Why recumbents

Today's Top Stories. Are Wider Tires Always Faster? Join Bicycling Today. Related Story. Marcy amazon. The history of the recumbent bicycle is filled with intrigue. Only a few people today realize that the current surge in interest and ownership of recumbents is a renaissance of what occurred at the end of the previous century and in the early years of this one.

The banning of recumbents from bicycle racing in had the effect of putting the recumbent bicycle design in the closet for fifty years, until it was re-discovered there primarily by MIT professor David Gordon Wilson and his student. To him, I and thousands of other laid-back cyclists will be eternally grateful.

His wife had decided the common bicycle was far too dangerous for their son George, so Charles built him a pedal-driven four-wheeled vehicle.. The four-wheeler indeed reduced the danger of falling over. Nobody had guessed what else it might lead to. The four-wheeler proved to be exceedingly fast.

They had the comfortable seating position and the trunk of a car, with the pedal propulsion of the bicycle. The technical equipment included a differential, three gears and a light fairing made of the airplane windshield material Triplex. After the First World War the poor economy in France aided their sale. Until the thirties the sales of the Velocar steadily increased.

In practice the Velocars turned out to be very fast. From time to time they were used as pace vehicles in bicycle races. The Velocars soon reached their limits.

At higher speeds, that were easily achieved, cornering got very dangerous. Every curve meant having to brake hard and then re-accelerate.

One had to pedal hard to be fast on a curved path. Charles Mochet experimented and built a vehicle with three wheels, but its tendency towards falling over in curves was even worse than the four-wheeler. Finally Mochet had an idea: Divide a Velocar into two halves. He built a two-wheeled version, in effect a recumbent bicycle.

It was possible to change the elevation of the seat and an intermediate drive provided the necessary gearing. During the development of his recumbent bike Charles Mochet acted deliberately: long and careful planning and much thinking preceded the actual building. Mochet not only wanted to show that the recumbent bike is faster than the common bike. He also wanted to convey to other cyclists that a recumbent bicycle is also highly suitable for touring and every-day use.

On the racing side Mochet was looking out for a good rider to ride his new recumbent bike in cycling events. At first Mochet had Henri Lemoine, a pro cyclist, riding it. Henri was astonished at the comfort and how easy it was to steer. Perhaps it was the ridicule of other cyclists that kept him from riding it in competition.

In any case Henri Lemoine never entered a single cycling event on a recumbent bike, much to his loss. Francis was a decidedly lesser rider than either Lemoine or his brother Benoit. After a few test rides he decided to enter a race riding it. The idea of cycling while lying down was born not long after bicycles became popular in the late 19 th century, for the simple reason that anything worth doing should be done as comfortably as possible — and pedal l ing while lying on your back would theoretically make it easier on the rider over long distances.

However, the cyclist governing body at the time, Union Cycliste Internationale, made it illegal to use recumbent bikes in events where standard bicycles were used, which almost totally destroyed the popularity of recumbent bikes for decades.

Recumbent bicycles became popular again in the s with the establishment of several sporting events that popularized this form of cycling. In , the first mass-produced modern recumbent bicycle was put on sale, the Avatar This model and several of its competitors broke several records during the next 10 years, increasing the popularity of recumbent bikes around the world.

In the s, the first electric models were introduced, and early in this century international organizations began to admit that recumbent bicycles easily outperform upright bicycles over long distances. Apparently, it does. The most obvious advantage is in case of accidents. Because you are riding closer to the ground than on a standard bike, your fall will be less painful and, barring a really bad collision, the impacts will be to the lower body rather than the head.

Also, because the cent re of gravity is lower than on an upright bike, braking distances on a recumbent bike are shorter and without the risk of rear-wheel lift. That has certainly been my experience. The Cruzbike is a unique design, in that the bottom bracket is attached to the steering mechanism and can move from side to side as you turn the bars. I was amazed at how effective this can be for honking over rollers, much like an upright rider standing up and swaying the bike from side to side to get more power.

This is not possible on a fixed bottom bracket design. Of course, more power means more stress on the body which means more lactate and a higher heart rate, so it is not like you are getting anything for free.

It does mean though that you can cycle power between the legs and the torso on long climbs and give the legs a bit of a break. Some recumbents are slow, some are not bad, and some are blindingly fast. The market seems to be swinging towards trikes and e-assist platforms, and most of the recumbents you will see are not particularly fast by design.

Kind of like the equivalent of touring bikes or hybrids — they are not meant to be fast because they are designed for utilitarian use and comfort. Many people cannot ride uprights for physical reasons or because they have balance issues for example. Recumbents do provide an answer for both of these groups. This does not mean they need to be slow though!

Bikes such as the Nazca Fuego are very aerodynamic. It also has rear suspension and is quite heavy. All this means that when you hit a downhill, you can get up to scary speeds very quickly. The suspension keeps you planted on the tarmac on rough roads and the weight helps your momentum.

It can be a hoot screaming past upright riders who are huddling over the bars trying to get aero on a descent. There are very few things that can keep up with the Fuego on a descent, including most upright bikes. The aero profile of the Fuego is considerably smaller than most upright configurations.

So the faster I go, the bigger the advantage I get! At low speed they are much more difficult to handle, as you cannot employ body English to wiggle at slow speed. In general the lack of body English manifests itself as an all round more difficult handling experience that requires practice to overcome. Riding up very steep hills at very low speed can be challenging on more reclined recumbents.

You can read about that here. This means if you turn the wheel too far your foot can catch the wheel. Some models are more affected than others, with the general rule being that the more aggressive and aero the bike is designed to be, the more overlap there is.

You can mitigate the problem to some extent by using pedal extenders, but really the only thing to do is be aware of it and ride accordingly.

With time, you develop awareness and skill in doing this until it becomes second nature. A steep switchback is the ultimate heel strike challenge. You may need to either sprint and then coast the turn or pedal one legged with the inner leg unclipped and out the way.

If you use pedals with a lot of float you can swivel your heel out enough to get round most corners without unclipping. Recumbents all have some compromise in one way or another.