Wider Acceptance

[McWheels]

The central concept, is there such a thing as a Recumbent Manufacturer's Trade Body? Should we try to start one? US only or whole world? What would be the aims?

• To get recumbents as separate classes into as many bike races as can be persuaded
  • Target list? Again, US only?
• To have the UCI ratify Faure's hour record from 1932? Good press to be had with that one and the rest of the world loves a legal battle in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (expensive though it is).
• Recommend a series of standards (as above) with as much flex in them as possible (see Mouton's exclusion in the 60s)
• Coordinate the campaigning from different countries' clubs and manufacturers
  • To put coordinated pressure on the UCI reps from each corner of the globe
• Finally, with my most Machiavellian hat on, to generate human interest stories of how unfair the recumbent ban is on talented and deserving individuals, whether they be disabled or not, and to sell that story to
  • Cycling press
  • Insurance companies associated with cycling
  • Legislative assemblies (members of parliament, congressmen...)
  • Who else can we think of?

Other thoughts: I'm less keen on a single-style standard, there needs to be room to do the unusual and strange. LWB/SWB, doesn't matter to me.

 

[trapdoor2]

I reserve (faint?) hope that an already existing umbrella organization might be so inclusive as to add 'recumbent' as one of their basic categories. In my feeble old mind, that would be the UCI. I would expect this to actually happen in the future (although perhaps not in my lifetime!). Their latest "manifesto" doesn't appear to be as inclusive as it sounds...

I would not go after Faure's record. It is an old injury that troubles the UCI occasionally. Poking it is probably not the best way to start the healing process. Camel's nose under the tent. Get us recognized first. If we can get them to include us as a "cycle", we're 90% there.

I do not think much of legislation. Legislation is generally only viable if there is money in it (for the legislators, of course). You might be able to get somebody to vote for the declaration of a "National "Recumbent Day." If you can get "Talk Like A Pirate Day" (Sept 19), surely you could get "Recumbent Day"...that would be a start. Have a recumbent parade!

Selling the platform (recumbent) is ongoing. We're really still early in the process. Visibility is key, we need more press, more commercial interest. Frankly, recumbents are not exactly news-worthy...simply because nobody is defying death on them (other than the common stuff like riding in traffic). No jumping of canyons, no back flips, no stupid tooth-removing sidewalk tricks. What's up with that?

 

[Zzzorse]

Visibility is key, we need more press, more commercial interest.

Vendetta or Silvio product placement in movies or television would be nice.

On a smaller scale, one of you who is photogenic could ride up on your Vendetta or Silvio and record an intro for the GCN show, Here are some examples, first few seconds of each:

Stop at the correct angle to the camera and the name Cruzbike would be visible and 100,000 or so pairs of eyes will have a chance to think "cool bike" .

 

[trapdoor2]

Vendetta or Silvio product placement in movies or television would be nice.
[snip]
Stop at the correct angle to the camera and the name Cruzbike would be visible and 100,000 or so pairs of eyes will have a chance to think "cool bike" .

LOL. More likely, 100,000 thinking "why is there a handicapped guy on the show?" I regularly surprise people when I get up off the V20 and walk around.

 

[Zzzorse]

LOL. More likely, 100,000 thinking "why is there a handicapped guy on the show?" I regularly surprise people when I get up off the V20 and walk around.

We'll have David do a stoppie.

 

[McWheels]

I reserve (faint?) hope that an already existing umbrella organization might be so inclusive as to add 'recumbent' as one of their basic categories. In my feeble old mind, that would be the UCI. I would expect this to actually happen in the future (although perhaps not in my lifetime!). Their latest "manifesto" doesn't appear to be as inclusive as it sounds...

I would not go after Faure's record. It is an old injury that troubles the UCI occasionally. Poking it is probably not the best way to start the healing process. Camel's nose under the tent. Get us recognized first. If we can get them to include us as a "cycle", we're 90% there.

I do not think much of legislation. Legislation is generally only viable if there is money in it (for the legislators, of course). You might be able to get somebody to vote for the declaration of a "National "Recumbent Day." If you can get "Talk Like A Pirate Day" (Sept 19), surely you could get "Recumbent Day"...that would be a start. Have a recumbent parade!

Selling the platform (recumbent) is ongoing. We're really still early in the process. Visibility is key, we need more press, more commercial interest. Frankly, recumbents are not exactly news-worthy...simply because nobody is defying death on them (other than the common stuff like riding in traffic). No jumping of canyons, no back flips, no stupid tooth-removing sidewalk tricks. What's up with that?

You may be right about Faure, what I really don't have at the moment is a feel for the UCI's groupthink dynamic and whether we're irrelevant or annoying, and what the consequences of an effort to move from one state to another are. It was more in the vein of any publicity is good publicity, but there are probably other ways round that.

There is an ongoing process, each driven by the individual manufacturer, to push the recumbent concept, see Terra-Trike's 'In the News' section. They've been on all sorts of national TV and radio, and good luck to them. I can't help but feel it's a novelty item every time though, hence maybe why Lucia's not been keen to follow that route.

So what we're looking for is influence, not sales directly. That's not so much a marketing campaign as a political strategem. Pretty much all roads lead to the UCI [sic], but picking off a series of the follower organisations would be reasonable in the first phase. Do we have any intel about which ones might be sympathetic? The TTs and races Rojo wins like the California Triple-Crown, what auspices are they running under?

I agree I don't want to legislate the recumbent to a type, and neither do I think there should be a 'controlling mind' behind the wider recumbent push. I think it would be useful to use anything a manufacturer or racer or advocate is doing anyway to make a more coherent impact in the places of most effect, but I wouldn't be asking people to change their marketing schedules to accommodate the same. It's a stated aim of Cruzbike to 'End Bike-ism', what I'm after here is a way to nudge that a little quicker than natural or life-cycle (de)selection of talented but small makers on the periphery.

 

[Balor]

I think that the best chance of finding and exploiting a crack in 'anti-recumbent wall' when it comes to acceptance in 'big sport' is Time Trials, especially - triathlon.
'Bike leg' of triathlon already have relaxed rules when it comes to bike geometry and it has it's own share of 'weird-looking' bikes.
More than that, I suspect (though I have insufficient data to prove it) that triathletes would find transition from DF bikes to bents much easier.
Just a little push may go a long way, and that would be a start.

 

[Gary123]

Time trial IS called the race of Truth for a reason

 

[NeaL]

Maybe the solution is a more longterm approach: Convert more and procreate more; eventually overwhelm the resisters with our sheer numbers of Cruzbike riders.

For my part, I'm currently planning on getting Cruzbikes for each of my three kids this coming Christmas. Gotta raise 'em right, y'know.

 

[trapdoor2]

The USAT controls bike design much like the UCI does. USAT Rule para. 5.11 (c):

"(c) A vertical line touching the front most point of the saddle may be no more than 5 centimeters in front of and no more than 15 centimeters behind a vertical line passing through the center of the chain wheel axle."

That rule (among others) pretty much rules out recumbents. No doubt you might get a local Triathlon committee to allow one but if they're USAT affiliated, probably not.
I dunno about raising kids on Cruzbikes. I was raised on Schwinns...now look at me!

 

[NeaL]

I dunno about raising kids on Cruzbikes. I was raised on Schwinns...now look at me!

I know getting my drivers license was a contributing factor to my decline in bike riding but once my body was full-grown, I noticed that there was a lot of discomfort I began to associate with bikes. There were a few phases when I'd try getting back into it and eventually the soreness in my seat would fade after my body got used to it, but any prolonged interruption in regular, daily biking would lead to hesitancy to resume from having to go through that pain again.

I feel like I've missed out on many years of bike riding, years I can't get back. I don't want that happening to my kids.

 

[bladderhead]

I was raised on Raleigh and Sturmey

 

[McWheels]

Agree the solution is longer term, but I think it needs a nudge to go where we want in any sort of recognisable timeframe. The 2 major strands I see are

1. To get into more events, which Cruzbike will of course win, which is a benefit to us as the community
2. To spread the word more widely, which will increase the market, and allow faster development and cheaper prices in the long run.

 

[jond]

The GCN guys are good fun knowledgable Brits and present well.

Remember seeing one of their how to get aero vids. They quipped if it was not for the uci we would all be riding recumbents. Pic of fast bent followed by Pregnant pause.

there "it" was in one silent moment . It all presented ... even the facts whispered...

Money talks for "it."

So it will take time for enlightenment hopefully very little.

We need some gag famous celebs cycling royalty to ride a v.

Okay Sagan wheelie this.

Lol then trek spesh n giant will get bent doing the bandwagon bent.

For now I fight back by wearing Lycra keeping my beard really really short and consider every week the possibility of shaving my legs......but don't.

I retaliate and kick own goals targeting popular wanker koms on strava. Ha ha

Now any two bikes on a road is a race right but seeing a df well it becomes a serious discriminatory vendetta matter. Ha ha ha fiendishly

So Im a loser because I'm as bad as what I protest despite feeling good for a few minutes linked proportionally to the df cost and riders kit and age of course I can't help being addicted to sugar......but point out I conduct as a gentleman.

I win when a kid gets a kick out of the v

Discrimination I'm guilty. I'm trying to reform. One df at a time....oops sorry I didn't quite mean that and know I am a deadset wanker in Lycra with marsupial pockets on the front of my jersey .

So I smile and remember how wonderful it is to be cycling ......on anything.

That's fair.

And codswallop to ignorance. Viva la difference I think it starts then discrimination.

I hear the guys on off-road unicycles are having a hard time balancing their interests.

Now there is a topic.

 

[trapdoor2]

As long as the big money goes to DF's, recumbents will remain a sideshow. With the balance of power very heavily on DF's, in the short term, winning any major event (even if we could get in) is going to result in either a post-race rulebook change for that race or a cold shoulder and a pile of weasel-words. I was very surprised that Jason finally got his way on the Triple-Crown. There is some intelligence out there...it is just not as common as we would like.

Getting our own classification in the big events is just going to take a lot of time and patience. We have the Ultra Marathon folks...that is an excellent start. We have events like Sebring and the California Triple Crown accepting recumbents for records...we simply need more visibility...and that takes $$$$. Oddly enough it takes $$$$ to make $$$$.

If I had won the lottery this past week, I'd be setting up my own "Tour de Somewhere"...with a very large purse and HPV (probably unfaired) as the only bike form-factor rule. Of course, the personal indoor 1mi velodrome with amenities would be on the list too...

 

[McWheels]

CB have a long and distinguished history of setting records and winning stuff. It's a shame that when the hour record was top billing we didn't jump in and set one faster just to prove a point. Not that we couldn't anyway, I presume we are faster than Faure now, aren't we?

Anyway, this is where the totality of our community would be useful. We set a record, something in the national conciousness, and then we (all of us) go to our local papers, newsletters, websites, magazines, with Lucia's press release (to keep on message). We could even do a hypothetical 'what-if' with the numbers. We have or can probably get close to an idea of what Bradley Wiggins can do in terms of Watts/Kg, we beat his hour record, note our W/Kg, and then transpose his power factor into the known Cda of a Cruzbike. Then we set him the challenge (in the press release of course) to be the fastest unfaired and most comfortable cyclist ever.

There's even a part of me wants to announce that the hour record will be broken by an unknown cyclist on an unfaired machine and give no clue that it's going to be a recumbent. Kind of like the build up to the T50 on Kickstarter, but we have to get it into the cycle press without the CB association to begin with. Kind of backwards intuitively, but generate interest through an outlandish claim and then hammer it home.

 

[LarryOz]

CB have a long and distinguished history of setting records and winning stuff. It's a shame that when the hour record was top billing we didn't jump in and set one faster just to prove a point. Not that we couldn't anyway, I presume we are faster than Faure now, aren't we?

On July 7, 1933, a Frenchman, Francis Faure set a One-Hour record of 45.055 km (27.996 miles) that was faster than the conventional bicycle record at that time. This caused controversy in the world of cycling as Faure was considered a "second-category" cyclist, but his recumbent bicycle had effectively allowed him to win races against professional riders of the time. It became known that the recumbent bicycle design (where a rider pedals in a reclining position) can be faster than the ordinary bicycle position due to the rider having a smaller frontal area (i.e. making a smaller hole through the wind) which lower the wind resistance. In 1934, the world governing body of cycling voted to enforce restrictions which effectively banned the recumbent bicycle from bicycle racing. These restrictions defined the placement of the seat, pedals, handlebar position etc. in relation to the rider's body. Since most commercial cycling was based on what racers would use to race, the "conventional" bicycle continued to be the dominant design. It wasn't until 2006, that an organization called the WRRA World Recumbent Racing Association was created, that recumbent records were recognized again. The current record for is held by a Frenchman, Aurelien Bonneteau who rode 56.696 km (35.229 miles) on July 16, 2014. This distance is further than the UCI Best Human Effort by Chris Boardman of 56.375 km (35.03 miles)

Bonneteau rode on a recumbent (from my recollection ) where his seat was almost 100% flat. And of course Boardman is known for his "superman" aero position (which I think is illegal now as far as UCI in concerned. This goes to prove to to me that a super aero non-UCI upright bike with a super powerful rider is pretty equal to a super aero recumbent with a super powerful rider. These guys are a whole league (or two, or three) about me: that is for sure. I might be able to squeeze out close to 31 mph (maybe 32 on an indoor track). Still not too bad for an old guy. But when someone is riding 3mph faster that you and passes you, it makes you feel like you are standing still!

 

[McWheels]

And here he is: https://goo.gl/images/b25zwr Maybe the hour record would be hard, but with the right rider, who knows.

No doubt this is a hard overall question, never mind the hour record as an exemplar, but should we? will we? And what shall we do?

 

[bazzawill]

Maybe the solution is a more longterm approach: Convert more and procreate more; eventually overwhelm the resisters with our sheer numbers of Cruzbike riders.

For my part, I'm currently planning on getting Cruzbikes for each of my three kids this coming Christmas. Gotta raise 'em right, y'know.

What age are your kids? I am waiting on Cruzbike to release child bikes so my newborn twin boys will be able to learn to ride on bents

 

[NeaL]

What age are your kids? I am waiting on Cruzbike to release child bikes so my newborn twin boys will be able to learn to ride on bents

They're 15, 13, and 11, all born two years apart with birthdays within 27 days of each other. I figure for the younger one, if she's not tall enough yet, to just get a set of smaller diameter wheels with disc brakes.

Child-size Cruzbikes would be great. I'd like to see Cruzbike offer a frame meant for much heavier riders, since I think diamond frame saddles become a much greater problem for those who have more body mass concentrated on so small of an area.

The nearest LBS (Local Bike Shop) which happens to be a Cruzbike dealer also offers those bamboo bikes. I like that idea, and after seeing the bike made by this French engineer and how smoothly she rode off hands-free on it (fast-forward to about 1:36:00 and watch for it), I think it would be awesome if there was maybe a collaboration between Cruzbike and those bamboo bike makers.

Cruzbike is rolling out an all-new T model, a redesigned S, and launching their updated V, all in a close timeframe with eachother, so I'm not expecting anything new from them for a while.