Chalo wrote:
Clive George wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
The wheels are universally small and the ride no doubt nasty.
That'll be experience speaking, will it? When you've actually tried the ride
on one, come back and tell us.

I've ridden 'bent bikes with 20"/27" and 16"/20" wheels. The big one
had a long floppy frame and gave a shaky but smooth ride. The small
one gave a treacherous and crappy ride that didn't get better despite
my days spent trying to make the best of it.

There is no stock recumbent suitable for someone Chalo's size. Since
Chalo is in the 99.999th percentile in both height and weight, the
manufacturers are not missing much of a market.

My experience with 20" wheeled trikes suggests that good quality 20 x
2.3" tires at modest pressures can ameliorate most of the ride quality
shortcomings of small wheels without exacting too large a penalty in
rolling resistance. Unfortunately, trikes suffer an intrinsically
bothersome ride that has nothing to do with wheel size. Trikes bump
you sideways at least as abruptly as they do vertically or fore-to-
aft, because the track width is usually much less than the wheelbase.
The higher the trike's seat, the more obtrusive is its sideways
thrashing.

A long wheelbase makes the trike too easy to flip. Rear suspension make
for a better ride than any bicycle in my experience. And that it with
53-406 Maxxis Hookworm tires inflated to more than 7-bar.

The lower you are on the trike, the faster you can go round corners. That's
an important feature of a high performance machine.

Low ride height helps cope with off-camber surfaces, too. Tilting
trikes can deal with both cornering forces and cambered surfaces
without having to sit unusually low-- but they are expensive,
complicated, heavy, and complex to operate.

Indeed, I have not ridden a tilting trike with satisfactory high-speed
handling.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.