TdF and recumbents

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Do not upright riders' legs also connect to pedals that are only a
centimeter or so away from the cranks? Does that not put the uprights'
cranks at rider leg level?

Stop being silly. It is difficult though not impossible to tangle cranks on
bicycles because the handlebars are close to the same plane as the cranks on
an upright whereas on a short recumbent the cranks are WAY out in front.

Upright pelotons are notorious for having group crashes. At least on a
recumbent one hardly ever lands on one's head or shoulder, with the latter
often resulting in a dislocated shoulder and/or fractured clavicle.

And no recumbent can sprint with an upright.

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Tom Kunich wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Tom Kunich wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...

How many paved roads are steep enough to slow an average rider down to
2-mph? Almost none.

Then complete the deathride on your recumbent and we'll talk.

Would I not be dead and unable to talk?

I'm sure someone must have done the deathride on a recumbent. So what do
they have to say?

How does one talk to the dead?

Thanks for demonstrating precisely what I was talking about. Recumbent
riders don't even want to discuss very difficult rides.

On Jul 28, 10:02*pm, Tom Sherman
wrote:
Edward Dolan wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Tom Kunich wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
.. .
Whats up with bringing off-road cycling into the discussion?
Lost track of which thread I was in. Nevertheless it is perfectly fine in
my book to try to race the Tour de France with a recumbent. Just try to
ride down those Alps roads fast enough to make up for the time lost on
the climb.

Note: Opinion stated as fact.

Here is Tom Sherman sounding like JimmyMac. He should find a different way
of saying it. But Mr. Kunich is right. No way you can make up going down
what you lose going up. This is as true of small hills as it is of mountain
passes.

Hey Ed,

Jim McNamara picked up the phrase from me, not the other way around.

Tom ... Dolan is as perceptive as the average tree stump. Tom is
right here and this is often an applicable phrase where Dolan is
concerned.

Ever see a race stage that was all climbing and descending - no, I have
not either. The assumption that the speed penalty climbing would be
equal to speed advantage descending is overly simplistic and unrealistic.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Peter Clinch wrote:
Jack wrote:

Afterwards i read a story in Velovision on a man in Wales, he
mentioned Static energy or something like that.
The fairing of the bike still seems to do something, even at lower
speeds.

IIRC the main thing he'd found is if you hit the bottom of the hill
doing 10 mph more than you'd be doing without the fairing, that was
often enough to get you over smaller hills, and a good start on bigger
ones, before the weight disadvantages cut in.

Indeed. A faired recumbent is great on a series of short rolling hills.

Those rolling hills only go on for a little ways, and then you have to
confront some really big hills. That is where recumbents get dropped like
the lead bricks that they are. I would not want any kind of bicycle but an
upright if I were going to be riding in the hills and mountains. Neither
would Mr. Sherman if he knew what the hell he was talking about. But
ignorance is bliss when you live in flat terrain like he does (former Quad
City resident - Illinois Side, now residing in or near Milwaukee).

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

Edward Dolan wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
...
Almost 100% of folks who get recumbents get them for comfort, not speed.
Tom Sherman may be the exception.

As often occurs, Mr. Ed Dolan is wrong.

Then why blather on so much about freaking racing? You want to be
comfortable and fast both?

Hey Ed, read the thread subject again.

I think that recumbents are enjoyable and serve a purpose. They are
not better or worse than upright bikes. It's kind of comparing a road
bike and an mtb. The road bike will do better on the road and the mtb
will do better off road. having recumbents competing against road
bikes will have varied results depending on the course that you set,
the conditions, etc. Who cares. Ride what you like.

Recumbents are a million times more comfortable than uprights. That is
one huge 'better' difference that matters to most folks.

I do not know about a million, but certainly recumbents are much more
comfortable than uprights on rides longer than one-half hour.

Overall I would say that recumbents are for the lone rider and is
especially suited for long tours. They are almost as fast as uprights on
the flats and are much slower climbing hills. Once you accept that
minimal limitation, you can be happy on a recumbent.

Mr. Ed Dolan is wrong again, unless he is writing about a "city" type
recumbent (e.g. BikeE, Sun EZ-1, HP Velotechnik Spirit, Cannondale Bent),
which are slightly slower on the flats than an upright drop bar bicycle.

Even the above mentioned bikes are better for touring than are uprights
because they are more comfortable - you confounded moron! What Mr. Sherman
knows about racing you could put in a thimble with room to spare.

I did not claim nor believe these bikes mentioned above are less
comfortable than drop bar road bikes, merely a little slower.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Phred wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:06:29 -0500, "Edward Dolan"
wrote:

"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
...snip...
The faired upright would get blown of the road by the first wind gust.
Faired uprights are rare to nonexistent - and for good reason. However,
recumbents with fairings can also get blown all over the road in strong
winds. In certain situations, it is extremely dangerous to ride a
recumbent with a fairing.

I've been out on a faired Rotator Pursuit in 40-50 mph winds. It was
fun but a lot of work. Cold, too. It would have been much nicer in
warm weather.

Steeing was OK and there was a bit of lean to make up for sidewinds.
YMMV.

I have always wanted to try a faired Pursuit. Only rode an un-faired
Pursuit once, and its reputation for poor low speed handling seemed
greatly exaggerated.

The damn things were way overpriced. Besides, they looked dopey.

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota

Edward Dolan wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
"Qui si parla Campagnolo" wrote in message
...
On Jul 27, 11:01 am, Tom Sherman
wrote:
aka Andres Muro wrote:

There are a couple of guys that ride recumbents and show up to up to
our weekend rides occasionally. One of them would never be able to
keep up with our group and the other could on regular bikes. With
recumbents they keep up with the group without problems. One of them
takes pulls at 25+ mile per hour without braking a sweat. On flats,
recumbents transform average cyclists into animals. The lower the
recumbents the faster these guys become. One has a very low racing
recumbents and he built an aero contraption in the back. He goes
really fast in that apparatus and because he is very low, it is hard
to draft him. He makes a great training partner. It's sort of like
motor pacing. On hills, he slows down quite a bit though. It is not
just the weight. His racing recumbent is not that heavy.
For the sake of argument, let us assume that that a particular recumbent
is 20% faster on the flats and equal on the climbs to the group members'
uprights. If the recumbent rider is just the equal of the group on the
flats, that means he is a considerably weaker rider, so it is no wonder
he gets dropped on the hills. What is being demonstrated is not the poor
climbing ability of the recumbent (which is typically the false
conclusion made by the upright riders), but rather its performance
advantage on flatter terrain.

"For the sake of argument"..boy, that speaks volumes.........

There is no recumbent that is 20% faster than an upright on the flats
everything else being equal. At best, it is possible that a recumbent
will be only ever so slightly faster than an upright on the flats, but
even that is debatable. What is not debatable is how freaking slow they
are climbing hills, even small hills. Case closed as far as I am
concerned.

Obviously Ed Dolan has never ridden a state of the art lowracer, or he
would not post such nonsense. The real life Johnny NoCom could set him
straight on this matter. There are middle aged guys out there who would
get dropped in a Cat 2 race who are riding 4 hour centuries on lowracers
WITHOUT any drafting help.

The above is not true, lowracer or no lowracer, if there are any steep hills
around. Unfortunately for reucmbents, there always are.

What do steep hills have to do with speed on the flats, pray tell?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”

Peter Clinch wrote:
Tom Kunich wrote:
"Peter Clinch" wrote in message
...

However, if he bothered to look at the UCI hour record and the IHPVA
hour record he'd find a lot more than 20% difference.

If you'd like to get one of the recumbent hour record bikes and race me
on my upright over a course of my choosing you could certainly
demonstrate that 20% difference.

OTOH, why don't you look at the end to end record in the UK, over 800
miles on real roads. The record is held on a faired recumbent, the
holder beat his own upright record by almost 10%. certainly a useful
margin.

The operative word though is FAIRED, so we are comparing apples and
oranges here.

But Ed's point was under any circumstances, not just of your choosing.
And, as he so often is, he was wrong.

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/

Tom Kunich wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Do not upright riders' legs also connect to pedals that are only a
centimeter or so away from the cranks? Does that not put the uprights'
cranks at rider leg level?

Stop being silly. It is difficult though not impossible to tangle cranks
on bicycles because the handlebars are close to the same plane as the
cranks on an upright whereas on a short recumbent the cranks are WAY out
in front.

Hey, you failed to answer the question. Were you on an upright or a
recumbent when around the pack of recumbents?

Upright pelotons are notorious for having group crashes. At least on a
recumbent one hardly ever lands on one's head or shoulder, with the
latter often resulting in a dislocated shoulder and/or fractured
clavicle.

And no recumbent can sprint with an upright.

And on a flat course (the only type where upright sprinters usually have
a chance for the overall win), the recumbents would be so far ahead that
the upright sprinters would only be competing with other upright riders.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”

Tom Kunich wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Tom Kunich wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Tom Kunich wrote:
"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...

How many paved roads are steep enough to slow an average rider
down to 2-mph? Almost none.

Then complete the deathride on your recumbent and we'll talk.

Would I not be dead and unable to talk?

I'm sure someone must have done the deathride on a recumbent. So what
do they have to say?

How does one talk to the dead?

Thanks for demonstrating precisely what I was talking about. Recumbent
riders don't even want to discuss very difficult rides.

Riding until dead does sound difficult. Or is Kunich just being unclear?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
“Mary had a little lamb / And when she saw it sicken /
She shipped it off to Packingtown / And now it’s labeled chicken.”