Riding an Upright after Benting awhile
i finally bought a recumbent. a vision r-40. short wheelbase. 30#. cool monoframe item. mesh seat. well, i tell ya, it’s dang comfy. and the view! it’s so nice riding without weight on feet or hands. …and with my weight kinda on my back. (i have it in fully reclined mode, maybe 130-deg’s tipped back from the cranks out front.) it seems to move thru the air like a luge, but i have fine visuals forward. i’m not *that* reclined, it just feels good, very relaxed, slippery in the air. feet first, hands to side. it handles and turns like a rocket. jetfighter-like banking. i power thru any turn… no pedal-strike worry! cars give me more room. kids everywhere say ‘wow’ and other cute things. kids never said diddly in my 10 yrs of racing. i haven’t checked my speed yet, coz it’s stopped being a concern. i went out with my bro once and he said we were going 18…it wasn’t an effort, so i’m happy. it doesn’t seem slow. i spin a 48-13/15 on the flats–96″/83″? hills are slow. i arch for bumps. headwinds are much tamed. haven’t ridden with the club yet. i fantasize about further custom mod’s and fairings. bikes like this open the imagination!
but here’s the nifty thing, the other day, after a month of benting, i decided to ride my old Team Miyata (1982) into town to see if anything seemed diff. what a strange feeling! to be balancing on these huge disks. to have the butt so high! i wanted to keep tipping forward…it was relatively easy to ride in the drops for some reason. my arms didn’t like being part of the support architecture as well as the steering apparatus! (this dual use of arms seems one of the oddest things of uprighting.) rushing headfirst so high off the ground. looking *at* the ground. cranks low and far back. narrow, peculiar bars. …all these were my first impressions and seemed very strange. control was even a bit shakey at first! (this for an old hand at madison track events!) but after 20 minutes, i was back in the saddle (har). maintaining momentum on hills was a breeze. fun to get out of saddle. totally smooth continuity… minimal speed flux. track-racing feel leaving the stoplites. charging hills in big ring. (i am always thinking of the phrase “winching up hills” while riding uphill bent! i’m looking forward to bentier legs!) riding at medium intensity seemed to result in similar speeds as bent. but with the 21# uprite i could accelerate to beat the band, and kept up w/ cars better. …also noticed dual role of the legs in upriting: spinning suppley *and* making them slightly rigid to absorb bumps…this is tricky biomechanics! maybe even not so natural. …easy to get lactic if done wrong. also noticed higher heart/breath-rate on uprite. faster spin, too.
didn’t time my upriting, dang. but i was flying. it was so much fun going way fast. similar gears as benting (cept on hills!). on uprite i’m usually in speed mode, feeling the rolling terrain groove, trying to catch cars (i often commute a straight hiway, but they have themselves so congested, i can sometimes shame em), while bent i’m smiling so much i haven’t even thot to time myself yet! maybe i love uprite speed so much coz when i slow down it hurts! at speed the body/hands just float on the bike, hurtling.
