Re Intro

[Dave_C]

Hi, medium time YACF poster, new recumbent rider.

I have just collected Tom E's Ice B2 to add to my stable of bikes. Now to learn how to ride it 

Dave C
Fife, Scotland.

[tom_e]

Ah, you had the hang of it already.  Didn't actually crash into anything once. 

[teamonster]

Must be the time of year. I picked up a second hand B2 last week as well. Not new to recumbents, but new to two wheels. i've had a couple of interesting rides , especially in some fairly heavy London traffic - as the saying goes " what doesn't kill you makes you stronger !"  After 60 miles I'm a lot more confident on it, but still a way to go before it comes as second nature

[Quint]

     Three wheels good two wheels - - - sorry Mr Orwell

[Kim]

As I've said before - half an hour to not fall off, a thousand miles to become really confident.

A bit of time spent in the park bollard-dodging, practising stops/starts and following lines in the tarmac as slowly as you possibly can is well worth it.

[Arellcat]

A bit of time spent in the park bollard-dodging, practising stops/starts and following lines in the tarmac as slowly as you possibly can is well worth it.

Don't forget the need to practice all of the above one-handed as well.

[Dave_C]

Hi Arellcat, etal,

Yes I'm fine with speed, something I'd been a little apprehensive about, but slow speed is harder to master. Rough ground is horrid, and I won't be mountain biking on it despite the 26" wheels. 

I commuted in this morning on it. Edinburgh has its end of term holidays and I set off an hour earlier to lessen the chance of seeing traffic. I'm very fortunate that most of my commute is on cycle paths, segregated in Edinburgh but one or two places had me walking, like a very rough hill on a narrow busy road with a few close passes, and across a road which I usually hop off at even on the upright, due to the high level of traffic as I cross the road, 50 yards down from a junction. On the whole its a nice bike to ride, and I plan to extend the 'boom'? later on. I haven't commuted in for a week and my legs ache slightly but not more than normal after a week off the bike. Here is my strava trace:

http://www.strava.com/activities/128026618

It took me around 20 mins longer than my usual commute but I wasn't rushing and had plenty of time. I have a 300 audax in a little under 2 weeks but I think I'll ride my carbon road bike as its quite hilly.

Thanks for the helpful advice, feel free to offer any nuggets you think might help me.

[tom_e]

Regarding the boom, it was set fairly short because it's easier to get started that way.  You'll want it longer.

Starting adjustment roughly the same as an upright - set it so that you can straighten one leg fully with the heel pressing on the pedal at the furthest point of the stroke.

[Dave_C]

Regarding the boom, it was set fairly short because it's easier to get started that way.  You'll want it longer.

Starting adjustment roughly the same as an upright - set it so that you can straighten one leg fully with the heel pressing on the pedal at the furthest point of the stroke.

Many thanks, Tom, I will do this this evening when I get out of work. I have a chain splitter and the spare chain you very kindly gave me, as well as a powerlink.

Thanks again,

Dave C

[Kim]

...but don't be surprised if you find that you ankle more (or maybe even less) than you do on an upright, and need to adjust it to compensate.  Also bear in mind that your position in the seat when you set off probably isn't the one that you settle into after 20 minutes of riding.

Recumbents are usually more tolerant of slack chains than uprights, so give yourself a bit extra to play with the boom length.

[sg37409]

hi dave, Just wondering why you decided on getting a recumbent ?   Was there a specific reason other than you just fancied it ?  (back prob's ? fed up being overtaken by tim on the audax, etc ? )
-steve

[SlowCoach]

As I've said before - half an hour to not fall off, a thousand miles to become really confident.

A bit of time spent in the park bollard-dodging, practising stops/starts and following lines in the tarmac as slowly as you possibly can is well worth it.

Now that's the bit that's worrying me. Extrapolating from Kim's figures - it took me about 2 hours not to fall off. Does that mean it's going to be 4000 miles to be confident? If so, I've a long way to go 

My current problem is going uphill. I get to a point twiddling where I've still got about 3 gears further to drop down to on the granny ring but I'm going so slowly that balance becomes an issue. Even if I could cure the stability problems, 24" gear is still probably faster.

[Dave_C]

Certainly not any major back problems.  Ido suffer between 130 - 200km mark on rides but nothing which would stop me riding.  I really just fancied it.  Saw there was one for sale and at a reasonable price so bought it.

I did wonder if I'd done the right thing at first this morning but after 5 mins I was happy.

Over the Forth Road Bridge I found the wind was not as much of a problem as I normally do but other than that its just something which was missing from my bike stock.

I will see how I get on and try some longer Audaxes on it.

[Kim]

My current problem is going uphill. I get to a point twiddling where I've still got about 3 gears further to drop down to on the granny ring but I'm going so slowly that balance becomes an issue. Even if I could cure the stability problems, 24" gear is still probably faster.

Change down earlier and spin, spin, spin.  You want to keep the pedalling cadence significantly above the natural wobble frequency of the bike+rider, otherwise the you end up feeding the wobble and you have to apply a combination of skill and nerve to stay upright.  Pretty much the exact opposite of honking a DF bike (where you can compensate for the wobble by shifting your bodyweight around).  You may have to make some alarmingly twitchy movements with the bars - that's just because you can't steer with your body mass - the important thing is not to panic.

Don't worry about climbing speed, concentrate on balance and not having to stop.  Speed requires muscles and will come later.

In extremis, extra stability can be achieved by sitting forward out of the seat and moving your body around a la upwrong.  I don't recommend it for hill climbing though, as it puts you in a position that wrecks pedalling efficiency, and reduces the traction available on the rear wheel.  It can be useful for dodgy surfaces and anything that might cause you to have to get a foot down quickly, though.

[Nethypete]

Most useful advice I received was 'don't worry too much about anything' until you've got about a 1000 miles in'.....by which time you should have become sort of unconsciously competent.

[Dave_C]

One thing I have found is, I am so used to upright cycling I can do it with my eyes closed (nearly). On the recumbent I am having to learn to cycle, balance, cadence etc... Its not so second nature that I my mind can wonder off. This could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. On my upright bike I can concentrate nearly 100% on traffic, or looking at it another way, let my mind drift = bad. Have you ever driven somewhere very familiar and then realised you don't remember the journey? Well I found on the ride in today I know the route well enough (potholes, bumps, etc..) that I could concentrate on cycling and balance at slow speeds. Still feels slower that on an upright but I'm told this is nroaml until I get 'up to speed'.

[Arellcat]

You may have to make some alarmingly twitchy movements with the bars - that's just because you can't steer with your body mass - the important thing is not to panic.

This.  I always thought of it as "steer little and often"; my RANS V2 is probably the least slow speed-happy bike in the world, and needs lots of tiny (and not so tiny) instinctive corrections left and right when going at walking pace.  When I first rode it, I couldn't manage walking pace to save myself.

The other handling phrase might be "controlled falling", particularly for low and well reclined bikes where you never really go in a dead straight line but rather a continuous and very slight series of left and right turns.  My Speedmachine was like that, unless freewheeling downhill at top speed when gyroscopic effects dominated.

[Kim]

You may have to make some alarmingly twitchy movements with the bars - that's just because you can't steer with your body mass - the important thing is not to panic.

This.  I always thought of it as "steer little and often"; my RANS V2 is probably the least slow speed-happy bike in the world, and needs lots of tiny (and not so tiny) instinctive corrections left and right when going at walking pace.  When I first rode it, I couldn't manage walking pace to save myself.

I once spent half an hour in the wind tunnel lab with some of my aero eng friends.  They'd been working on some fly-by-wire software, and had a small section of wing in the airstream, with a servo to control the pitch, and a joystick with which you could fly it up and down.  It was quite fun, but ultimately unimpressive.  "Now try it with the computer out of the loop." he says, tappy-tapping at a keyboard.  I tried for several minutes, and concluded it was basically impossible to keep it in a stable state other than against the end stops.  "Here, let me have a go." and he gets it under a wobbly sort of control.  Then I saw how frantically he was nudging the joystick.  Sometimes it's all about the refresh rate.

"Controlled falling" is of course how all bikes work.  It's changing to a radically different geometry that makes you aware of things that your muscle memory probably internalised when you were a small child.  When I first rode a recumbent, I got the balance fairly quickly (the bike will tell you what it needs to do through the bars), but took longer to make it go in the right direction, because I'd suddenly forgotten how to countersteer.

[sg37409]

Certainly not any major back problems.  Ido suffer between 130 - 200km mark on rides but nothing which would stop me riding.  I really just fancied it.  Saw there was one for sale and at a reasonable price so bought it.

Nice one. I've thought about it before thought about a recumbent tandem in fact, but its never really got much further than a chat in laidback cycles in edinburgh.

[SlowCoach]

You may have to make some alarmingly twitchy movements with the bars - that's just because you can't steer with your body mass - the important thing is not to panic.

I've already learnt the hard way to check for hamster bar / beer gut interference before setting off. Having the handlebar set too low is not conducive to stability.

[Nethypete]

The other thing I discovered two falls too late is that Shimano make multi release cleats with an 'M' on them - in a panic these release whichever way you twist your foot 
 

[Kim]

...including straight out with your achilles on a collision course with the front wheel (DAHIKT).

[CoCo]

I'm new to recumbents too. I've been riding one for a 3 or 4 weeks now and am just coming up to 500 miles. I've definitely become more confident and proficient and I'm getting through that wobbly, barely-in-control stage, but boy does it hurt my legs. The quads, just above the knees. I still can't generate much power and can't get my heart rate into decent training zones but I assume I'll develop the leg muscles in time. I'm riding the Old Squit 200k audax on it tomorrow, which is much further than I've ridden on it before, so we'll see what happens. One thing I have noticed is that I get an intangible sense of fun on a recumbent that I don't get any more on an upright. I do hope I take to it.

[Kim]

Accepted wisdom is that your cardiovascular system doesn't work quite as hard on a recumbent.  The improved aerodynamics usually cancel this out, unless it's the wrong kind^[1] of hills.

That said, I don't personally find there's a lot in it.  My quads ache more on the 'bent, I have asthma attacks more easily on the DF, but I'm about the same speed overall.  Recumbents are much more fun (at least until you go off-road), though.


_{[1] The kind with a T-junction / cattle grid / traffic lights / hairpin bend at the bottom.}

[The Seldom Killer]

I went out on the Sheffield Friday Night Ride on the Fujin last night. I've so far been a bit worried about my handling (those twitchy movement don't always seem to have rhyme or reason to them) so figured it was time for a delve in the deep end. Riding around some twisty cycle paths and on a route with some sharp turns and sudden punchy uphills with a lot of slow riders of varying bike-handling skills was certainly a challenge.

You learn pretty quickly not to ride on the inside of a group, call out pretty early when you need to make a ridiculous turning circle and accept that sometimes you're just going to have to go over things and hope for the best. The worst bit was riding down a twisty, unlit path in the woods and not being able to plot that easily how I was going to move through each corner to give me the easiest exit and still avoid twitching off the sides into trees or the River Don. A pretty good experience in the end though and I feel a lot more confident about getting out in group riding. Certainly I would recommend to new riders like myself to get out with a slow, relaxed group who aren't going to be too fazed by you wibbling about like a fool. As the ride headed back into Sheffield and along a road with some tram tracks I decided it would be better not to hang around with the group though. Someone, myself included, was likely to do something that would induce a crash and nobody needs that.

Pleased with the Kojaks which handled pretty well going along a loosely gravelled track.