well cannot argue with you on E.Dolan being a Genius and he is our resident
Pit Bull who will gladly bite the ass off anyone who invades our group from
Chicago.

My thinking is the Tour Easy is not the best choice of bent to go from a
wedgie to. A Tour Easy is a LWB and you are riding on Trails (albeit paved),
but trails tend to wind and weave and have rough patches, sand, gravel etc.
to break up the monotony for riders with MTBs who love a mixed road
surface----why I'll never know, well paved is always better for a bent.

A LWB will not take sudden direction changes with ease.
I'd go with a CLWB till you get more riding experience and while you still
can ride---busted ankle--Yuck/

"Bruce Davis" wrote in message
...
I just discovered this Newsgroup, and my newsreader only downloads the July
posts, so I apologize if this has already been a topic of discussion in the
recent past.

My question relates to whether you think that recumbents are any more
prone to spills than a regular bike is. Here's the genesis of my question:

I bought an EZ Racer Tour Easy in September 2004. I am 44 years old, and
have been a recreational cyclist for a number of years. I was never one of
those super-serious bikers in the multicolored spandex shirts and
super-speedy racing bikes. I simply rode a Trek hybrid on the occasional
weekend on bike paths. But I found cycling on a regular bike to be painful
after about ten miles -- my back and butt would be sore, and my weiner
would be numb after a ride. So when I first found out about recumbents,
they sounded like they'd be just what the doctor ordered.

I bought my EZ Racer last September, and for my inaugural ride I took it
out on a paved trail in local state park. Well, within five minutes of my
first-ever ride, I broke my ankle. I was coming down a slight slope,
perhaps going a little too fast for a novice, and came upon some wet
leaves on the trail. The bike started sliding, I braked, and it slid out
from under me. When I put my left foot down to the ground, I rolled over
and onto the ground. I ended up with my left foot pointing 90 degrees to
the right. I lay on the trail for about fifteen minutes before some hikers
discovered me, and went and found a park ranger, who called an ambulance.
I was hauled off to the hospital. I had to have my ankle sliced open like
a fish's belly, and a plate was screwed into my badly broken bones with
about nine screws. I spent the next six months recovering -- two months in
a cast, a month with a removable walking-cast, two months in physical
therapy, etc.

Well, finally this spring I felt that my ankle was recovered enough to
give it another shot. I've taken my EZ Racer out about four times in the
past few months, and must say that I really enjoy it. But at the same
time, I find it somewhat unstable. I thought maybe it would take time to
get the hang of it, and then I'd be tooling around with ease. But I find
that even after a number of rides of long length, the bike seems a bit
wobbly at times and difficult to control. For example, if I take one hand
off the handlebars to take a sip of water, it seems like I am risking
disaster. The bike is only stable with two hands firmly gripping the
handlebars. Contrast this with a standard bike, on which it is fairly easy
to ride with no hands, let alone one hand (on the recumbent, the old
saying "Look Ma, no teeth!" really seems to apply.). And when someone
passes me from behind, and I want to give them ample room to get by, I
find it somewhat difficult to keep the bike in a perfectly straight line,
and worry that I'll suddenly veer to the left and crash into the passer.

And now, just yesterday, I had another spill. I was on the Schuylkill
Trail, which is a paved path between Valley Forge and Philadelphia. I was
having a great ride, averaging about 16 MPH, and generally enjoying life.
The paved portion of the trail is about 13 miles from Valley Forge to
where it hits Manayunk (a Philadelphia neighborhood famous for the
"Manayunk Wall" in the annual USPro bike race). When the trail hits
Manayunk, there is an unpaved portion of about a half-mile between the end
of the trail and the streets of Manayunk. I had ridden this unpaved area
numerous times on my Trek hybrid in years past, so I thought I'd give it a
go with my 'bent. I thought I might stop at a Manayunk brew-pub for a pint
before heading back to Valley Forge (I don't advocate drinking and riding,
but I figured a single pint wouldn't whack me out.) Anyway, I was doing
well on the packed dirt, when suddenly in front of me was a very sandy
portion of trail, maybe three feet long. I figured if I just kept my front
wheel straight, I'd plow right through the sandy soil, and continue on my
way. But as soon as my front wheel hit the sandy area, the wheel suddently
slid, and I went down hard on my right leg. I jumped up quickly to make
sure I hadn't broken anything, and luckily I had not. But I did have a
large red scrape all the way from my knee to my ankle. Despite a moderate
amount of pain, I was very relieved that there were no serious injuries,
and that I wouldn't be spending the next three months on crutches. I
decided to forego the brew-pub, and headed back to Valley Forge.
All-in-all, I had had a great day, and very much enjoyed the 26-mile ride.
But my spill at the halfway mark got me worried again about whether there
is something inherently dangerous about this bike.

So my questions a
1. Are recumbents generally less stable than regular bikes (more prone to
crashes), or does it just take more experience to get the "hang of it"?
2. Are there precautions that must be taken with recumbents so that a.)
one does not take a spill; and b.) if one does take a spill, is there a
certain way to fall to lessen the chance of serious injury?

The bottom line is that I love my recumbent, have no buyer's remorse, and
will continue to ride it; but I'm just curious about whether anyone out
there has any suggestions or comments that will put my mind at ease, so
that I can just enjoy my rides without constantly worrying that I'm going
to end up in the hospital again.

(By the way, I hope Ed Dolan the Great posts a reply, as in my short visit
to this newsgroup, I have found his posts to be hilarious and his writing
style to be top-notch. In the words of that old Lowenbrau commercial,
"Dolan, you're a genius!")

--Bruce Davis