Shopping tomorrow
My knee is really swollen... I was on it too much yesterday (as I am every Thursday), and today didn't help. I'm very frustrated by the stalemate going on. It's healing quite well, but my doctors admit that I am indeed using it too much.
To that end, tomorrow I'll be driving to Mountain View and Soquel to look at a couple of recumbent bicycles listed on Craigslist. The prices are reasonable -- about $500-600 -- and they look like nice bikes. We'll see whether a recumbent in general suits me, and whether these in specific fit me.*
My reasoning is that with a recumbent, the pedals are out front so it hopefully shouldn't require more knee flexibility than I have (90 degrees or so on an average day). I'm not upright, which will help with swelling. Riding will keep my circulation going (no fluids aggregating in the knee, one reason it's so stiff when I sit still) and keep the tendons and ligaments strong. It will also reduce the steady impacts incurred by walking, which I'm convinced is the main reason the swelling has not gone down in the last three weeks. It will also mean I'm not putting 100 miles on my car every day and burning the required gas, which are both annoying me. (I weep for my tires and alignment.)
Besides, I've always wanted one. Someone on lily said that only dorks ride them, but I'm okay with being a dork. (Where's that user icon? Must steal it from tenacious_snail.)
Not a bad list of pluses for that price. Downsides:
Agility. I'm not terribly worried about it, but I'll have to get used to having a longer wheelbase. I don't usually do hairpin turns anyway, so I should be okay. Curbs may take some negotiation, as I can't "stand" to take my butt off the seat, and the frame clearance is lower.
Storage. I'll probably just lock it up well at the Davis train station; one of the local bike gurus said that he's never heard of a recumbent being stolen, as half the people who see it have no idea what the hell it is, and the other half know how hard it would be to sell a hot one. Vandalism isn't usually an issue in town, and the train station is well-monitored.
Transportation. The biggie. With a 55" frame on the one in Soquel, these are long bikes. I can put my hybrid cruiser frame into my car and close the trunk lid, but I'm really not sure that I can feed enough of the recumbent through the back seat cutout to fit it in, even without the wheels on. I'll see. Worst case, I transport it with the pickup truck... though I'm guessing that a certain amount of disassembly and jiggery-pokery will still get it into the Accord. Long-term, I may have to drop the money on a roof rack or tail-hitch rack, assuming it isn't too long to ride crosswise.
Getting it on the train could be annoying, but certainly not impossible, so long as the car isn't packed. BART..... is right out. Having a regular bike on BART is headache enough. A six-foot monster? wow no.
We'll see how I like it once I get into the saddle. Hybrid trikes are more stable and pretty nice for flat riding, but they start at $2,500 even on Craigslist... I want to be damned sure that's what I want before paying that sort of cash. I figure that even if the bike takes a little getting used to before I can start and stop reliably, I'm closer to the ground to start with, right? ;)
* Yes, I have tried to think of every other possible option to spare my knee. Others have brainstormed in an effort to find something else I could do. This is, essentially, my best hope for getting healed up, if it works.
To that end, tomorrow I'll be driving to Mountain View and Soquel to look at a couple of recumbent bicycles listed on Craigslist. The prices are reasonable -- about $500-600 -- and they look like nice bikes. We'll see whether a recumbent in general suits me, and whether these in specific fit me.*
My reasoning is that with a recumbent, the pedals are out front so it hopefully shouldn't require more knee flexibility than I have (90 degrees or so on an average day). I'm not upright, which will help with swelling. Riding will keep my circulation going (no fluids aggregating in the knee, one reason it's so stiff when I sit still) and keep the tendons and ligaments strong. It will also reduce the steady impacts incurred by walking, which I'm convinced is the main reason the swelling has not gone down in the last three weeks. It will also mean I'm not putting 100 miles on my car every day and burning the required gas, which are both annoying me. (I weep for my tires and alignment.)
Besides, I've always wanted one. Someone on lily said that only dorks ride them, but I'm okay with being a dork. (Where's that user icon? Must steal it from tenacious_snail.)
Not a bad list of pluses for that price. Downsides:
Agility. I'm not terribly worried about it, but I'll have to get used to having a longer wheelbase. I don't usually do hairpin turns anyway, so I should be okay. Curbs may take some negotiation, as I can't "stand" to take my butt off the seat, and the frame clearance is lower.
Storage. I'll probably just lock it up well at the Davis train station; one of the local bike gurus said that he's never heard of a recumbent being stolen, as half the people who see it have no idea what the hell it is, and the other half know how hard it would be to sell a hot one. Vandalism isn't usually an issue in town, and the train station is well-monitored.
Transportation. The biggie. With a 55" frame on the one in Soquel, these are long bikes. I can put my hybrid cruiser frame into my car and close the trunk lid, but I'm really not sure that I can feed enough of the recumbent through the back seat cutout to fit it in, even without the wheels on. I'll see. Worst case, I transport it with the pickup truck... though I'm guessing that a certain amount of disassembly and jiggery-pokery will still get it into the Accord. Long-term, I may have to drop the money on a roof rack or tail-hitch rack, assuming it isn't too long to ride crosswise.
Getting it on the train could be annoying, but certainly not impossible, so long as the car isn't packed. BART..... is right out. Having a regular bike on BART is headache enough. A six-foot monster? wow no.
We'll see how I like it once I get into the saddle. Hybrid trikes are more stable and pretty nice for flat riding, but they start at $2,500 even on Craigslist... I want to be damned sure that's what I want before paying that sort of cash. I figure that even if the bike takes a little getting used to before I can start and stop reliably, I'm closer to the ground to start with, right? ;)
* Yes, I have tried to think of every other possible option to spare my knee. Others have brainstormed in an effort to find something else I could do. This is, essentially, my best hope for getting healed up, if it works.