How long 'till you get your recumbent legs?

By the way, how do like the M5 carbon high racer? I took a look at the M5 web site, that is one nice looking bent and extremely light. Are the carbon bents as reliable as the carbon DFs?

 

Hi Freddy, now you are getting into my territory. I have been riding a Carbent Sea Dragon now for about 14 months. However, last September while playing with a fast group during an organized century, there was a big wreck with me in the middle and my Carbent broke!

It was sort of a fluke thing and I have already posted here what happened, but Carbon bikes can break either bent or DF. There were pieces of Carbon bikes all over the road that day. The Carbent frame that I replaced my old one with is susposed to be over twice as strong. I am the only one to have broken one of their frames.

Now, as to the strength of the M5 I have no idea. Beautiful bike though, and with a recline of 20 degrees above horizontal for the seat back and a high Bottom Bracket VERY fast, world record fast even.

I think everybody is different as to how long it takes to acclimate to bents. The soreness in the lower front quads is from mashing. I get that all the time when I push big gears, IMO you use a slightly different aspect of your quads on a bent than on a df. If I do spinning drills the inside of my legs get it just like when i rode my df.

the big thing is just ride and enjoy

Ward

 

I got it, used, in August of 2009. So far it's been very reliable and surprisingly fast. Time will tell on the long-term durability. I'm going to try whittling the weight down a bit over the winter. I'm swapping the Rotor triple out for a lighter-weight standard double, and I'm going back to fixed tiller vs the glide-flex arrangement on it now. Hopefully I can get it down to around 22 pounds. A friend has his down to 20 pounds, but he did it by using weight-weenie wheels. I weight too much to do that.

 

okay, you do understand that we expect bike porn

I have debated about trading out the rotor's but I REALLY like them so I'll keep them for now. My Carbent weighs in at 20.5 with the rotor triple and my Corima 4-spoke tubular wheels, just slightly more with my spinergy Stealth PBO's. I highly recommend those wheels, extremely strong, deep aero rims and light.

 

Hmm? What? I didn't already do that? I can't believe I messed up like that!

 

Those curves are sweet and the straight lines are sleek....That is definitely centerfold material! Makes me want to get on and...well ride. Really a nice bike.

 

Both the Carbent and M5 look like really nice and I'm glad to hear that 'bent manufacturers are as competent as the DF builders when it comes to carbon.

My 'bent is a Performer mid-racer aluminium frame with only the fork and seat carbon. It weighs in at 29.5 LBS which for an ex df roadie is a bit hefty.

I need to go through a couple of stages before I'd plunk down the bucks for a carbon bike. First I need to develop some decent recumbent legs which will take another couple of months.

Then I need to get my body weight down to my climbing weight of 145lbs vs a current 154lbs. (I am only 5' 7")

After that I could justify a new bike to myself but the big problem would be to justify another bike to my wife !! Even if I succeeded it would be at the cost of replacing half the kitchen appliances....

 

Hi Keila,

You are probably right about my hydration. I don't have a good setup yet for water on my 'bent. Right now I have a TerraCycle soft bottle holder strapped behind my seat. I can get the bottle out while cycling but returning it to the holder while moving is another story.

The mid-racer seat is pretty low down on my 700c wheel so there is no room for a mountain bike style hydration pack. I did find something called a "smartube" on the web which connects to a bottle and I'll try. For the cool temps of January I can get by drinking once every half hour but when it gets hot here that won't be enough.

 

For carbon hard shell seats, the best solution I've found is the fastback series of seat bags. They are designed to strap either to a side of the shell or right down the middle, depending on which style of bike you have. For my Baron lowracer, I use the Fastback LS (left side.) It holds a 70oz hydration bladder, with enough room left over to stuff in a small frame pump and a couple of basic tools: patch kit and multi-tool. I get spare bladders from Pricepoint.com for something like $4 each and a jersey clip from the LBS. The cheapie bladders do need longer tubing, but that's pretty cheap too. So, when I ride the Baron, I lie down, pull the tube up under my left arm and clip it to my chest. For a century race, I filled it with Perpetuem, and had a bottle of plain water mounted on the top of my tiller. That and an extra bottle of water snagged from a support station was enough for the entire race.

http://t-cycle.com/index.php?main_p..._description=1&keyword=fastback&x=-1008&y=-43

I've used the same setup on my M5, but the single bottle on the back of the seat is lighter and easier to fill. It took a while to get comfortable putting the bottle back in the cage, but it's a piece of cake now.

 

I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the tip.