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I own three recumbent bicycles:
Two of these bikes are centre-pivot steering bikes. I am a huge fan of this
type of recumbent. Read all about it on the site of the
Unoffical Flevobike fanclub
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Flevobikes
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LigfietsPlaza Picture book
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I bought this bike in May 2000. It is my normal touring bike. I also
use it for shopping and going into town.
I used this bike on my holiday trips in Norway and Australia. In Norway I rode about 1000km in two and a
half weeks. In Australia we covered about 2000km by bike in five weeks.
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Learning to ride a Flevobike takes some time, in contrast to almost all other
recumbent bicycles. It took me in total about 5 evenings of practice on a
regular Flevobike. After
that, riding the Racer was not difficult anymore.
I am very enthousiastic about the centre-pivot steering of these bikes. It
makes for a very relaxed ride, as you do not need your hands to steer.
However, there are disadvantages, too. Going up a steep hill you will notice
the lack of surface grip under the front feel, due to the fact that the
weight is transferred to the rear wheel because of the inclination. And with
heavy loads (holiday luggage), the bike can become somewhat instable and you
will need both hands on the steer.
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| This bike was built by Allert Jacobs and John Poot many years ago.
The bike uses the Flevobike centre-pivot steering mechanism to obtain a very low seating
position. It was given to me by a friend, who no longer used it. I spent a lot
of time restoring the bike.
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I rode it in the one-hour race of Cycle Vision 2001 to a nice 40.16km.
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This is my latest acquisition. After renting one for a day in the spring of
2001, I was almost immediately completely hooked to this beautiful machine.
The bike looks very cool and riding it gives a magnificent feeling. So when I
was able to obtain a secondhand rowing bike in September 2001, I simply could
not resist.
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It takes a little time to get used to its propulsion mechanism, especially
keeping the driving cable tight under all circumstances takes some
experience. To continue rowing in curves feels a bit awkward at first and
speed ramps and bumps in the road can give a seasick-like feeling at first.
However, the bike is very stable under all conditions.
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Ligfietscode
One lazy afternoon in 2002 I invented the Recumbent Bicycle Code ("Ligfietscode" in
Dutch). For some reason it became quite popular on the Dutch recumbent
mailing list. Read all about these strange strings of letters and numbers
in the FAQ
(Dutch only).
My code:
BF#26/FL/R OHBpt#42 km3500 kph56 t++ N(+) m b-- o+ f++ w+ e+@
Related projects: the Geek code, the Juggling code
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