Ride in fall time through the Chambarans hills, north of the Vercors mountains, with my former M5 Shockproof 451 recumbent

One-hour race at Bourg-les-Valence, with my former Velokraft VK2 carbon fiber recumbent; 40 km/h speed does not forbid to say hello to the photograph...

My new Zockra recumbent, specifically built to fit my body by the Briton engineer Malric Leborgne. Absolutely great to ride through the Alpine hills, sitting only 30 cm above ground. It is a carbon-fiber frame, front-wheel drive recumbent. It requires to learn again how to pedal efficiently, because of interactions between pedaling and steering. But it's much more responsive than a rear-wheel drive, and it has a better transmission efficiency.

Here is a strange vehicle which now appears more often on European roads and elsewhere. A vehicle creating curiosity, but also laughs from time to time. I became addicted to it in 2003, year when I tried one for the first time and bought my first one. I then became a bentrider, or "bentradieux" in French (litterally "shining recumbent rider") !

A little bit of a personal background

As many people living in Grenoble, I have to commute a relatively long distance between my home and the workplace : 13 km to work, and 13 km back home. Having been a car commuter for many years, I could observe that the city and its suburbs became more and more congested, with traffic jams that I contributed to feed. The result was : a lot of stress, wasted time, burned fuel for little use, pollution. Thus nothing fun.

In 1997, I decided to join the usefuleness with the fun : to use my bicycle. A possible alternative was to use public transportation. But the latter provided (and still provides) a poorly competitive frequency and speed. In addition, riding a bicycle allowed me to have some physical exercise, beneficial for my arteria and my health in general.

But quite soon after starting to use the bicycle for the daily commuting, I found out the main problem : living down in the valley where a strong wind blows nearly all times, Murphy made my life a little bit harder. Facing front wind in the morning (descending slope wind from the South). Facing front wind in the evening (thermal wind building up from the North) !

I then decided to install on my bicycle one of the very first electric-motor kit.  A ZAP system, an electric motor looking a bit like a French Vélosolex. Two motors of 200 watts each, on each side of a rotor getting in contact with the rear tire. A throttle on the handle bar, a big battery in the V-shape of the bicycle frame. About 10 extra kg for my bicycle but a true boost of power, quite surprising during the first use. In 1997, the French law still allowed to use this kind of kit. I could quite easily reach 30 km/h of cruising speed with this motor, while still pedaling. And I had enough autonomy with the battery for the daily commuting of 26 km.

There were still some drawbacks with this commuting solution : rear tire wearing very fast, rotor slipping against the tire when wet, electric consumption, weight of the bicycle, hard to adjust the power from the motor, and one day it simply became illegal (now under French regulation, the motor power must stop above 25 km/h, otherwise it becomes a mopet !). Still, the fact that I installed this electric-motor kit on my bicycle allowed me to ride 17000 km just during commuting, which helped me to start acquiring some reasonable fitness (I still needed to pedal even with the motor !).

One day in 2003, riding along the Isère river toward LGGE as everyday, I was passed by an Unknown Rolling Object (a variant of UFO !) : its driver lied on its back, very close from the ground. He seemed to pedal very easily through a crankset situated well in front of him. And he was passing me with several extra km/h, without giving the impression that he was forcing on the crankset. "Bingo !". The main advantage of this strange URO bicycle was obvious : a much better aerodynamics compared with an upright bicycle, making it much less sensitive to a facing front wind.

Afterwards I went for an intense period of seach for information. First of all, I needed to learn that such bicycle was called a "vélo couché" or "vélorizontal" in French, or "recumbent" in English. Which then provided easy access to internet. In summer 2003, a recumbent retailer from Geneva had the great idea to come to Grenoble and to provide several of his recumbents for test. First try for me, a few tens of minutes trying to understand how one can pedal with this bike and maintain equilibrium at the same time... And then, here we go. I finally could start. The first sensations were very nice : great comfort, easy to handle, fast.

That was enough to decide to spend my cash and to buy my first recumbent on October 2003. Since then, I've ridden about 20000 km along my daily commuting, without use of electric assistance. No need for, I go even faster with the recumbent ! It brings the pleasure to ride an unusual bicycle, funny, efficient, non polluting, and which still provides me with about one hour of daily exercise instead of loosing my time in traffic jams. It helps to remove the stress accumulated during the day. It is usually faster than my car for the daily commuting. And my timing for departure and arrival at destination is very reproducible !

Getting addicted to that kind of bike, I then bought another recumbent with better performances for my bicycle rides around during the weekends. Lying on the back provides a unique 180° view on the surrounding landscape. Thanks to the comfortable position, I can go for quite long rides without getting in pain. With the efficient aerodynamics, the speed reached on the flat and on downhills is quite astonishing. One needs to be a very well trained upright bicycle rider to be able to follow my recumbent on the flat around Grenoble...

The main advantages in a few words
 

• Comfort: Instead of sitting on a ridiculously small bicycle seat which destroys one's bottom, a recumbent rider is comfortably installed on a large and long seat which provides support from the shoulders until the hips. Think about you lying on a rolling chair, with a crankset at the end. Here we go ! This is a recumbent ! Some say that one needs to suffer in order to enjoy cycling; a recumbent is a clear demonstration that this is entirely wrong. If you are a masochist, don't choose a recumbent.
   
• Speed: beyond ~30 km/h, the amount of energy spent by a bicycle rider to move the air around is huge. With a recumbent, the gain in terms of aerodynamics is important compared with an upright bicycle (of the order of 20 to 30%). With a little bit of training, it is quite easy to maintain a cruising speed of 35 km/h on a flat road. In downhills, the main limit is the degree of adrenalin in the blood that one can sustain... I reached once 95 km/h in the downhill of the Placette path nearby Grenoble. Some recumbent riders went beyond 110 km/h in other spots such as the Ventoux downhill in the Southern Alps. And the World absolute record of speed with a bicycle on a flat has been obtained with a fully-faired recumbent bicycle. It is above 142 km/h, and only with leg power !
   
• Stability: not to mistake with handiness. It is not easy to go around with a recumbent in a traffic jam. On the other hand, the long wheelbase and the low center of gravity make it very stable at high speed.
   
• Possibilities for heavy cargo load: thanks to the crankset lying well in front of the bicycle, the sides of a recumbent can be equipped with long and large bags. Their positioning around the center of gravity do not jeopardize the general stability of the bicycle when riding.

• Original: for some people, it is instead a drawback, because one cannot go by "anonymous" with such a bicycle. On the other hand, it helps to start discussions. Kids are usually fascinated when they see a recumbent. It often generates smiles on everyone's face, which becomes quite rare these days...

The drawbacks in a few words
 

• Efficiency in uphills: on slope higher than 5 to 6%, a recumbent bicycle is usually less efficient than an upright bicycle. Several reasons for this : it is often heavier (the lightest recumbents weight about 8 kg, but usually the weight is more around 12-15 kg), the fact that it's nearly impossible to change one's position on the bicycle (no way to stand on pedals for instance), a probable loss of biomechanical yield due to the fact that the legs get a reduced blood flow in horizontal position. A recumbent is thus not the best bicycle for those who like to go by several paths at their aerobic limit... On the other hand, a recumbent rider takes time to enjoy the uphill, pedalling at high rpm and enjoying the landscape. On long rides (more than 100 km), the slight loss of efficiency on uphills is more than compensated by the gain on flats and downhills, and by the reduced tireness thanks to the comfortable position.
   
• Not ideal in traffic jams: the fact of sitting quite low above ground is not ideal for visual control in the middle of a traffic jam. It's hard to anticipate like with an upright bicycle, and it's hard to slalom between cars due to the length of the recumbent.
   
• Prejudice: just like surf-riding suffered from a big prejudice at the start compared with standard skiing, a recumbent bicycle suffers from strong prejudices which are hard to fight : "One does not see you", "your stuff looks very dangerous", "watch up not to fall asleep", "it's not the time for a nap", "are you disabled ?", are among the usual sentences that a recumbent rider would hear during his rides. The sentence  "One does not see you" means in reality "I didn't expect to see you". The height of a recumbent rider and its front area are quite comparable to those of a kid on an upright bicycle. Who would say to a kid "One does not see you, you should not ride a bicycle" ?! In any case, one does go by "anonymous" on a recumbent. If one has a hard time to handle silly point of views from others, it's better not to get on a recumbent. Some examples provided with this "collection of howlers on recumbents".
   
• Price: as the number of recumbents built by a given maker is much smaller than for upright bicycles, and as many components are specific to recumbent, these bicycles are usually quite expensive. One should consider about 1500 Euros for a basic (but already good) recumbent. And then the prices go up to 3000 Euros quite fast... At such price, they are usually in carbon fiber, and thus the price differential with an upright bicycle tends to get reduced. Still, it's impossible to find a cheap recumbent with a starting price around 300 Euros or less. It may come once the selling volume will increase.

A few links to get more information about recumbents

• A comparative study of pathologies associated with upright and recumbent bicycles
• Used recumbents for sale in France
• Recumbent retailers around Grenoble
• A French maker of carbon-fiber recumbents
• Database of different recumbent brands and models
• The French forum on recumbents
• History of recumbent invention by the French Charles Mochet, and its hard time with the International Cycling Union which forbade recumbents in official competitions in 1934. They were much too fast compared with upright bicycles !