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.

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.

Ramble 2: Anticipation.