On May 14, 2:41 pm, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° ""twshermanREMOVE\"@THI
$southslope.net" wrote:
On 5/14/2011 4:19 PM, SMS aka Steven M. Scharf, the *self-proclaimed*

World's Greatest Expert™ wrote:
On 5/13/2011 4:59 AM, Duane Hebert wrote:

But there is a trend in Montreal that is starting to concern me. I went
for a rec ride yesterday morning and in 2 hours I actually saw 3 bents..
Now I'm nervous.

Wow, must be a Canadian thing, like poutine. Recumbents have become
rarer and rarer in the U.S.. It was a cute fad, but the disadvantages of
recumbents, especially for vehicular cycling, are so overwhelming that
most of the owners went back to regular bikes.

Yet another recumbent "expert" that knows nothing.

Oh wait, it is Scharf. No wonder then.

If Scharf had a clue, he would know that a recumbent's natural
environment *IS* vehicular cycling, as vehicular cycling does *not*
require jumping curbs and other such silliness (sorry Dan O).


(No sweat :-)

There's nothing about my methods that necessarily *requires* jumping
curbs, etc; I could get around just fine playing car. But versatile
maneuvers are a very handy capability, and more fun.

This caused recumbent manufacturers to go out of business.

Nonsense. Those that went out of business were due to inadequate
capitalization, poor management, personal misfortune, and/or trying to
expand production too rapidly. Several manufacturers are still around
(e.g. RANS, Easy Racers) that started in the late 1970's or early
1980's, and plenty of new manufacturers (e.g. Catrike, Volae, Bacchetta)
have entered the market to replace those that failed.

Recumbents are great for long
distance touring, with several key advantages, but you see fewer and
fewer commuters using them.

Maybe Scharf is just promoting fiction as fact, as is his wont.


Actually I see a lot of people on recumbents in my area (considering
how few bikes I see at all) - almost all of them in town, so
presumably commuting (since they don't seem really recreational or
utilitarian). I kind of think they look rather silly, myself, but I'm
plenty weird.