This rolled into work on Saturday so I thought I’d take some photos.
It’s essentially a recumbent, but designed to go significantly faster than a regular recumbent. From memory it’s referred to as an ‘Extreme Lo/wracer’ - in regards to the angle of the crank location at the front. It has quill stems for handle bars,a carbon seat, Campagnolo Vento rear wheel, 80-something-tooth front chainring and has been clocked at 100km/h downhill (by the owner). Oh, did I mention it’s SS coupled and can pull apart and fit in a suitcase in under 3 minutes? Well, it can.
This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.
I know recumbents aren’t easy to find in your lbs, and that’s probably the only thing that’s stopped me from getting one.
I reblogged one on my tumblr the other day (was one of my first posts)
I’ll get a pic.
This isn’t a machine for bike messengers, or hipsters, or commuters, or track racers, or TT racers, or MTB riders, or cyclocross freaks. It is a machine that is designed for one thing – going very, very fast in a straight line on a flat road. Personally, I admire its purity of purpose and the high quality of the engineering that went into making it. I think its very interesting and attractive, in the same way as a F1 car. The fact that it’s a recumbent is irrelevant – that’s simply the configuration that is best for this purpose.
It’s not a machine that you’ll ever see in a familiar cycling environment — so the fact that the rider would look like a knob if he rode it on the road or a bike path is also irrelevant. I think the sight of a rider pushing the bike to its limit on a straight, flat piece of closed road would be deeply cool.
P!N20 said “I’m guessing the panniers have negated this”.
I wondered about that too. It certainly looks like panniers. Maybe the owner of the bike decided to try using it as a commuter bike and doesn’t mind looking like a knob. I think the rider will look like (if not actually be) a knob if he uses the bike for commuting, because it’s so incredibly unsuitable for that purpose. The awkward riding position (the handlebars are above the rider’s head), poor visibility for the rider, low visibility of the bike for other vehicles ('coz its so damn low), very narrow steering arc (limited by how far the chain can twist), and other compromises mean it is totally impractical as a commuter.
A machine that’s designed for a particular purpose (e.g. a Mercedes Unimog) will often look very stupid if it’s used for something that it isn’t suitable for (e.g. on a racetrack) — but within the limits of its design purpose it is very cool.
I’ve actualy seen one of the ones in the OP (same colour in fact) cruising along nelson place in williamstown and yes the guy riding/driving it did look like a knob.
The top tube is actually off set and the driver/riders head actually sticks up past it like in B.dubs pic but higher, making forward vision slightly better than a monowheel
