The further a society drifts from the truth
the more it will hate those who speak it
………………..George Orwell

As one of the early founders of the modern day recumbent movement, I got away from its front burner when in 2002, I got into Hiwheel bicycles. By that time, I already had 20 years in the recumbent saddle. Oftentimes enduring the ridicule that came with it, I was still so excited about them, that I rode across the USA on a state-of-the-art bent for the National Head Injury Foundation in 1986. A ride that reached 40 million people, for many it was their first exposure to the Recumbent Bicycle.

On that ride, I had wanted to show people that my recovery was complete. So to make up for the fact that I would be on a far more comfortable bike, a recumbent, I added 80 pounds worth of a loaded trailer and several thousand miles to the first ride I did across the US on a conventional bike in 1979. By the time I completed it, however, despite all the talkshows, my public speaking, tv news appearances and newspaper and magazine articles, all that celebrated the completeness of my recovery, people still thought there was something wrong with me because I rode a recumbent bicycle.

Gardner Martin, of Easy Racers, for example, did not want to advertise in the Cycle America Regional Directories I used to publish (1988 to 1996) with the support of the nascent recumbent industry because, being led by me, he thought they were more about using the bike for rehabilitation and not performance. I promoted him free of charge.

I was received like this by many in the bike industry well after my second ride and I even heard it said that my story reflected on recumbents in general. Seems people still felt sorry for me all the way up to my Hiwheel conversion, even though the book I had I written about my long recovery published in 1994 and was subtitled, ‘all the way back from head injury’.  I had been typecast  and could not play any other role. How could I change this, I wondered.

In 2001, a casual acquaintance I had recently met was moving and needed to get rid of his low-end HiWheel bicycle. He felt I should buy it since many had told him he should sell to the person they referred to as the bike guy of Santa Cruz, CA, an oceanside town teaming with cyclists. I was not interested until I tried it and fell so hard I saw stars.

Suddenly, I felt challenged. I bought it for a few hundred dollars and started practicing. Soon, in my neighborhood, I could see from the looks on people’s faces and happiness in their eyes that they wanted me to be in their midst. They were smiling because I was there. This was different.

Soon I could see that the Hiwheel was the vehicle I could ride to not only show my healing was complete but that I could use it to bring all cyclists under one roof. My experience on it also showed me I could ride it to bring the energy up, to make people smile. I had grown weary of the doubt that came from people thinking I wanted sympathy or that I was trying to show them I knew a better way when I rolled up comfortable on my recumbent. Along those lines, the HiWheel was not a threat. It got instant respect because most knew it took a lot of daring, strength and fitness to be able to ride.

 I rode it more and more. I went on longer and longer rides. Because I rode so much, and could not afford the high price of replacing my tires, I had to learn how to build the rubber on to the wheel itself. And as a result, along with the special tool that is needed, and a ton of phone help from Jim Spillane and Walter Branche, I earned the distinction of being one of the few people in America, who can mount solid rubber tires for these bikes – a little needed skill. I became more and more immersed in that culture.

Then seven years after I bought my first one I rode the Eagle, a very difficult Hiwheel to mount as well as master, from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, a distance of 1000 miles. Because of Its reverse facing configuration, it climbed long ascents and I was able to use it to become the first man to actually pedal, and not walk, a Hiwheel bicycle over the Sierras. And then across the most mountainous state in the union, Nevada.

Soon all people wanted to know was how I was able to ride a machine that looked so intimidating. Was it hard to balance? How did I mount it? Did I ever crash on it? People were amazed. No longer was I seen as the guy who was using his bike to recover from head injury! Mission Accomplished!

Even though I still rode my recumbents, especially if I had to get somewhere fast, while I was away, my website which was always number one in the recumbent search engines and easily captured as many as 100,000 unique visitors a month, started to fall off the back. While I did the first websites for many dozens of the very first recumbent purveyors, and set up the still in use domain names for most of them, another funny thing happened while I was away. Three wheel bicycles had come to dominate the industry. They had co-opted the name recumbent for their own use. And the two wheel recumbent bicycle had fallen into disfavor.

In claiming the recumbent name, even though they are slower, heavier and more cumbersome as we will discuss, trikes sat on the shoulders of the respect two wheelers had earned with all their speed successes. Despite all the hype generated by the Hank Burrows Windcheetah, three wheels were never going to out speed their two wheel counterparts. Tim Brummer saw this at Lightning Cycle Dynamics when he became the first man to go 60 mph. Even though he did so on a trike, as an aerospace engineer, the math showed him that three points of contact on the road limited how fast he could ever hope to go. That’s why every Lightning he has built since he started his company in the 70’s has been two wheels. And not three

In 1986 Freddy Markham became the first man to go 65 mph on a bicycle. The bike he rode? A two wheel, Easy Racer Gold Rush.

In 2009, , six years after he exhibited at our Santa Cruz NBG Fest, Sam Whittingham rode his TWO WHEEL streamlined recumbent to 82 mph at Battle Mtn in NV. As they push closer to the 90 mph mark, three wheel bikes have long been absent from the speed equation.

And yet those who market trikes, always make sure to point out how fast recumbents are. This is disingenuous.

On another front, as two wheel recumbents were earning respect for the recumbent seating position with their speed prowess, on two wheels there were many of us gaining acceptance for them amongst the upright bicycle population in other ways. Making the playing field even in such a way, began all the way back in 1979 when greatly respected, MIT Professor, David Gordon Wilson, staked his credibility to the first production recumbent, the Avatar LWB. Dave, as he liked to be called, earned recumbents a respected seat next to uprights when in 2004 his best selling book about the history, science, and engineering of ALL bicycles, “Bicycle Science” got published.

Distinguished upright bicycle frame builder, Steve Bilenky, also played a part when his company, Bilenky Cycles, started making the Viewpoint. A tandem bicycle, in the mid 90’s, it placed the recumbent in front with a traditional seating position behind it. Steve’s credibility as a fastidious steel craftsman did a lot to win acceptance for recumbents.

Steve Roberts is another man who got a lot of interest for the recumbent two wheel bike when he rode his heavily modified Avatar long wheel bases  all over America from 1983 to 1988. He even wrote a popular book called, “Computing Across America” that found him discussing his bike on talk shows and for many other different types of news media. Nor would he have been in so much demand had his journey taken place on three wheels. This is so because America wanted to know how he moved all his electronic gear around on a two wheel bike that required balance..

The above said, it is easy to make sense of the modern day trike explosion. They are a blast to ride. They are also very easy to learn, no matter how sick or unfit you may happen to be. They’re also great for people with excess weight and balance issues. As a result they are far easier for bike shops to sell. Especially trike only stores that steer people away from the two wheel option. If you ride one year round, which most people do not, trikes are great in winter conditions where the roads are often slippery. Toward that end, about trike joy all the way back in 2001, I wrote:

No one dares to talk about their downside tho. They require a lot more room on the road, many of which you cannot ride a trike unless yours is a death wish. In fact, in all five of my years in Ireland, I did not see or hear about one trike. This is so because many of the road there are too narrow.

They require a lot more room for storage and just parking. They are much harder to transport. Feeling like you are one with machine is lost the first time you can’t lean into a turn. Nor do they handle as well as a two wheel recumbent.

There are other drawbacks to the trike. They are heavier. They are notably more expensive. You need to worry about three points of contact on the road and the berm most roads have for drainage, can make you feel like you are tipping over. And as we touched on above, not only are they slower in speed challenges, they are also slower uphill.

Recumbent Two Wheel Bicycles that have come and gone (most dead due to trikes) since the 1990’s:

Radius, Reynolds Weld Labs, Haluzak, Vision, RideRite/Advanta, Pashley, Burley, BikeE, Cycle Genius, Longbikes, Lightfoot, Easy Racers, Counterpoint, Ryan, S&B, Turner, Earth Cycles, Trek, ReBike, S&B, Infinity, Lightning of Ohio, Roulandt, BackSafer, Rotator, Defelice, Peugot, Human Powered Machines, Maxam, Wheel Evoglide and Hypercycle

Still in business from the 1990’s:
Linear, HP Velotechnik, Rans, Lightning Cycle, M5

If your rides are longer than a few miles, you may do far better not to let your bike salesman convince you trikes are the only pedaling option available for comfort. In fact, only a select few recumbent purveyors will ever tell you this, but the Long Wheel Base, Under the Seat Steered recumbent, like what I rode across the USA all the way back in 1986, is the MOST comfortable bike money can buy.

Let’s bring the two Wheel recumbent Bicycle back to prominence!!

Bikes are simple – Trikes are complicated