| Re: My 'Bent Is Starting to Annoy Me
In article <zq6dnWrqwqzKMQzYnZ2dnUVZ_syunZ2d@prairiewave.com> ,
"Edward Dolan" <edolan@iw.net> wrote:
> I have been around bikes for the past 35 years and consider myself an
> expert on the subject of comfort. If you are young and physically fit
> you can more or less be comfortable on an upright for several hours
> at best, but even then you cannot be comfortable on them all day
> every day for weeks at a time.
>
> A recumbent is the ONLY way to go if you want TOTAL comfort. You give
> up some speed, especially on hills, but the comfort is more than
> worth it. This is actually a subject not even worth talking about as
> anyone who knows recumbents can tell you.
>
> Those of you presently on uprights who think you can live with them
> will find out that as you age that you in fact cannot. At that point,
> you will either give up cycling - or you will graduate to recumbents.
Oh bull**** as usual, Edward. I find my uprights comfortable enough to
ride up to 400 km in 24 hours. How much more comfortable do I need my
bike to be? I'm 47. I know people in their 50s and 60s and even 70s
who do this kind of riding on uprights quite comfortably.
Once again you are overgeneralizing. What is true for you may not be
true for others. If recumbents keep you riding I think that's great and
more power to you. If I develop some kind of health problem which
results in a choice between not riding and getting a recumbent, I'll get
a recumbent. A few friends of mine ride recumbents because they just
like 'em. Two friends of mine with cervical disk problems have gone
this route quite happily because they don't aggravate their proximal
and/or distal pain. I have a cervical disk problem of my own and who
knows? I might be on a recumbent one of these days too. It's great
that there are options!
As far as the comfort question goes, for some reason most people I see
on recumbents around here are middle aged guys who are 50-75 pounds
overweight. I think I have spotted the problem with normal bikes being
uncomfortable for them. I hear a lot of complaints about "recumbent
butt" to make it clear that recumbents are no panacea.
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