Bents on Ragbrai
 

Well it was a fun week! 15,000 plus riders, 485 miles, and probably 200 bents.

Among the bents I noticed-

Two "NoComs" - with custom paint jobs (husband and wife team)
A polished TiRush
A classic red Tour Easy with some chrome
Rans Force 5
Lightning P38 - looked older
Lots of Bachetta's - one Aero
Volae's - a few, not too many
Quite a few Visions, some lwb, some swb
Many Stratus and a few V2's
Bike Friday and a Bike Toosday (spelling?)
Tandem recumbents
Many trikes, including several hand-crank ones
A few Bike-E's still plugging away out there
One uni-cycle - yes, he went the whole distance!

Sorry no photos!!!! Too busy saying "On your Left"!!!! Hee hee

I wasn't there, but I know there were at least a couple of guys on Windcheetah trikes.

One of these days I'll make it out to that event.

Not on the list above, but rode one day (Northwood to Cresco) on our Burley tandem and our son was with us on his red RANS Rocket. I do remember lots of 'bents, including some super fast carbon frames w/aero wheels, some 'bent tandems (both 2 wheel and trikes) and some sluggish BikeE's.

At one point, two bents were drafting our tandem and our son had a hard time getting around them until they figured out he was with us. I was surprised we were being drafted because we didn't keep that fast of a pace.

Here's a shot from the back of the tandem...

http://home.mchsi.com/~tornadobass/ragbrai_flight_1.jpg

photo copyright 2005 by Holly

There were two Infinities also. For pictures there is a thread in alt bikes

Here is a picture of myself on Ragbrai and an arm powered trike. I respect the guy on the trike.

http://wydra.home.sprynet.com/selfportrait.jpg

http://wydra.home.sprynet.com/armpower.jpg

Another trike on Ragbrai

http://wydra.home.sprynet.com/bannana.jpg

It's banana man!

Just curious. Do they track in any way of what type of bike was ridden on RAGBRAI and how many of any kind finish if they intended to when they started?

I was one of the recumbent riders on RAGBRAI. I was only able to do the first day. I was the recumbent rider with the bright orange RAGBRAI RIDE RIGHT Ambassador jersey on. I am one of the 108 RIDE RIGHT/RAGBRAI Ambassadors.

For those that I taked to & saw & maybe even spoke with, I appreciate you practicing safe riding skills. I hope you had a safe rest of the week.

I had No vacation time for the rest of the week. But I had a great ride though.

No. They can't even track the participants. There's more unregistered than registered, and there was 8500 registered.

One guy rides a fixie with a sign that says "Gears are for Wimps". He goes the whole way, hills and all.

Another guy rides a bike with no seat - just the post- yes he goes the whole way too.

One guy carried a huge wooden cross, with his water bottle taped to it. I don't think he made it the whole way, but what a statement.

Cripes, that banana costume must get unbearably hot and sweaty. I bet they have to peel it off at the end of the ride.

There were two Trimuters BigWheels; I rode the whole way on my BigWheel. I met another guy on his Trimuter that he had just received the Thursday before the ride. He was hurting a little from lack of previous training on a bent.

It was really great to see so many bents out there. Some of the experienced (many previous years) RAGBRAI riders said that it seemed to be the largest assemblage of bents they had seen. We are beginning to make our mark.

What I especially appreciated was that the DF'ers showed a lot of respect and curiosity for the breed. And a lot of that respect came because we were keeping pace with the pack and not impacting the flow of traffic. We may not be out in the pace lanes but we were there and having a better ride than the DF'ers.

We need to modify his cross and mount water bottle brackets to it. :D :lol: :roflmao:

- Bryan

I heard that he was over-heating and ditched the banana peel on the road; 5 bikes slipped on it and went down.;)

I was there and rode every day. 480 miles on my computer. Sun EZSport CX. I definitely wasn't the fastest out there, but had fun and talked to alot of friendly riders!

The Banana guy did it last year, and it was a much rougher tour. I didn't ride this year, but there were WAY more than 200 bents last year. I was amazed at the number - mostly trikes.

so, have you figured out yet if you are going to go to BRAT this year Greg?

I'm all set, but I have to get clearance from my boss which I will know this next week. Keep your fingers crossed!

cool, keep me posted.
Brat isn't too awful far off now.

Just got home from the North Dakota CANDISC ride. Out of 430 or so riders there were maybe 30 - 50 bents of various types. I've ridden several years now and I think this is the largest percentage yet! I sure didn't get the impression that bents were slower than uprights or ridden by older riders either. They seemed to perform just like DF bikes. Like the upright bikes, the faster recumbents were driven by younger more competitive 'engines' and most of the rest fitted in the whole average spectrum of performance, seemingly more depending on the rider than the type of bike. They seemed to cover the miles about the same as the uprights. One thing that did impress me were the questions that the upright bikers had of the recumbent bikers. Lots of them went home intending to try out recumbents partly because of interest, but a lot because of comfort issues! A lot of questions were why the bents seemed to slow down on hills and were passed by upright bikers, but were passed on the flats and downhills by the same bents. I explained to a lot of upright bikers why I find it difficult to ride mile after mile with an upright because of the difficulty keeping up on hills and keeping back on flats and downhills.
I wonder how many bents will show up next year?

I like recumbents and was amazed at the number of different designs I saw on RAGBRAI. It would be nice if the folks riding those very low ones used flags - like the banana man's, particularly if they are going to be on the faster part of the road.

I see that as a classical example of fault transference. The real problem is, the hunch-bike riders are not looking for something smaller than themselves; which is exactly what they complain about car drivers doing to them. The fault isn't with the lowracers, it's with the people doing a quick shoulder-check instead of a proper full check of the lane in question. I grudgingly use a flag on DALMAC, but only because on that ride everyone is required to have one. Flags are noisy and draggy, and they clutter up an otherwise beautiful bike.

I understand your broader point - that my saying that low recumbents are hard to see is rather like what many of us get irate about when drivers are saying it. (Though I don't get irate when drivers say they have trouble seeing cyclists who go without lights at night or who fly through intersections from sidewalks. And on the left side of the road on RAGBRAI, these might be better analogies.)

Over the course of the week I adjusted to the fact that there might be slow moving but hard to see bikes popping in front of a group or a low slung tricycle drafting me far below where I would normally look for a bike. I realized that riding in a group on RAGBRAI, even a group of experienced riders, is different than riding in a group in a race or training ride.

Still a huge problem on RAGBRAI is the number of very riders who go very fast - at least for awhile - and don't look or signal at all before slowing or changing road position. For those folks, and the people around them, a flag would be a useful courtesy.

coming up from behind, it wouldn't be very likely you would catch a small flag in your field of vision anyhow. If you can't see a full size person laying down on a low bent, why would you be able to see a small orange triangle any better?