What put you on a Cruzbike?

[Mark B]

Personally, I'd been riding recumbents off and on for years. I remember when they first came out with the kits. I remember thinking it was kind of cheesy. The cool kids certainly weren't building kits!

I had been interested in FWD for quite some time. The twist chain FWD never did anything for me, but MBB made sense. The clean chainline with no idlers to rob power combined with the recumbent position made more sense than I would ever have imagined. I had seen pictures of Tom Traylor's bikes and Bill Patterson's bikes. I knew full well it could be done, but the cool kids said it sucked. So, it always sat there in the back of my mind and I think largely because there were no production bikes available. Remember, I thought the kits were cheesy.

A few years go by and I hear about these production bikes that Cruzbike is building. I go and check it out and I see this black beauty of a bike that spoke to me. Nossir, it screamed at me! Well, I checked the price and thought, "no way, no way can I do that. The cool kids say MBB FWD sucks!" But still, it wouldn't leave me alone. I started thinking about the Sofrider. I looked at it and decided it wasn't that much different than the kit bike, when you get right down to brass tacks. So I ordered a kit, built the bike and the rest, as they say, is history. I became so enamored by the Cruzbike that I sold my RWD recumbents to finance my Silvio.

How about you? What put you on a Cruzbike?

Mark

 

[teacherbill]

Had to ask didn't you.

Pain in the shoulders and the bottom is the short answer. As for the Cruzbike, well I could not afford an off the shelf entry bent and found the Cruzbike by accident. For the price tag of 400.00 I could experiment. Well, searching the internet and finding this side and answering emails about people who had the conversion kit(s) I bought one, attached to a huffy frame that was heavy (Pete's) and then an offer came for it and I turned it over to get the conversion bike attached to a girl's framed Mongoose Switchback. The drawing card for it was that it was built around 700 wheels. I figure after modification and re-welding the mongoose I "might" end up with a "poor man's" Silvio (maybe). I have already started to put the pennies away for a Silvio and started my conversations with a LBS to help me put it together. After he saw the pictures of the Silvio on the web site, he gave me some ideas on getting top of the line components off of crashed Treks and Specialized frames from Insurance companies.

 

[JonB]

For me the story is 2 part. First part is going recumbent, and the 2. part is buying a Cruzbike.

The reason for going recumbent is because my MTB was just getting too uncomfortable. I didnt do any leisure riding. Only commuting, and no longer than 30 minutes. Besides a friend had a nasty biking accident, and i felt that recumbents are safer because you sit lower with your legs in front.

The reason for buying a cruzbike was because the other recumbents i was looking at did not allow a child seat, and besides they where quite expensive as well. It is funny how things turn out. I have no usage for a child seat now, since me and my X broke up. And after putting SON and Rohloff on it, the price is now above the starting point of the other recumbents i was considering. Naturally those other recumbents didnt come with a Rohloff, or SON, so that would have raised the price for them as well.

In the end i am pretty happy with my Cruzbike, i cant see any more modifications comming. But i might buy a velomobile so i can stay dry in rain. Unfortunately i havent found a perfect match yet :-(

 

[John Tolhurst]

I was convinced that MBB FWD made perfect sense, I built one, but then I really really wanted suspension. I saw all these cheap suspension bikes around and just couldn't stand the idea that I couldnt have one unless I rode a saddle. Just plain stubborn I guess. So stubbon I stared at those damn forks every time we went into the city, there they were, all these lovely unridable bikes. I stared and stared. Months went by. I kept looking at them this way and that way. It frustrated the hell out of me - how do you put a rear wheel in there. No point rebuilding the crown and you can't splay telescopic forks or they don't work. We'd be walking and I'd stop, looking at yet another cheap and chearful fully suspended bike. I'm sure my wife must have thought I was crazy. Then finally I saw that the rake could be reversed and you'd have the space you needed in the place you needed it for a rear wheel. And then I converted one and put together the first conversion kits. All those early steel frame kits and alloy seats - I hand made all those seats. So if you got one of those, remember it was bent it up by hand in a wee shed on a hot afternoon in Perth. I still have my bending tool. A thick round piece of wood with u bolts holding two heavy short angle irons, to form a kind of duck bill on the end of a lever. I had four prototype seats before I was happy with the shape and strength, but I threw them out. Got a picture somewhere ... once I realised a two piece seat would ship much better I was able to get the form right.

 

[Mark B]

Finally, the mystery of the disappearing "children crossing" signs has been explained! :lol: :lol: :lol: :shock:

Mark

 

[Peder Torgersen]

I started with a used Phantom which was my first recumbent which I still have.
I enjoyed the comfort of a recumbent but I found out I needed another recumbent.
I thought about a Sofrider V1 which had FWD suspension dual 26” wheels.
Would this bike be better on dirt roads and could it be used in winter with winter tires?
This bike was better than expected it became my commuter year round.
Another important thing for me is I can take of the seat pads because it has to stay outside at work.
Then I have a warm and dry seat even if it has rained or snowed earlier in the day.
I liked recumbents so much I also started as a dealer with a friend.
I have never tried a Silvio but have to admit it looks better then a Sofrider.
I can’t picture a Silvio riding in snow and ice.
But if you want a fast ride it blends very well with road bikes and you get a comfortable ride.
If anyone living in my part of the world wants to buy or ask questions on some of these Cruzbike models please contact me.

Peder

 

[trapdoor2]

What put me on a Cruzbike? A predisposition towards being "different", plus an appreciation of well thought-out design.

I have been 'recumbent' now for about 10 yrs. Originally, I bought a fully suspended Mt. bike with the intent to get back into some form of outdoor exercise. Having been off of a bike for ~30 yrs, I quickly found I could no longer stand to have a bicycle seat jammed up my...well, you get the picture. I do engineering research for a living...so surfing the 'net for a solution was like breathing.

None of the 'standard' recumbents really appealed to me. RANS, GRR? Yawn. I really liked the looks of the tadpole trikes and while on vacation in Florida, I got to do a demo ride on a Catrike "Speed"...instant love, it followed me home on the roof of the van. Having put 2-3K mi on the Catrike, I had gotten a nice set of recumbent legs and was aching for something faster...so I found a low-racer (Optima Baron) on ebay and once again, fell in love (even after I fell on the asphalt a number of times!).

Now the Baron is indeed a fast bike...as fast as one would want. Still...it is unsuspended and after my brother's Baron collapsed from fatigue cracking (we suspect the traffic tables in the neighborhoods were just too much for the combination of hi speed and heavy rider), I started looking more seriously at suspended bents. About that time, Bryan posted his Silvio review on BROL. Wow! That one hit all my buttons. It is different, suspended and well thought-out. The more I looked at it, the more I liked it...and, of course, when I saw I could "test" the MBB configuration out with a less expensive kit, I was sending off for one.

I'm hooked...the Conversion does everything claimed and then some. I have put the old Catrike up for sale and will probably end up doing the same for the Baron (to be replaced by a Silvio).

 

[WhiteSilvio]

Mark B wrote:
Finally, the mystery of the disappearing "children crossing" signs has been explained! :lol: :lol: :lol: :shock:
Mark

Well spotted! I knew I'd seen those images somewhere before. And a yellow advisory speed sign. How will we ever know how fast to go around those corners!
John
PS Still you could argue it was all in a good cause. :roll:
I probably wouldn't be riding at all without this seat and the suspension being able to support a rather damaged back (mine). It took a while to get my Silvio, and then another long break while my back was attended to. Finally after nearly two years from order I was finally able to roll those first few wobbly metres, and then I was able to start pedaling :shock: , much to my relief. (For a short time I had thought I wasn't going to be able to master this device, but I knew it was possible; others had gone before!)
And my back has stood up to the last 4500km of riding reasonably well, I guess a testament to the seat and the suspension on the Silvio.

 

[MrSteve]

It was inevitable.
You know and I know that we're preachin' to the choir here, right?
Right!
Anyway....

D.F. bikes, unfortunately, do not fit me.
Anymore.
So there's that.

The front-wheel drive, fully suspended Cruzbike
is an elegant solution for my needs.
(It is all about me.)

I bought my Cruzbike Sofrider sight unseen on the
'Net and modified it to fit me.

It's not perfect, but it fits me and it is paid for.
Oh, it keeps up with the race bikes over longer distances;
that's important to me... for my ego, anyway!

Most importantly?
It's all-day, day in and day out, comfortable.

Ride on,
Ride safe,
-Steve

 

[defjack]

I read Mooses thread at Bentrider online and got a kit.Found out I was going faster on the kit than my new Optima lynxx and I wasn't sliding out either.Beach bike path is full of hairpin turns and sand.What other bike can be made into a no weld recumbent just by changing frames? You can have full suspension,hard tail ,low racer,high racer all for cheap and with the same kit. Jack

 

[cycleguy]

Extreme lower back pain riding a regular road bike. Couldn't move afterwords.

I had then seen a guy riding a recumbent bike around my area and thought "Wow, a recumbent! I hadn't thought of that!" So I started googleing like crazy. And one of the links I found at the bottom of a page was for Cruzbike. After seeing the design of the SIlvio, it was obvious that that was the design for me. No long chain, standard components, ingenious!

It has worked like a charm! No pain after long rides, so much more enjoyable!

Harold

 

[kling]

For me, it was curiosity

I saw a Cruzbike being ridden from the grower's market and then one of my bosses mentioned loving cycling apart from the sciatica she gets. So I mentioned the Cruzbike and looked up the company. An email to Rob led to visiting John Tolhurst where I was soon convinced of the logical design (despite not being able to master the Sofrider in his sloping driveway).

Soon after I put down the deposit for Silvio No. 7... (even though originally I had not planned on buying another bike)

 

[Cruzbike-in-Germany]

Biking is deep in my soul

Sorry to wake up an old, wary thread at 4:11 CET...Still, some Sunday thoughts from my side, as I am very happy to know the Cruzbikes exist.
Biking was a thrill from the very beginning, this freedom, balancing, speed, leaning into curves, doing jumps with an monotube folding bike until it breaks under you... ouch! (80s) But the love for bikes was unstoppable.
So my father gave me the gift of a "racer" bike, 1000 Deutschmarks at the time (1988), featuring Shimano 105. This was the fulfilment of my dreams, I thought, as I did not know better. It was indeed fast, stable, light, but not comfortable so as I would stay on it for days doing PBP. I got accustomed to the thought: well, strange feelings in the hands, neck, lower back and in the private parts are normal. You may go well for 60kms, but afterwards - pain.
Then, when I studied Physics in Mainz, it hit me like a hammer when i discovered recumbents in the - then developing - Internet. I immediately saw advantages: less wind to face, more comfortable riding, relaxed position....
But then the big hammer hit me: there was a shop in my city, I went there and found they were super-expensive - for a student. I could not afford them. Not even half a recumbent.
AND THEN I GOT ANGRY, DEEPLY ANGRY. THIS CANNOT BE, I thought. (Although the guys there were supportive and friendly, this was just not right!)

Over the years I finished studies and got a job and finally could afford one used HP Spirit (2000EUR). I deeply enjoyed the higher speeds, relaxed position, and practically pain-free riding. Also there were nice features that come with expensive bikes: hydraulic disc breaks are really yummy, air suspension puts you on the cloud, DualDrive shifters are really nice. But the HP Spirit has clear disadvantages - as all bike of this sort: too much weight on the back wheel for big riders, too little weight on the front wheel, so you are lost on gravel and sand. And the climbing was slow. I explained it to myself arguing with the high weight of the bike.
(My faired Sofrider with 26" wheels indeed weighs a little less than the HP Spirit with Streamer and 16"/20" wheels - just in my impression, not using a scale)
So I was REALLY HAPPY as I found in November 2010 that www.cruzbike.nl sells NEW recumbents for under 1000EUR in the Netherlands. I saw that using "a normal bike frame" they could keep the price low for the Sofrider / Freerider, and of course, the Conversion Kit. I visited Jeroen and found I learnt to ride them quite quickly, bought a Sofrider V1 and combined it with the V2/K. But I also wanted to promote Cruzbikes in Germany. So I started this site: www.cruzbike.info. I will go on building this site as there is so much to say about the Cruzbikes and hardly anyone knows about it in Germany, imagine 80 million people, most of them rich compared to the rest of the world...

But the Germans also will face rising fuel costs and so the question for alternatives to riding a car will arise more pressing over the next decades.
To me one of the answers to this question is the Sofrider. It costs well below 1000EUR and performs very well. If you need a more relaxed ride, go for the Freerider.
Back to Cruzbike strategy: the idea to set world records and build extremely fast bikes as the Vendetta (I still cannot believe the 16-year old Will Parker rode more than 160km in less than five hours! It is breathtaking!) is just the right marketing for Germany. Many bikers here are conservative, road-biker oriented, and if you can impress the road bikers here with elegant superfast machines, you nearl won, as they still are the opinion leaders for the market. But they are getting older, too, so I assume the Silvio will beat the Vendetta - in terms of sales in Germany.
As I said in the beginning I feel blessed promoting the Cruzbikes - a really well-prized, well-thought product range.

 

[KenM]

My Hands put me on a

My Hands put me on a Cruzbike!
I started riding a DF hybrid when I moved to Melbourne from Tasmania but along with the common aches and pains, which were annoying but not a deal breaker, I was having real problems with my hands. I've had Dupuytren's contractures in both hands repaired by surgery and as a consequence after about 30 minutes riding I'd start to feel pins & needles in my hands and if I rode for more than an hour or two it could take anything up to 3 days for me to get full feeling back in the little finger side of my hands. Nothing I did seemed to fix it. I knew it couldn't be good for my hands and I was beginning to question if I should continue riding at all. Then I saw an article on the Cruzbike on Gizmag which I often liked to browse.

I'd never thought of a recumbent as all the one's I'd seen were too terrifyingly low and the long chains looked like a maintenance nightmare, but the Cruzbike dealt with both these issues easily. Some thinking and a demo from John T and it was then just a matter of getting the money organised. I've not looked back!

On long group rides I often enjoy the stir of asking riders how their neck & shoulders feel, or if I notice a rider standing in their pedals on the flat I'd ask how their backside was feeling.

And it completely solved the hand problem!

 

[Kim Tolhurst]

I had great fun with bikes,

I had great fun with bikes, (another story) but gave up on them as a teenager when horses and the inevitable car took over as prefered transport.
On rare ccaisions there would be rides on friends bike, round the block or into the country for a picnic but no, wont but a bike.

Then in 2004, got to hands on help John T with building his MBB. The first ride wooooo and laughed and laughed, excitement stuff. so as soon as I got the chance collected bike bits from friends and strangers and built one. This was from memory as John lives thousands of kilometers away. Now the first time out I wanted to visit my best friend across town so took the the route down the slope of the main street. All good change up, , change up, faster, change up, faster and soon I could not keep up with the peddles! Everything was whizzing past and through the intersection I flew too intense to use the brakes, (and worried about trying the brakes) The roll out took me to the end of the street and slow enough to peddle again. Like a kid I called to my friend come and see this! "Wah, what have you got there Kim?" He jumped on and did some big wobbly circles in the street hanging on as if it would buck him off! We laughed and laughed and I rode home the back way, not too fast.
Could not keep off this thing and John said it now has a name, and a kit. Six months later it was Christmas and guess what I got?
Yes a Cruzbike Conversion Kit which I put on a $169.oo Bikes R Us, Y frame dual suspension MB. (still got this bike tucked away in a friends shed) Later on I took kits to New Zealand and even South Korea where working and they had lots of great places to ride.

These days my Sorider V2 is used for social rides on the trails, paved and dirt, sometimes mud. Also I have a paper round as a hobby job for excersise and the Sofrider is brilliant for it. (1,500 + stop starts)

Its the Silvio for the road and you know, still the breathing is short and the knees are weak for the first 15-20 minutes especially when starting off with a group ride. Then when all is settled and the warmth comes and my body yurns to move the bike says,"change up".

I really admire the stories from you guys and its great to see all the uses this same machine is being put too.

Living life by the seat of my pants,,,,, but what a seat! cruzin cheers, Kim T.