Suspended recumbent offroad?

Anybody ever try riding a recumbent with full suspension on a mountain
bike trail? I was looking at a Cannondale Bent 1 and it looked like it
might be able to handle some offroad stuff.

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al k
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Anybody ever try riding a recumbent with full suspension on a mountain
bike trail? I was looking at a Cannondale Bent 1 and it looked like it
might be able to handle some offroad stuff.

wrote:
Anybody ever try riding a recumbent with full suspension on a mountain
bike trail? I was looking at a Cannondale Bent 1 and it looked like it
might be able to handle some offroad stuff.

As long as the front wheel can climb over an obstacle, you should be
fine. Otherwise, at least a partial dismount is in order.

Depending on your leg length, arm strength and weight, it may be
possible to partially un-weight the front wheel or even do a minor
"wheelie" (I was able to do so on a test ride of a standard frame size
BikeE FX).

I suspect your best approach would be to stick to the trails rated as
"easy" and/or "beginner", unless you want to do a lot of dismounting
and walking.

--
Tom Sherman - Behind the Cheddar Curtain
Post Free or Die!

wrote:
Anybody ever try riding a recumbent with full suspension on a mountain
bike trail? I was looking at a Cannondale Bent 1 and it looked like it
might be able to handle some offroad stuff.

For some values of "mountain bike trail", yes, for others it's a
non-starter. For reasonably benign single track it's not as good as an
MTB but it's still fine: done plenty of this on my Streetmachine, and I
did a fair measure of e.g. disused railways and runs through the woods
on my old fully rigid Orbit Crystal. The owner of Ligfietscentrum in
Briel (NL) has an album of pictures where he took a SWB 'bent on an
offroad tour with a group of MTBers, and he seemed to do just fine.
Note that he despises front suspension and was using rigid forks.

But for anything where you need to be out of the saddle to shift weight
around, bunny-hop etc. it's not going to work...

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/

Johnny Sunset aka Tom Sherman wrote:
wrote:
Anybody ever try riding a recumbent with full suspension on a mountain
bike trail? I was looking at a Cannondale Bent 1 and it looked like it
might be able to handle some offroad stuff.

As long as the front wheel can climb over an obstacle, you should be
fine. Otherwise, at least a partial dismount is in order.

Depending on your leg length, arm strength and weight, it may be
possible to partially un-weight the front wheel or even do a minor
"wheelie" (I was able to do so on a test ride of a standard frame size
BikeE FX).

I suspect your best approach would be to stick to the trails rated as
"easy" and/or "beginner", unless you want to do a lot of dismounting
and walking.

I wonder how it would do on short, steep, technical climbs? Since you
have a low center of gravity it might be easier to find the balancing
point between unweighting the front and rear wheels. I would think the
problem would be not being able to maintain enough speed to keep the
bike upright.

I've never owned a bent, but have been seriously thinking about getting
one. I'm probably not going to get a suspended bike. I'm leaning
towards a Bacchetta Giro 20. I live right next to a research park that
has miles of roads that are empty in the evening. Although I like to go
fast I don't like driving in traffic, I'll take sidewalks, parking
lots, anything to keep from having to drive with cars.

In alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent on 15 Aug 2006 07:02:38 -0700
wrote:

I've never owned a bent, but have been seriously thinking about getting
one. I'm probably not going to get a suspended bike. I'm leaning
towards a Bacchetta Giro 20. I live right next to a research park that

I find it a bit bumpy on heavily tree rooted cycle paths, but other
than that I don't mind no suspension. I like my Giro a lot, although
I don't have much to compare it with. I find it stable, easy to ride
(once I learned the slow turning balance and technique) and
comfortable.

I hadn't ridden a bicycle for some years before I got the Giro and I
suspect this means I had fewer adaptation problems than someone who
has had a lot of cycling experience. THe biggest problems were
learning to start off and slow speed turns. IT takes a while to get
used to the angles and balance of slow speed, and to learn how to turn
without fouling the tweener bars.

Zebee

wrote:
Anybody ever try riding a recumbent with full suspension on a mountain
bike trail? I was looking at a Cannondale Bent 1 and it looked like it
might be able to handle some offroad stuff.

I have ridden my Trek R600 on fire roads and on single track.

The first time on a fire road, immediate flat. Out go the Primo
skinnies forever.

When replaced with thicker and bigger tires (like on a hybrid) it does
ok on flat fire roads without much in the way of sand or obstacles. Can
be a struggle in sand or gravel.

On singletrack, I ended up in a stream. It hurt.

Bottom line - when you ride a real mountain bike you have thick and
deep treaded tires, a very maneuverable bike on which you can use your
weight and strength to do things like wheelies, pulling wheels over
obstacles, etc. You can also dismount cleanly (usually) when about to
crash.

wrote:
Anybody ever try riding a recumbent with full suspension on a mountain
bike trail? I was looking at a Cannondale Bent 1 and it looked like it
might be able to handle some offroad stuff.


Yeah, though not exactly "downhill"...it was interesting, but wasn't a
lot of fun, since there really isn't any "body English" to be applied.
Hard to accelerate, and I was just bouncing up and down (not due to any
design flaw of the bike's).

There's actually a French website with folks doing off-road tricks on a
'bent...google it...if you can't find it, let me know and I'll dig up
the bookmark and post a link here....

msf wrote:

Bottom line - when you ride a real mountain bike you have thick and
deep treaded tires, a very maneuverable bike on which you can use your
weight and strength to do things like wheelies, pulling wheels over
obstacles, etc. You can also dismount cleanly (usually) when about to
crash.

I think you're right. I don't think a bent will work on trails very
well.

I just put a delta stem riser on my mountain bike to raise up the bars.
It's much better, but I still get uncomfortable. I'm in a transitional
phase right now. Not sure if I want to give up my mountain biking, but
a recumbent looks soooo comfortable. The problem is that I am limited
in where I can ride it.