Can't stop thinking about this bike . . How easy are they to manoeuvre when walking / pushing.
Easy to push on flat ground, you hold the top of the seat and walk, leaning the bike side to side to make the steering flop in the appropriate direction (works much like pushing an upright by the saddle, but the steering's a bit less floppy). As soon as you need to reach a brake, you're leaning down to reach the handlebars, which is doable for short distances (think driveway, wheelchair ramp) but not something you want to make a habit of as a hillclimbing technique, because of the uncomfortable back angle. You learn to ride at a pace that means you don't have to stop and push.
Has any one fitted a handle to the front 'changer tube' the sticky up one, so that it can be lifted up from the front. So it can be either pulled or pushed into doorways, balanced on the rear wheel, bit like a one handled wheelbarrow?
I've got an extra stem clamped to the derailleur post, for mounting of GPS, lip balm and bike computer, but you don't want to use that as a lifting point: The centre of mass of the bike is somewhere under the seat, so to pick it up you grab the stem (the proper one, attached to the handlebars) in one hand and the top of the seat in the other. You can then rotate around your axis to do an about turn in a tight space, shuffle through a kissing gate, walk up/down steps or whatever.
What you don't want to do is attempt to lift it by the front end. Like most recumbent bicycles, you'll then have no leverage to control the bike's rotation and it will promptly tip over sideways
[1]. This can be a problem on trains, because helpy people (nearly always men) will grab the front of your bike without asking and pull as you carefully position yourself and the centre of the bike over the Mind The Gap in order to safety lift it up or down. On a bad day, they'll have no mechanical sympathy and will grab it by the lights or chainring guard or something.
For doorways, I lift the bike through with the handlebars at full lock (there's then enough space for both me and the bike to fit through the gap). Unless there are front panniers attached, in which case I'll carefully line the bike up and push it through slowly from behind, hoping the steering doesn't flop unhelpfully before I'm through. I'm not sure about the standing it on the rear wheel, that seems to be a tall people / lightweight bike thing and is generally contraindicated by the presence of proper mudguards. Doesn't sound very safe to me.
The other question to Kim , and others , why did YOu buy one? For touring only, for comfort, for fun, to be quirky?
I was about to buy my first proper bike, and Charlotte OTP was selling it. I embraced the wisdom of
Ian Utting and
learned to love my geeky nature. I figured that if I didn't get on with it, I could sell it on for about the same amount, and buy the Ribble upwrong I had my eye on.
I soon found it suited my style of cycling (quite spinny, pacing myself on hills because Stupid Lungs), and - crucially - discovered that cycling didn't have to leave you with a choice between numb fingers or sore genitals. Since you can do most things on a Streetmachine, I rode it a lot. I've since discovered that its limitations are basically serious off-roading, audax-style riding beyond about 100km (unless it's really flat), transporting it by car, city traffic
[2] and going round corners at speed
[3]. I have n+1s better suited to these things, but it's the Streetmachine I keep coming back to.
[1] You could probably do a variation on the two-person lift that barakta and I employ to get the ICE trike through doorways sideways: One person on the front simply providing lift, one holding the rear rack and (braked) rear wheel, to control the rotation. But I'm not sure why you'd want to.
[2] You can ride it in traffic fine (it's a bent, so the drivers are better behaved around you), but stop-start is tedious, you can only see as well as a car driver, and you can largely forget about filtering. Uprights are better at this stuff, particularly cheaper ones if you're going to lock them up.
[3] It's a tourer, and handles like a tourer.