I started riding bikes again regularly a several years ago. What I noticed on longer rides on my mountain bike is that my hands start to go numb after a half an hour or so. To fix this, I got an upright "comfort" bike which did help a lot, but just didn't want to move as quickly as I'd like. The more comfortable I was, the less aerodynamic. And while upright was more comfortable as far as seating, it still wasn't very comfortable.
I've been fascinated by recumbent bicycles for a long time (I even bought a used long wheel base recumbent (LWB) several years ago) and thought that they would solve several of the issues I was having. I'm not afraid to ride weird things (I can still ride my unicycle). Having experienced a LWB, I wanted to try a short wheel base recumbent (SWB).
I started reading about these bikes in depth about 8 months ago. One of the many brands I looked at is Cruzbike. These are SWB that are front wheel drive (the chain drives the front wheel instead of the usual rear wheel). It also has a moving bottom bracket (basically, where the pedals are attached to a piece between the fork and the handlebars). This makes some things more simple and some more interesting.
For one thing, it means that when you pedal (hard), your feet are pushing on the steering. As a result, your arms are more involved. So in addition to riding a Cruzbike being quite a bit different, it means that you can get more of a full body workout and there are theories that this makes Cruzbikes better hill climbers.
So, long-story-short, I got myself a Cruzbike Sofrider. More soon.
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