With the tourists and intense afternoon heat of summer gone here in Santa Cruz, I can now enjoy mid day rides in the Santa Cruz Mountains. And wow is my experience of them over the last few weeks much improved thanks to the Penninger recumbent trike! What I'm discovering is that even tho I'm ascending on a bike that weighs maybe 15 to 20 lbs more than some of my climb worthy bents, I don't feel as drained as I once did at the end of a ride.

In trying to determine why, I am now realizing that I am no longer expending the energy once needed to keep myself upright at slow speeds. Before when an ascent forced me to a crawl, I found a lot of my focus and attention directed at keeping me and the bike from toppling over. Such a demand only intensified when the road surface worsened or cars forced me to the white line at the road's edge..

Now I am truly able to enjoy the view as I merrily plod along. And I even found myself passing a few other riders on some of my climbs. Wow. To get a sense of the overall versatility of the the Penninger trike that is putting the biggest smile on my face these days:

Note: On the test circuit (a 20 mile mountain loop) I put all of my bents through, the Penninger was 3 minutes slower than the slowest time of any of the bents I have ever owned. But I had tons more fun. And on the downhills, the Penninger was more stable than most of the bents I've had out there, if not the most solid.

On other days, I even stopped ON many climbs (you can't do so on a two wheel bike and oftentimes ever hope to get going again) to take pictures and plug notes into my Pocket Mailer (one of 2002 NBG Fest's main sponsors).......

Martin Krieg
Posted to alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent
10/22/01