wrote:
Recumbents are a pretty rare sight in the U.K.?

U.S. recumbent cyclists are similar to the Dutch. They seem to be
good-natured and friendly to eachother. It's like we're a part of some
secret club.

It seems the way with anything relatively unusual. So 2CV drivers will
flash headlamps at one another, and so on.

I understand the difficulty of riding recumbent in a city that has
designed for the upright. I be a lot of that is changing?

I'd agree with Mike that few places are particularly designed with any
particular configuration in mind. In the UK I'd say it's the case that
a lot of so-called "facilities" are designed not so much with anything
in mind as outright ignorance that any bikes are longer or wider than
any others: huge tracts of "specially designed" cycle track are
completely inaccessible to a hand-cyclist on a trike who can't walk
around a barrier, for example.

Riding my 'bent (an HP Vel Streetmachine touring bike with my head at
about the same level as driving our car) in urban traffic isn't as easy
as my Brompton, but then again riding a 700c upright racer in traffic
wouldn't be as easy as my Brompton either. I'd also say it's certain
design aspects of the particular machine rather than it being a 'bent,
so the USS has (relatively) limited lock for very fine low and zero
speed manoeuvring, the seat is well laid back for weight distribution
over a day rather than relatively upright for ease of looking around, it
weighs a lot because it's built not to fail in the middle of nowhere
with heavy luggage on, and so on. So it's not special in cities, but
something like an HP Vel Spirit would be a much better machine there.
Much better than our notional 700c upright racer IMHO.

Do you see a trend towards recumbents?

No, not really. There are a lot more about than there used to be but
I'd not call that a trend because there used to be practically none and
now there are a very few. I think you'd need a critical mass of around
maybe 0.5% for a real upswing, and I can't see that happening. They're
too expensive and too misunderstood to get a critical mass, and they'll
continue to be misunderstood if people don't have the chance to ride
them and as long as there's no mass market they'll stay expensive.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/