Author Topic: Is this an unusual gearing for a touring recumbent?  (Read 4806 times)

Re: Is this an unusual gearing for a touring recumbent?
« Reply #25 on: 08 April, 2022, 12:02:23 pm »
You reach a limit though,  58mph a few times on my old,  23mm wide tyred road bike with high tyre pressures on very rough country roads. Scary is the right word for that. Others are stupid, young,  untouchable and stupid! Needless to say I grew up and stopped trying for faster.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Is this an unusual gearing for a touring recumbent?
« Reply #26 on: 08 April, 2022, 12:36:27 pm »
The GT doesn't understand what fast is. Try as I might it doesn't quite get there! It's not me but the bike,  honest!

It does downhill.  Combination of weight and the confidence that it isn't going to take issue with some minor imperfection in the road surface and kill you utterly to DETH the way a skinny-tyred rigid bike would.

I've had mine to just shy of 50mph, but I had to brake for a chutney-strewn corner.

Re: Is this an unusual gearing for a touring recumbent?
« Reply #27 on: 08 April, 2022, 01:35:48 pm »
The GT doesn't understand what fast is. Try as I might it doesn't quite get there! It's not me but the bike,  honest!

It does downhill.  Combination of weight and the confidence that it isn't going to take issue with some minor imperfection in the road surface and kill you utterly to DETH the way a skinny-tyred rigid bike would.

I've had mine to just shy of 50mph, but I had to brake for a chutney-strewn corner.
OK!  Caught out!  It totally is me!  Don't feel safe yet going fast on it.  :)

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Is this an unusual gearing for a touring recumbent?
« Reply #28 on: 08 April, 2022, 06:17:12 pm »
It's the bike I feel safest going fast on.  The Red Baron reaches high speeds with a lot less effort, but there's little margin for error.  The trike has high margin for error, but more wheels to think about and I don't get enough practice riding it fast to have much confidence with corners.  Upwrongs all feel like you're going to land on your face as soon as anything goes wrong, unless it's a Brompton, in which case the brakes being merely a polite suggestion is almost but not quite entirely cancelled out by the low terminal velocity, and your main risk is splatting into a horizontal surface like Wile E. Coyote.

Re: Is this an unusual gearing for a touring recumbent?
« Reply #29 on: 08 April, 2022, 06:26:37 pm »
I managed just over 40mph on the new tricon gr down a 1 in 10 but unlike the trice the lack of front suspension meant a little bump steer. I bought it to enable me to access bridleways comfortably so speed isn't important  :)
the slower you go the more you see

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Is this an unusual gearing for a touring recumbent?
« Reply #30 on: 09 April, 2022, 06:11:56 am »
Biggest brown trouser moment on the S40 (fwd and moving bottom bracket steering) was on a downhill, at ludicrous speed, stopped pedalling and then did the relatively simple act of rotating cranks backwards through 180.

At the speed I was going, the tiny wobble that induced had me swoop majestically across the road, catching it before I met the oncoming traffic, and then the resulting overcorrection before meeting the dry stone wall to my left.  In my defence I was quite tired as this was about 10km from the end of a 6 day tour.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens