Monday, July 11, 2011

Back on Two Wheels and Clipping In

I have been riding my two wheel Vison recumbent when I am up on Quadra Island.  Its a completely different experince from the Borealis.  It's taking some getting used to being on two wheels again.  I have pedals that are a platform on one side and spd on the other.  For my first ride I clipped in and road off without incident.  I rode for about 10 km and then decided to take a short cut on a trail.  When I first turned on the trail I thought about unclipping but the trail seemed pretty good so I didn't.  Well not more than 5 minutes later I am laying in the bush clipped in.  A sharp turn and some roots across the trial did me in.  This may be a gentle message to get an upright bike for this sort of thing!! You think I would learn from this but on the next ride I again ended up on the ground again.  This time it was just forgetting to unclip when I was going too slow and shifting on a hill.  I was pretty casual about it not paying particular attention and just fell over onto the payment.  I prefer the bush its softer.  This would never happen on three wheels.  I have noticed that I am more relaxed in the velomobile not having to worry about unclipping in time.  While I am just as comfortable sitting on the Vision or the Borealis all things being equal I'll take the Borealis.  I must admit that the Vision is still an nice bike in spite of being 15+ years old.

On a ride earlier this year I noticed that I was through the intersecftion(from a dead stop) before the roadies had clipped in.  By the time they caught up I was already at about 20 kph.  The hard part in the velomobile is the slower acceleration  from the low-mid twenties to cruising speed.  Its OK do do a few of these stop and starts on a ride but if you have very many it cuts into your average speed.

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