I'm a bit baffled how we were able to identify the perfect type/brand/model of recumbent for Jeffery's dad, when so little about Jeffery's dad's cycling needs, wants and ambitions were stated. Maybe gobsmacked would be a better description than "baffled". In any case, I'd strongly suggest a road trip to a recumbent shop or browsing Craigslist to find some designs to try. Anything else is mere guesswork, at best, based on incomplete information.
Delta trikes fell out of favor in part because the design is inherently less stable than a similar capability tadpole design. Can the stability of a delta design be increased? Sure, but the more stable design will trade off other qualities. In particular, a well designed stable delta is going to give up significantly on sportiness and fun in the ride quality. All sporty trikes I know of are tadpole design, but not all tadpole design trikes are targeted at sporty riding with low-slung, extremely reclined seats. Here's one example of a more relaxed tadpole: http://www.ti-trikes.com/ BTW, I don't have a dog in this race, and don't even care for trikes myself, but wanted to clear up a misconception. I'm also perplexed by the statement, "recumbents in general aren't awesome for bad knees on hills without a motor." Can you explain further? Recumbents generally don't climb well (quickly) because they're usually heavier and the rider can't stand to mash the pedals to get over a steep section. The only option is to "sit and spin", which is why recumbents usually use lower gearing than upright bikes and, importantly, why they can be easier on knees than a stand and mash geared upright bike. Certainly the fit requirements for any particular recumbent, trike or bike, need to be addressed by the user or his bike shop, which they often aren't. For example, many people find spinning lower gears the way to go on a recumbent and many of those folks find it easier to spin low gears with crank arms that are considerably shorter than they're used to on an upright bike. I always preferred 170mm's on upright road bikes, but even 165's were clumsy when riding recumbent. I'm currently riding 152 and 155mm arms, but lots of recumbent folks are riding much shorter than that (140mm or even shorter) to foster high RPM, low oomph, easy on the knees pedaling. I'd refer anyone interested in this topic to the many discussions on Bent Rider OnLine, where the topic is discussed more than you'd likely care to read. -Jack K. On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 2:22:26 PM UTC-4, Joe Bernard wrote: > > The short answer is that Hase electric sounds perfect for his needs if > he's willing to spend the money. But I agree that trying a non-electric > step-thru is a good idea first to see if he's happy getting some exercise > on a regular bike. In spite of not knowing much about recumbents you seem > to already know the parameters pretty well. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/e0026f5a-2df1-4b8f-a2bd-47afddba32b3%40googlegroups.com.
