Yesterday I spent a very entertaining and instructive half day in the company of David Gardiner, of Laid Back Bikes in Edinburgh who specialise in recumbent cycling. I had a few reasons for doing this. There's the interest angle. Cycling lying down is somewhat efficient as you reduce your frontal area. It's also more comfortable as you spread your weight over more surface area, you can take the weight of your hands and you don't have to pull your head up as much. The last two points are of great interest for me. This year I've been suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (almost certainly but not entirely diagnosed) in both wrists and from back and neck problems. Both of these could be caused in part, or all, by my day job; sitting with computers. But neither are helped by the cycling and that's a fact. So the comfort thing appeals.
As luck would have it I needed to be in Edinburgh to do some other stuff (luckily after the sun had gone down) and that meant the opportunity to go and have a look. If you look at the Laid Back website you'll see some odd opening hours but David agreed to open up and let me see what I thought. And, then, perhaps a ride to see how I felt about the machine. I arrived at the appointed time and there was no mistaking my host for the day. His lovely looking recumbent was outside the shop and he was opening up. I suspect I wasn't too difficult to spot either. A man dressed in cycling gear but walking along is probably the potential customer. So in, a wee chat and then "how about you try the recumbent?".
So I did and it wasn't an entire failure but on the day it wasn't for me. Just too odd and too much like I was 8 years old again and learning to ride. The experience for me wasn't helped as I found David's seat uncomfortable to sit in, yet alone try to cycle. I was very wobbly. David said I was doing all right but I think he was probably holding on. It was a very strange experience. But one that hasn't left me going "Oh, no". I think I would like to try it again.
One of objectives of my visit was to see if I even liked lying down whilst cycling. I've never really got on with recumbent exercise bikes, I've always found them uncomfortable too. I've always put that down to bad design, hence the visit.
Back in the shop I could see the other option; a recumbent trike. Far less chance of falling over but with all the benefits of testing the "feet first, head last" position. Davis suggested a trip out to Silverknowes and back to see how it went. A little bit of fettling to get the cranks in the right place for me, a shuffle through the door and we were off. City cycling is not something I do so as well as an unfamiliar vehicle, I was also dealing with unfamiliar roads and shared paths. Luckily David is used to giving guided tours and his instructions floating back to me and his ever present hand signals were great all day. We got through the Meadows, out past the Kings Theatre and onto a nice quiet cycle path. I would not have wanted to ride a two-wheeler though that so the the stability of the trike was ideal. To stop all I needed to do was put the brake on. No worries about falling over which left me to concentrate on the traffic, David, my gears and steering.
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| Starting out - in the Meadows |
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| Survived to the next cycle path |
I was riding an ICE Trike which meant I had under seat steering. It's very intuitive. If you've ever ridden a sledge, or indeed built an old fashioned go kart with string and a crossbar, you know how to steer one of these. The gears were relatively easy too, once I worked out which way the to move shift levers. I did however drop the chain off the front derailleur (it really is at the front - you look straight at it) at one point. But this showed the brilliance of a trike design. Stopping required no panic. Stop, apply parking brake and then unclip. Fantastic. A quick apology to David, who was waiting patiently at the top of a slope, and after fixing the problem I was off again.
All this ease of riding left me able to enjoy the experience. Which was great actually. I grew up in Edinburgh but the never cycled there so all the cycle paths were new to me. Every now and again we would pop up (or down) to join the normal roads and I would know where I was. And then get confused at David's next hand signal indicating another path. We soon reached Silverknowes and a basic but excellent cafe. As any long term readers of this blog will know I do it for the coffee and cake so this was an added bonus. I particularly liked the question we got from one of the other customers "When you grow up, do you get bigger bikes?" I'm sure David's heard them all.
After some refreshments and general bike chat we decided to head off. David suggested extending the run a little (it must have been my talk about riding up to Glenshee and other idiocies) which meant we were going to make our way to Holyrood Park, underneath Edinburgh's iconic Arthur's Seat.
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| Crammond beach |
More cycle paths ensued with me watching David cycle effortlessly on his two wheels while I tried to make it look like my three wheeled machine was the most natural thing in the world. We got an interesting array of glances, stares and other looks. David would announce his presence with a polite bell and I would follow it up with a "slightly wider, coming through". Occasionally we managed two abreast and some conversation. Apart from the odd sight of my feet whirling round and round in front of me, it felt just like any other meet up on the road.
Eventually we popped out on to the roads. As I said before I don't really do city cycling so the amount of traffic was a slightly unusual experience. And then we needed to go along a little bit of London Road. My mirror became much more useful here although I had been checking it regularly as we went along. This one item highlights a big difference between my upright bikes and this trike.
Riding the trike I had much more of a feeling of being in the machine rather than on it. And in the town my riding was much more like driving a car. Indicators would have been great. David decided we should cut down a little lane which meant we had to cross the traffic. This was probably the only time I was a little concerned about my height; the trike is low. Over speed bumps I did occasionally catch my lower heel; I'm sure that's one of these things you just get used to. It was here we were treated to a lovely piece of driving. A big 4x4 slowed and let us cross the other lane. Cooperative driving is always great to see but this really brought a smile to my face.
We'd been working hard enough to get up a sweat (well, I had) and after a trip down the lane and through a narrow gate I had to dispense with my waterproof. Luckily David had room in his rack bag otherwise I might have melted. The problem with the seat is that you can't just stick something like a waterproof up your jersey. I'm not too sure how flapjacks, gels and all the other paraphernalia work on a recumbent. Although the trike was easy to ride no hands, or just with the lightest touch with one. Feeding youself shouldn't be onerous.
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| Arthur's Seat and our wheels |
Getting rid of the waterproof was part of my plan to take David up on a throw away offer of a ride up the hill road on Arthur's Seat. So far we hadn't really done anything remotely serious in the hill category and I wanted to see what it was like. David agreed with the warning that the traffic might be "interesting". But in the end when we made our way across to the hill road we found it closed to cars so it was a non-problem. At the bottom David signalled that I could try riding under the barrier but I didn't understand so I missed my chance of a trike limbo moment. The hill wasn't too bad at all. I know it wasn't long or overly steep but it was a good try out on a first day out. Of course it also gave me the chance to try out a steeper descent. Another warning from came David about carrying too much speed into the roundabout, and it was probably quite wise. It may have been that he wanted to get ahead though!
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| Heading to the hill |
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| Proper climbing |
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| Still going up |
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| Admiring the view from my armchair |
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| What a great day to be out - Dunsapie Loch |
I got a bit confused here when David seemed to turn away from where I thought we were going but he wanted to show me the Innocent Railway Tunnel. I actually found this the toughest ramp of the day. Perhaps I was just getting a little tired. It is one of those very slight inclined drags. Your eyes just tell you that you should be blasting along but somehow gravity grabs at your wheels. Up and out of there and back to the roads. Here we had a definite indication I was getting tired when I mis-judged a traffic light and went flying through as it changed to amber. Quite rightly it earned me a "horn of rebuke" from a driver. My apologies. David, the gent he is, had stopped properly so my punishment was to sit by the side of the road waiting for him. Then it was a short trip back to the shop. And bacon rolls from the cafe next door, nice!
I can't thank David enough for an excellent introduction to the mad world of lying down while cycling.
The ride
I'm really disappointed I didn't take my Garmin and gubbins because I'd love to have the metrics from this ride. But I don't. I think all told we were out for about 2.5 hours and we went about 18 miles. However we weren't riding all the time, and it's not the kind of riding where you get to blast along for hours at a time. So I have nothing to judge it against. But I do know it was fun. This is the route as far as I remember.What's next
I've done one of David's excellent tours and I would advise anyone with even a passing interest in self propulsion to go and try the trike experience. It's like grown up go-karting; that's the only thing I can compare it to.However a good part of the day for me was to see how I like the idea of going recumbent on a more permanent basis. Or at least on a more than occasional basis. And right now that's where I'm stuck. I think I need to answer some questions before I can think about going forward:
- Can I ride a two wheeled recumbent? That's still an largely unscratched itch. I need to find a recumbent where the seat isn't instantly uncomfortable. Maybe just a different size.
- Is the trike good enough for longer solo days on the road? It was great around town but that's not my style.
- Can I be fast enough on the trike?
- Or on a two wheeled recumbent?
What I can say is that distance on the trike gave me no back or neck issues and my hands loved me. No weight on them at all. And the brakes were much less painful to apply. But if I have wrist surgery that might not be a problem at all.
And the other thing I can most definitely say is that riding the trike didn't put me off the whole laid back approach at all. And that just doesn't help one little bit. Watch this space as they say.
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