The few prones I've tried were not comfortable for the long haul. The bent
neck to see down the road for me was the biggest problem.
A person can be trained to ride anything but that doesn't mean that everyone
can ride it. The ones I tried handled odd.
Frontal area can be made no smaller then a low racer which has feet first
safety.
Very few prone bikes get on the podium at the races. Why? Pushing against a
seat back most likely makes more power.
A lot of motorcycles have feet first riding positions. Have you seen Dan
Gurney's Alligator? Fast and looks much safer then a cafe racer position.
To each his own???
Speedy

dfwx wrote:

Hello... While trike recumbents are attractive, they are not practical
in many applications. My fantasy bike is a prone recumbent, but have
only found one ever build in searching the Internet. It was a simplistic
design of a recumbent UK fan, commented that it was quite fast (as in
very), but that the rider needed to lay higher for better balance.
Recumbents (2 wheelers) as they are look odd to me (beauty in eye of
beholder) - but also having been a cyclists and motorcylists going on 35
years, I do not care for the easy chair recumbent sitting position.
Anyone out there ever hear of or know anything of prone recumbent
bicycles (I suppose prose recumbent is a contradiction in terms but I
think recumbent folks know what I mean.) I invision it with short,
simple turn-down handle bars for the cyclist to pull tight into the
mini-fairing - a small, old cafe-style fairing smoothing air flow just
for cyclist's head, shoulders and arms, and larger rear wheel (36 inch)
with the pedals substantially higher from the ground... With current
materials, weight would seem to likely come in around 40 pounds with
fairing and using steel bike framing for the frame. Obviously it would
be long (ttl 8 feet+) but could telescope down for storage, transporting
and mass transit (or be take-apart). And it would look fast - and
probably be so on the principle of it. The one I read of (UK) was a
50+mph bike on level good pavement and dead air with no fairing and made
just by cutting apart a steel diamond frame and extending it - with a
curved chest platform for the rider to lay on on the frame rail. I can
not find that website, it was green. Any of you know anyone who has
played with or tried to make a prone recumbent 2 wheeler? Diamond frames
have always struck me as a fair study in inefficiency.

Mark

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