<BGSOUND SRC="carnival.mid" LOOP="INFINITE"> PHILADELPHIA AREA RECUMBENT CYCLIST

Frequently Asked Questions about Recumbent Bicycles

This FAQ is a combination of several FAQ's that have floated around the net,

including the one at http://IHPVA.org maintained by Julie Skopal, with opinions by Mark Matarella from his website Recumbents.com..

Q. What IS that thing ?!?

A. Well, it's called a 'recumbent' bicycle. The word recumbent refers to the reclined seating position; many enthusiasts have also taken to calling them 'bents'.

Q. Are they comfortable?

A. They are very comfortable. Recumbents seats are larger and you actually sit in the seat. You aren't perched on top of a narrow saddle which can tend to cause numbness and chafing. The handlebars are either above the seat at shoulder level, or below the seat at a position where your arms hang down naturally. This combination creates a comfortable ride making long distance riding free from neck strain, saddle sores, and wrist pain.

Q. Are they difficult to ride?

A. No. It may take you a little time to get used to the feel and handling of the bike. There are variations in handling just as there are in uprights- some are fast, twitchy racing models and others are smooth, stable touring models. Be forewarned though, recumbents use different muscles, so even if you are a very fit upright rider, you will experience difficulty climbing hills until you develop the new muscle groups.

Q. Do they "do" hills?

A. Yes, they do "do" hills. Some people think that because you can't stand on the pedals, that you can't ride up hills. Depending on how steep a hill you're climbing, you may want a low granny gear ( and a good set of lungs), which will enable you to spin your way to the top. Usually you can keep up with some of the upright riders, and if any time was lost climbing, you will make up for it on the downhills and flat ground.

Q. Are they faster?

A. Well, this is very controversial. In the IHPVA sanctioned events, all the land speed records are held by recumbent or semi-recumbent designs. The real question you are asking is, will you be faster on a recumbent?

The answer is, "maybe". There are so many factors involved; how long you've been riding, how long you've trained on the recumbent, style and weight of the bike, topography - hilly, mountainous, flat. Since the biggest factor limiting speed is aerodynamic drag, if you want to go really fast, use a recumbent with a well-designed fairing or a full body. In this case, the answer is YES, they are faster.

Q. Are recumbents hard to see?

A. Since recumbents are relatively uncommon, they are "noticed"; "visible" is another question. You do sit lower than on a traditional diamond frame bike. Depending on which recumbent you own, you may want to make yourself a little more visible. Some of the 'Low Rider' types coming into vogue now are difficult to see in traffic. They require extra caution if ridden in moderate traffic areas.

Q. How do you steer it?

A. Generally, recumbents have either 'above seat steering' (ASS), or 'under seat steering' (USS). On the above seat steering bents, the handlebars are located at about shoulder height giving them the "chopper" look. On the under seat steering bikes, they are located just beneath the seat. If you are sitting on a chair right now, let your hands hang loosely at your side; this is where your handlebars would be. Above seat steering looks more conventional and is therefore sometimes favored by beginners; but USS bents are really no more difficult to control.

Q. Have recumbents been around a while or are they a recent invention?

A. Recumbents have been around since the mid 1800's with the Macmillan Velocipede and the Challand Recumbent. In 1933 Charles Mochet built a supine recumbent named the "Velocar". Between the years of 1933 and 1938 pro racer Francois Faure, while riding the Velocar, set several speed records for both the mile and kilometer. In Paris on July 7, 1933, Francis Faure broke the 20 year-old hour record of 44.247 km. by going 45.055 km.

Unfortunately Faure's hour record created a controversy amongst the Union Cycliste Internationale (U.C.I.), the governing body for bicycle races. In February 1934, the U.C.I. decided against Faure's record and banned all recumbents and aerodynamic devices from racing. That is the reason why recumbents have not gained popularity in the racing scene, and why they have not been mass produced by bike manufacturers.

Q. What are the different styles of recumbents?

A. The most noticeable difference between the different styles is the length of the bike. There are long wheel base (lwb), short wheel base (swb), and compact long wheel base bikes (clwb).

A long wheelbase bike (LWB) is 65" - 71". Their ride is quite smooth, comfortable, fast and stable but due to their length, low speed maneuverability can be a bit tricky on busy streets or on narrow paths. Examples: Tour Easy, Ryan, Rans, Linear.

A short wheelbase bike (SWB) is 33" - 45". Their front wheel is underneath or a little ahead of the riders knees, with the crankset mounted on a boom. They have quick handling, are easy to maneuver, and they are more compact, making it easier to transport and stow than a lwb. Examples: Lightning P-38, V-Rex, Kingcycle

A compact long wheelbase bike (CLWB) is 46" - 64". These bikes are the easiest bikes to learn on. They are responsive, very stable, and with a higher seat- they are more visible, making great commuters. Examples: BikeE, ReBike, and the EZ-1.

Q. How much do they cost?

A. Recumbents start at around $500 and can go as high as you want to pay. Because of their low production volumes, a recumbent tends to be more expensive than a mass-produced upright bike. So when comparing prices, bear in mind you're buying a custom or very low production bike. Expect to pay $800- $1200 or more for a high quality bike. This price range will give you very good components, a good frame and less weight.

Q. Where can I get one?

A. Check out the Delears and Manufacturers pages for new Recumbents. For used bikes you'll find a good number of lisitings in the Recumbent Cyclist Newsletter.

Below is a list of recumbent links.
Linear Recumbent Bicycle Resource Page

International Human Powered Vehicle Association - Homepage

The National Bicycle Greenway (NBG) in Action

Recumbent Bicycle and Human Powered Vehicle ( HPV ) Information Center

CYBER CYCLERY: Internet Bicycling Hub

From "Bicycling" Magazine, 8/97, on upright bicycles,
this quote from Dr. Irwin Goldstein of Boston University Medical Center:

Impotence & Cycling: The Unseen Danger
"Men should never ride bicycles," he says matter-of-factly. "Riding should be banned and outlawed. It's the most irrational form of exercise I could ever bring to discussion."
Dr. Goldstein treats six men a week on average, whom, he says, have become impotent from riding a bicycle. Overall, this urologist estimates there are about 100,000 men who have lost the ability to get or maintain satisfactory erections because of penile damage inflicted by either the bike's top tube or its saddle.

From "Newsweek", August 25, 1997

"A Very Sore Sport
Excercise helps keep a man sexually fit, but Dr. Irwin Goldstein, a Boston University impotency specialist, says that bicycling is one workout to avoid. When a man uses a standard bike seat, his weight flattens the main penile artery, temporarily occluding the blood flow required for erections. Goldstein believes that, over time, this pressure can permanently damage the vessel. He says he sees several patients a week with bicycle-induced sexual difficulties. One was Ed Pavelka of Bicycling magazine, who recounted in a recent article that years of marathon riding had left him "as soft as overcooked rigatoni" Several companies sell padded, oversized saddles intended to reduce the pressure of the perineum, but Goldstein advises men to stop riding altogether until a seat is proven safe. He said the ideal seat would 'look like a toilet seat."

Besides Speed:
Recumbents are now endorsed by the
American Chiropractic Association!

Many insurance companies are now beginning to accept prescriptions written by doctors for the recumbent bicycle

Things to do to a BIKE E

The BikeE is a simple, cleanly-designed compact long wheelbase recumbent bicycle. It's fun and quick, and is one of the most popular recumbents presently available for sale. Here are some ideas I've gathered from riding one since October of 1996. If you have any ideas for additions to this list, please let me know by sending me email at wblock@rapidnet.com.

Riding Techniques

Keep knees vertical while pedalling; don't let them flop out to the sides. Most people should have their hip, knee, and ankle line up in a vertical plane while pedalling. In general, the knee should point in the same direction as the toes.

Start out riding in gears that seem lower than necessary. Because you can push against the seat back for more power, there's a temptation to use gears that are higher than appropriate. This can cause ankle and knee pain, so resist the urge, and keep a higher cadence at lower gears. You'll go just as fast with less strain.

Tips And Tricks

Have you had trouble with breaking spokes in the rear wheel? Do the rear spokes ping under load? This may be due to the wheel build. Look at the wheel from the side. Each spoke should form a straight line from the hub to the nipple, then make a sharp bend to line up with the nipple threads. If the spokes have a slight curve, they can flex (making the pinging noise), fatigue, and then break. If you know how to true a wheel, you can fix this yourself by using smooth-jawed pliers to bend the spoke where it enters the nipple, then truing and stress-relieving the wheel. Otherwise, see your local shop.

LED Flasher

I've mounted a Vistalite VL300 LED blinker on the rear of the BikeE. The toughest part was finding a bracket, and my parts box yielded up a massive machined aluminum L-bracket. This was from some bike accessory, since it had the proper bolt and keying hole for bike reflectors. It weighed about two ounces, and it was huge. A hacksaw removed a couple of inches of one part, and a dip in black Plasti-dip made it look really nice. I drilled a small hole in the back center of the beam, and used a lock washer and nut with Loctite on the bottom. The VL300 fits perfectly, and the angles are adjustable; I have it tilted slightly upwards. If there's ever a need to remove it, only a small hole will remain, and that won't interfere with accessory mounting brackets that attach to the beam.

PowerGrip straps or clipless pedals are easier to use on the BikeE than toeclips, which hang at an angle that makes it difficult to get feet into them.

Removing the chainguard tube makes for a quieter and possibly more efficient drivetrain. If you use a "dry" or "hard" chain lubricant, or just wipe all the oil off the outside of the chain after oiling it, your pants or leg won't get chain marks.

With a Craig Superlink chain link, it's possible to remove the chain without tools, making it much easier to clean.

Fenders are well worth having, especially for the front wheel, where they'll keep dirt and mud from being flung up on you. Mud flaps can be cut from plastic milk jugs or old inner tubes. With the bottom of the mud flap within one inch of the ground on the front fender, nothing will make it past to splash on you.

The Avid Rollamajig can greatly improve rear derailer shifting. This pulley eliminates the drag of the loop of cable in the rear housing. A good minimum length for the rear derailer cable housing is about 7-1/2 inches, but start with it longer than that.

Other things to check for poor shifting: grit in the rear cable housing, cable off its track on the roller inside the beam, cable housing that runs down the stem shifted far to one side or compressed by a zip tie.

The axle on the Sachs 3x7 hub is 11mm in diameter, 1mm larger than a standard axle. This causes problems when trying to use a Park FR-5 freewheel tool to remove the lockring on the Hyperglide cassette. The solution is simple: slightly enlarge the hole in the FR-5. This can be done with a round file or electric drill.

The rear fork may develop a squeak when it flexes and rubs against the main beam. As suggested by BikeE's Lee Eckroth, adding a drop of Phil Wood Tenacious Oil to the squeaking area between the aluminum beam and the steel rear fork will silence it.

Want lower gears? The guard disk on the cranks can be replaced with another, smaller chainring. The 130mm bolt circle diameter means that the smallest ring available has 38 teeth, but a 39-tooth might allow a little better chain clearance on the bolts. Of course, there's no front derailer, but it's easy to stop and quickly lift the chain from one ring to the other.

When the Sachs 3x7 hub cable has been properly adjusted, reconnecting it after a wheel removal and reinstallation is easy: set the shifter to "1" and push the threaded rod into the plastic quick-release doohickey until the indicator chain is pulled as far out of the hub as possible. You may need to spin the wheel backward slightly to get the hub to release the full length of indicator chain.

It's possible for the shifter and brake cables to jump out of their grooves on the plastic rollers inside the beam. The 3x7 shifter cable may be particularly prone to this if you don't check it after taking the rear wheel off.

Specifications

Cassette spacer ring on the 3x7 hub: 1.5mm thick.

Bolt circle diameter on the Dotek crank: 130mm (road).

Bottom bracket: 68mm shell, 118mm spindle, Shimano UN-52.

Headset: Dia-Compe 1-1/4 Aheadset.

What can you do to a LINEAR?

This may seem like an odd question to someone who owns a "regular" bike -- I think the average person doesn't modify their store-bought bike a whole lot. But the main structural element of the Linear is an extruded aluminum I-beam, and the fact that it isn't a normal bike, and therefore doesn't have normal places to hang things, attach things, etc. sort of forces you to be... "creative"... or destructive, perhaps. For example, things I've done:

•Add the Linear chain idler (something around $70). This is almost essential in my opinion, because without it that long chain swings back and forth, especially when you're riding hard, and it causes the bike to "autoshift" into (usually) higher gears. When I first got the bike, this caused me to lose my footing on the pedals a few times with near-disasterous results. Oh - a trick from a local Vision rider: slice an old innertube into 1/2-3/4" cross sections (like small, thick rubber bands) and stretch one around the wheel of the idler -- it won't make much noice then. And by the way, the idler pulls up the bottom run of chain, the non-drive side, which means that it adds very little resistance to your pedaling. In fact, because the chain is tighter, the bike will feel more responsive, because you won't spend the first 1/2" of your power stroke tightening the chain. (Of course, with clipless pedals, you may not have a part of your stroke which allows the chain to go slack, anyway...) •Take off the kickstand, if you got one. My bike was made when Linear was between suppliers for some part of the kickstand, so they sent me one for free later. I appreciate the gift! But I don't really need a kickstand, and plan to use the mounting block for something else, like a fairing. •Change to clipless pedals. In my case, I use Shimano 323 pedals wich are heavy, but have both and SPD clipless side and a "regular" side, so I can allow people to try out the bike without the hassle of cleats as well! •Add a stem to the down-tube, and use a cut off handlebar to mount lights, cycling computer, mirror, etc. Actually, I haven't found a mirror which reaches far enough out to see around my body. I'm thinking a motorcycle mirror might work... •DeSqueek and DeCreak it! You can squirt a little of your favorite lubricant between the frame and the aluminum chain-guard to keep that from creaking, and you can use lithium grease (as Mark Matarella used to) or paraffin (like I do) on the two parts of the fram that fold. With those three spots somehow lubed, your Linear may not creak at all! •Attached Zefal fenders, partly with the supplied mounting hardware, partly with packing tape. •I've drilled three holes horizontally through the I-beam, to permit me to run a U-lock through the bike. Steve at Linear says the bike used to come with a row of ellipsoidal holes down each side of the beam, but people were afraid it weakened the frame, and it costs a fair amount of time and energy to make those holes... Anyway, three 3/4" holes has not seemed to hurt my bike in any way. •I've also drilled two additional small holes in the top of the I-beam, to provide a couple of extra seat positions. •Used fiberglass reinforced packing tape to attach various doo-dads, such as a piece of bent aluminum to hold a lead-acid battery for my Cygo-Lite light, and an antenna on which I have attached a Spin-kite. •Change the gears -- the front chainwheels were 24-36-46, and I find that in Bloomington, I should (to save my knees) shift down to the 24 more often than I want to, because that's a skittish shift. So, last week I change middle chainring to a 34 tooth one, which seems just about right -- now, if I need to drop to the granny gear, it's for good reason, and I'm gonna tend to stay there for a while. I may swap the back gears for ones with a wider range, or maybe even swap out the 7 speeds for an 8-speed subsystem... •Add a (mountain bike) rack and panniers. •Attach a B.O.B trailer. •Add more and more lights and reflectors... I have one red flasher on the upper left corner of the seat back, on on the fender, a white flasher in the front, the Cygo-Lite, and I have mounted the Vista-light which wasn't really good as a front light) on the handlebar left side so that it lights me up, and shines on some of the many reflective tape pieces I have tacked on the sides of the I-beam. •Add a flag -- I attached solid antenna to the left seat post and it flies a 2' spin-kite. The angle of the post makes that kite stick out to my left so that cars give me a little more room than they did before.

MEMBER NEWS

Alan Amenta has written and displayed a great article on his home built.

Please read the latest RCN and see what he has done.

MEMBERS OF PARC

John Hunka - Vision R40

Jimmy Lichtman- Haluzak Horizon

George Hall - BikeE, Vision R40, Vision Metro, Linear,

Harold Jackson- Tour Easy Gold Rush

Alan Amenta- Home Built

Ed Holden- Presto- He also lead rides for BCP

Rich Sadler- Home Built

Joe Boyle and Deborah Zeigler - Husband and wife couple who ride Bike E