what broke my ankle at the deathrace several years ago, on CrazyBike2. I was already crashing, rear slid out on a "rubber snake" of asphalt seal on the track at a hairpin turn, but IIRC my foot hit the ground and then pulled under the cranks. Memory of it is a bit hazy these days.

I probably would have crashed the same way on an upright, but not have had my ankle stuck where it was, but I also would've been hurt in a lot of other places that I was protected from by the seat and handlebar setup on the semi-recumbent CrazyBike2 (shoulder, arm, elbow, hand, wrist, head, etc.), where I was able to stay in the seat and hold myself off the ground in the slide because of CB2's design making a kind of partial cage around me.


On the SB Cruiser trike, I have had a few times when I almost got my ankles sucked under the cargo/seatbox's front bottom edge, but not because my feet came off the pedals, rather because I was "flinstoning" backwards (no reverse in the motor at the time) and then rolled forward but didn't move my feet out of the way quickly enough.
 
FWIW, that first vid he's going down a hill. But yes, a bent of any kind does help aero a lot. I do a fair amount of pedal bike riding now that my health is recovering, so I do test my strength rather than always just cruising with the electric. I'll ride 4 miles pedal in the morning, then go for an e bike ride later.

My favorite ride is a very light steel road bike, an 85 centurion. The feel of that steel frame is just a delight, and the roll I get on the 100 psi race tires. But if it gets windy, I jump back on my lead sled, a very heavy steel semi recumbent. No, I can't ride it fast, wind or no wind, but it does not mind the wind so much. So I ride it when standing still, I'll be fighting 20 mph of wind. I have sucked my leg on it, but only at low speed, only able to ride it about 10 mph anytime, so only got scraped up. I wear shoes less likely to slip off when I jump on that bike now. Its also a nicer ride in the winter, when I might have a lot clothes on. Something about pedaling it is easier than an upright, when bundled up for below 50 degrees. Same knee bend, but not lifting the weight of the pants I guess.
 
If you watched the first vid, you'll see that the grade varies ( and is mapped on the bottom left ). He is averaging a bit over 20mph on the flat ground sections.

You probably like the 85 centurion because of the flexy frame and the fact that the cranks are fairly far forwards. The ideal road biking position is legs more forward and up, and head / upper back down as far as possible. The centurion has some of the best road bike geometry possible.

I also love steel frames... thankfully there are a decent amount of full suspension recumbents out there.
 
Recumbent for back support, this morning my back was killing me. I took a 3 mile slow ride on my recumbent this morning and felt better when I got back. Think it is the arch in the seat with exercise.
 
I'll just add my .02 cents. I owned a recumbent very briefly about four years ago. I was having a lot of problems with bike fit and getting a saddle that was comfortable for the kind of mileage I was regularly putting in - over 120 miles per week with weekend rides frequently 30-50 miles at a time. In a fit of pure frustration I sold my cargo bike and regular bike to help finance the ridiculously over-priced middle-of-the-road Bacchetta bike I ended up riding. I did ride that bike for about 7 or 8 months, going the same 120+ miles per week and all of the same kind of riding, which was basically a mix of multi-user path, and street riding in Chicago. While I found the riding on the path to be fun, the street riding was nerve-wracking, even with the higher ride-height of the model of Bacchetta that I owned. The bike put me roughly at the same eye-height as people in basic economy cars, but I found that all of the visibility and situational-awareness that I had on a regular bike was gone. In traffic I had no perception of oncoming threats, like pedestrians stepping out from behind larger parked cars, or cars entering or leaving alleyways. Additionally, when traffic became tight and congested, I lost all ability to split lanes like I could on a regular bike an so I was essentially losing my bike commuter advantages of being able to move to the head of the line, and instead I simply had to sit marooned in traffic like I was in a car. Additionally, despite all the claims of comfort advantages of 'bent riding over "diamond-frame" bikes, I had consistent issues with "recumbutt" and leg and hip issues. Whereas I only dealt with sit bone discomfort on a "diamond-frame" bike, I was now dealing with several different fit issues on the 'bent and having almost no way to diagnose or modify the fit except by lengthy trial and error and consulting with other 'bent riders on forums. Eventually, I gave up on the 'bent, sold it and got back into riding regular bikes again. Eventually I solved my saddle issues (my magic bullet seems to be the Brooks Flyer saddle - essentially a leather B17 model with large springs), and I've never looked back. I would never go back to a recumbent bike unless I developed some sort of physical malady that precluded any other type of riding. For open roads with little traffic I imagine they're fine, and while they have some aerodynamic advantages, I believe their host of drawbacks makes them little more than expensive, niche bikes, that are wholly unpractical for someone (like me), who is living a completely car-free lifestyle in a major city with the need to do LOTS of riding in heavy, urban traffic. Other issues I had with the recumbent - riding in pedestrian-congested areas was more difficult to nigh-on impossible as compared to a regular bike. Additionally, riding on things like group rides such as Critical Mass events was all but impossible again due to visibility issues, the need to regular ride at almost a walking pace. In short, the impracticalities outweighed any benefits by about 10-1.
 
Much does depend on where you ride, and how low your head is on the thing.

When we built Amberwolfs trike, we copied my semi recumbent frame. Its got a lower seat than a pedal forward bike, but its not as low as a Terra Trike, or one of those type bents. The seat height is about the same as a kitchen chair, or office chair. 6-1-2015 Re bike with dd hub..JPG

It does keep his body straight up so he can see over the hood of a typical car. Trucks, at least here out west, often have a lift kit, and I can't see over that hood at all, in a car even, its blocking the view.
 
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