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274 Posts
Just as fast?
I may have a skewed outlook on recumbents but I live in a part of town that is nothing but a group of hills and I don't have the shape to get up the hills with that liability. I have a training ride I have been trying each morning and it starts out fairly flat but ends up very steep. When I was twenty eight I could do it without to much fuss but now that I am twenty years older I don't think I could manage it.
I know that I have to develop a different set of muscles to make a recumbent work and I was using clip in pedals when they first came out so I could finally get a good spin on those cranks. The cranks I had on that bike were 180mm and I was pushing some big gears for back then.
As for the motor idea it kind of makes my point, if you need assistance going up the hills maybe you should just use a bike that doesn't require it. I actually own a motorized bicycle that I put together myself. It's an old giant mountain bike frame that I welded track bike dropouts on and a derailleur hanger. The reason for that was so that I could tension the chain from the motor without a chain tensioner that inevitably winds up in the spokes.
I have been using it to get around town out here in the suburbs when I need to get there faster and less fatigued than when I ride my road bike. I actually have been putting more miles on my various bicycles than I have on my motorized bicycle. Something about internal combustion that makes a standard bicycle very appealing.
I generally stay away from electric drive systems, because it's very hard to store a decent amount energy in a battery without spending way too much money. The value of all the bicycles I own would not buy the battery power equal to the half gallon tank on my motorized bicycle.
Don't get me wrong I love recumbents and if I lived in a town that was less hilly I would gladly ride it all over the place. I really like the response that I get from the public, its always positive and really miss that riding a standard road bike.
mike
I may have a skewed outlook on recumbents but I live in a part of town that is nothing but a group of hills and I don't have the shape to get up the hills with that liability. I have a training ride I have been trying each morning and it starts out fairly flat but ends up very steep. When I was twenty eight I could do it without to much fuss but now that I am twenty years older I don't think I could manage it.
I know that I have to develop a different set of muscles to make a recumbent work and I was using clip in pedals when they first came out so I could finally get a good spin on those cranks. The cranks I had on that bike were 180mm and I was pushing some big gears for back then.
As for the motor idea it kind of makes my point, if you need assistance going up the hills maybe you should just use a bike that doesn't require it. I actually own a motorized bicycle that I put together myself. It's an old giant mountain bike frame that I welded track bike dropouts on and a derailleur hanger. The reason for that was so that I could tension the chain from the motor without a chain tensioner that inevitably winds up in the spokes.
I have been using it to get around town out here in the suburbs when I need to get there faster and less fatigued than when I ride my road bike. I actually have been putting more miles on my various bicycles than I have on my motorized bicycle. Something about internal combustion that makes a standard bicycle very appealing.
I generally stay away from electric drive systems, because it's very hard to store a decent amount energy in a battery without spending way too much money. The value of all the bicycles I own would not buy the battery power equal to the half gallon tank on my motorized bicycle.
Don't get me wrong I love recumbents and if I lived in a town that was less hilly I would gladly ride it all over the place. I really like the response that I get from the public, its always positive and really miss that riding a standard road bike.
mike