by Ian Feldman <ianf@ihpva.org>
__o
-\<,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O/ O
Reasons? Does one need a reason to travel?
Still, I had a few. Brace yourself.
In September of 1992 I set out on a month- long
rail journey through Europe with the goal of learning about
recumbent bicycles, and about bicycle technology in general.
Earlier that year, and no small thanks to Steve Roberts' bike- nomadic
lifestyle, I became smitten with an idea of a "lawnchair
bike" and could not wait to possess one of my own. Unfortunately,
where I live in Stockholm, Sweden, there just aren't any
recumbents to be seen, much less to test- ride and/ or acquire
outright. I think I saw one of these "strange" bikes in
town before, but not very recently. So first I attempted to
discover where I could find some such recu-
bikes to test- ride and learn about.
I scanned the
rec.bicycles.* discussion groups on the Usenet for
the "recumbent" keyword, then wrote to the first person, who
mentioned them in print. This just happened to be none other than
Jobst Brandt, a known hardcore
Diamond Frames Are Forever
fundamentalist and a sworn recumbent enemy (or, should we
say, "El Denigrator"?). He was not too fond to have been
taken for a recumbent enthusiast, I can tell you that
much ;-)) ! Talk about starting at the wrong end! Still,
I perservered. . .
Fortunately, soon thereafter
I discovered Torsten Lif on the net (who, by the way, turned
out to have been the opponent of Brandt in that very exchange),
a fellow Stockholmer and an owner of a
Linear recumbent. What was less fortunate was,
that I could not test- ride his bike because of
a sizeable height difference between us. . .
one of us is clearly vertically- challenged (in
relation to the other, not otherwise), and recumbents are much
more icky than upright bikes in respect to the correct leg inseam
size; the bike must fit the rider. But a week or so later
I managed to cross paths with a local Roulandt
(a Dutch LWB [long-
wheelbase] recumbent), one of the first models ever built
in Europe, and do a couple of shaky laps on it in
a parking lot during a Bicycle
Day event.
Then I learned
of Mats Nilsson's existence, a recumbent enthusiast in
Umeå, a town near the Arctic Circle, owner of
5 different recumbents of for me more- suitable size, and
made arrangements to visit him a month later. In the
meantime I browsed through stacks of old bicycle magazines,
wrote the IHPVA, and generally tried to gain as much
knowledge about them as possible. The research stage.
Up to that point I was convinced that
the Dutch Flevobike, by the looks of it the
most technologically advanced of the more- compact
SWB [short- wheelbase] lot, was
the one for me. Reality soon taught me otherwise: as I was not able to ride Mats'
Flevo at all, I had to go back to
square one, start looking for some other cure to my
gallopping
r e c u m b e n t l e s s n e s s.
Then I found out, that the next bike, that had striken my fancy
--a Counterpoint Presto SWB made in Seattle, WA
(USA)-- was available to order only, and there was an
8 to 10 weeks waiting list for it. That
translated to 12+ weeks with shipping, nearly the end of
the bike season here. It also transpired, that the basic
~US$2100 Presto, no fancy components or anything like
that, would cost me in excess of $3000 including
shipping, customs and the local 25% VAT. That was
a lot of money to be spending it sight unseen, especially
knowing that, of the only two SWBs that I had seen
to date, Mats Nilsson's Lightning P-38 and the
FlevoBike, I was not too comfortable on the first
and could not ride the second.
So I decided to spend some of it on
a recumbent fact- finding tour instead, go where recumbents
flock in the Fall before rolling off for the winter (Africa?
Hawaii?), the European Human
Power Vehicles
Championships event, which in 1992 was
held in Münich, Germany. And to combine that with
a visit to IFMA (International
Fahrrad und Motorrad Ausstellung), one of three or so major
European bicycle trade fairs, in Cologne later the same month. In
between these two events, and no small thanks to the hospitality
of fellow HOSPEX
members, and a net.penpal or two,
I arranged to visit several other
places in Europe.
I had a month's Interrail
pass, a bidon full of water, a catchy name for the tour,
and I was wearing prescription glasses. Hit the road!
|