| Cross-Country Ramble 1: New
Bikes! Sent: 03/22/96
O ecstasy and joy!
My wife and I replaced our traditional "diamond frame" bikes with
new recumbents in January and they've proved to be everything we
expected. What did we expect? No neck pain, no back pain and no butt
pain. Wonderful!
But wait, there's more! We're seeing more scenery now (as opposed
to the road in front of the bike). And what do we see besides the
scenery? People looking at us and smiling big grins.
We're breaking even on speed, which is just fine. Is there a
downside? So far, all I've experienced is difficulty balancing when
spinning at 90 rpm up grades in my granny-to-end-all-grannies gear*
at under 5 mph.
For the record, Carol got a Stealth from
Lightning
Cycle Dynamics and I got a
Linear Sonic. Carol liked having handlebars up in front of her,
something like a chopper. The Sonic has the handlebars below the
seat. I wanted to be as relaxed as possible and the idea of
steering with my arms just hanging down at my side was irresistible.
We both love what we got.
|
Lightning Stealth Recumbent (Carol's choice) |
Linear Sonic Recumbent (Ken's choice) |
We're leaving on our first transcontinental tour from Ventura,
CA, to St. Augustine, FL, on April Fool's Day (seems appropriate).
We're retired and our house just sold, so for the duration of the
trip, we'll be homeless and jobless and free, free, free!
We plan to make 40 miles a day on good days or when we have to,
joining
Adventure Cycling's southern route somewhere below the Salton
Sea.
We've had some experience touring on shorter jaunts (400 miles)
on our touring bikes and the thought of touring painlessly on our
recumbents is almost too much to believe!
Ken Lyon
*A "granny gear" is a very low gear, used for going up hills.
You pedal really, really fast, but go really, really slow. Named by
testosterone-driven young men with muscled legs, who wouldn't be
caught dead with such a gear on their bike.
PS: Here's a
Dilbert
cartoon by Scott Adams showing dorky pants as a solution to the
problem for which 'bents are the better solution.
next ramble... |