Recumbents rule. I just biked 44 miles, and while I'm tired, I have no noticable joint pain of any kind. Next time, though, I need to remember sunblock. And the visor for my helmet. And some snacks.
I got it used off craigslist since I wanted to do more long distance stuff this summer. It's pretty nice, though I've had repeated problems with the rear derailleur.
Have always avoided recumbents - I like the visibility of an upright, and the thought of being in modern SUV heavy traffic on a recumbent gives me the screaming heebie jeebies.
Yeah, that made me a bit nervous too. The one I chose is pretty tall for that reason -- I'm eye to eye with people in normal cars. It's not a perfect solution, by any means. The steering is really twitchy compared to an upright, and it can be really awkward to handle in tight places. But anything over about 10 miles on an upright gets very painful for me, so I ended up avoiding doing much long distance riding at all. A recumbent seemed like the only way around that, and now that I'm used to it I'm not sure they're significantly more dangerous. I haven't noticed an obvious trend in failing to be able to make eye contact with drivers, anyway.
If you keep an eye on used listings, it isn't too hard to find decent deals. If I hadn't bought this one, there was one on ebay in Portland that looked pretty good. You know you want one. :)
The only thing I remember from physiology class at Uni was one of the physiology professors telling us that the only thing we'd remember from physiology class was that you can cycle from Cambridge to Moscow and back on the energy stored in a pound of fat.
I don't know this for sure, but my research indicated that it wasn't physically possible to burn as many calories per minute running as riding: I could get up into the 1200 calories per hour range on a bike if I were willing to be stupid.
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I got it used off craigslist since I wanted to do more long distance stuff this summer. It's pretty nice, though I've had repeated problems with the rear derailleur.
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