Rhythm Thief
Legendary Member
- Location
- Ross on Wye
Back in 2022, I bought an Optima Dragon SWB recumbent on eBay from a bloke in Selby. (In the same week I'd also bought another bike from a guy in Irthlingborough, near Northampton, so I finished up doing a reasonably epic journey from Ross on Wye to Irthlingborough to Selby and back home; one advantage of having been a lorry driver is that such journeys don't really bother me and in fact, I quite enjoy them. Anyway, I digress.)
What I normally do with a recumbent is spend a considerable amount of time and money customizing it to a spec that makes me happy - dynamo lighting, new tyres, decent quality bits, that sort of thing - before riding it once for a piddling distance then leaving it in the shed to gather dust before selling it a year later at a loss. The Optima was no exception: despite it being much better to ride than my previous recumbent, I rode it once for all of 21km having built a dynamo wheel for it, before proceeding as outlined above.
So once again, I'd owned a daft bike and not really given it a fair crack of the whip. But then, the very machine I'd sold appeared on eBay again! At the price I'd sold it for! The seller even used my photos and description from the original listing! So I bought it back, met the seller at Bristol Parkway and rode the thing home to Ross on Wye.
I'd forgotten just how different these things are to ride, and how setting off is something of a leap of faith when your feet are higher than your arse. But having spent 20 minutes fitting pedals, Garmin mount and the multicoloured flag I had promised my wife I'd fit (it lasted about five miles before the flag blew away), I set off, fortuitously not falling off in front of the crowd at the station taxi rank. I was pretty tense for the first few miles out of Bristol: you really need to be relaxed to get the best out of any bike and I found it hard work at first. But as I got the hang of it and unwound a bit, things got easier. It's not great at climbing, and neither am I, but the descents were great fun.
I was really getting the hang of it by the time I got to the Severn Bridge, and I stopped to chat to a couple on Bromptons. Setting off again, I got it wrong and fell off. Slightly red faced, I picked myself up and remounted, continuing over the bridge and soon distancing the two witnesses.
Through Chepstow, where I walked for a while as I didn't really have enough confidence to pull out of a busy junction onto the A48. I crossed the old bridge and climbed the only real hill of the day - slowly - before hitting the start of the Wye Valley Greenway, the old railway paths which runs up to Tintern via Tidenham Tunnel. It's a great ride, marred only slightly by falling off again in Tintern while setting off from a junction. In front of witnesses ("you alright, mate?"), obviously.
A stretch of main road up to Bigsweir next, followed by lanes and then another bit of old railway, where I managed to fall off twice more. No witnesses this time, although four offs in one ride is four more than I'm used to and, it turns out, one more than is compatible with retaining my sense of humour about it. Be that as it may, it was a pleasant ride up to Redbrook, where I manfully went past, rather than into, the pub on the banks of the Wye.
Over the old railway bridge (on foot and pushing the bike) and then across the main road and back onto the old railway all the way to Wyesham on the edge of Monmouth. This bit has not been converted to a bike path and was pretty rough in places. My lack of familiarity with the riding position, and my lack of confidence, led to me walking a couple of sections I'd have ridden without a second thought on my gravel bike.
Through Wyesham, past a kid in a Gruffalo costume with his mum ("look at that bike! Did you see it?") and onto another old railway bike path up to Symonds Yat. (I am something of a rail enthusiast and I love riding the old lines.) Some sections were a bit rough for road tyres, and my rear mudguard expressed its disappointment with my choice of route in the only way it knew how, by disintegrating around a crucial fixture and rattling at a volume incompatible with tranquil enjoyment of the remaining miles. On the plus side, it was no longer necessary to issue verbal warnings of my approach to slower riders. I made it as far as Symonds Yat, where there is a great pub, and this time I failed to resist the lure of a cold pint and the offer of a lift home from my wife. A lot of my A to B rides seem to end this way.
So that was that. 58km, some bruises to my dignity (and one gash on my left shin from a chainring) and some aching muscles from the unfamiliar pedalling position. On the plus side, that's the longest recumbent ride I've ever done, I think. The limiting factor in my longer rides, increasingly, is my wrists and shoulders when I'm on an upright, and I'm pleased to find that there's barely a trace of pain there when on the recumbent. If I can stop falling off the bloody thing, I might even do more than one ride on it before selling it again.
First pic is from the one and only ride I did the first time I owned it. Second is in the station car park before setting off; note the shiny new rainbow flag, and note that it's disappeared by the time I got to the Severn Bridge and took the third pic.
What I normally do with a recumbent is spend a considerable amount of time and money customizing it to a spec that makes me happy - dynamo lighting, new tyres, decent quality bits, that sort of thing - before riding it once for a piddling distance then leaving it in the shed to gather dust before selling it a year later at a loss. The Optima was no exception: despite it being much better to ride than my previous recumbent, I rode it once for all of 21km having built a dynamo wheel for it, before proceeding as outlined above.
So once again, I'd owned a daft bike and not really given it a fair crack of the whip. But then, the very machine I'd sold appeared on eBay again! At the price I'd sold it for! The seller even used my photos and description from the original listing! So I bought it back, met the seller at Bristol Parkway and rode the thing home to Ross on Wye.
I'd forgotten just how different these things are to ride, and how setting off is something of a leap of faith when your feet are higher than your arse. But having spent 20 minutes fitting pedals, Garmin mount and the multicoloured flag I had promised my wife I'd fit (it lasted about five miles before the flag blew away), I set off, fortuitously not falling off in front of the crowd at the station taxi rank. I was pretty tense for the first few miles out of Bristol: you really need to be relaxed to get the best out of any bike and I found it hard work at first. But as I got the hang of it and unwound a bit, things got easier. It's not great at climbing, and neither am I, but the descents were great fun.
I was really getting the hang of it by the time I got to the Severn Bridge, and I stopped to chat to a couple on Bromptons. Setting off again, I got it wrong and fell off. Slightly red faced, I picked myself up and remounted, continuing over the bridge and soon distancing the two witnesses.
Through Chepstow, where I walked for a while as I didn't really have enough confidence to pull out of a busy junction onto the A48. I crossed the old bridge and climbed the only real hill of the day - slowly - before hitting the start of the Wye Valley Greenway, the old railway paths which runs up to Tintern via Tidenham Tunnel. It's a great ride, marred only slightly by falling off again in Tintern while setting off from a junction. In front of witnesses ("you alright, mate?"), obviously.
A stretch of main road up to Bigsweir next, followed by lanes and then another bit of old railway, where I managed to fall off twice more. No witnesses this time, although four offs in one ride is four more than I'm used to and, it turns out, one more than is compatible with retaining my sense of humour about it. Be that as it may, it was a pleasant ride up to Redbrook, where I manfully went past, rather than into, the pub on the banks of the Wye.
Over the old railway bridge (on foot and pushing the bike) and then across the main road and back onto the old railway all the way to Wyesham on the edge of Monmouth. This bit has not been converted to a bike path and was pretty rough in places. My lack of familiarity with the riding position, and my lack of confidence, led to me walking a couple of sections I'd have ridden without a second thought on my gravel bike.
Through Wyesham, past a kid in a Gruffalo costume with his mum ("look at that bike! Did you see it?") and onto another old railway bike path up to Symonds Yat. (I am something of a rail enthusiast and I love riding the old lines.) Some sections were a bit rough for road tyres, and my rear mudguard expressed its disappointment with my choice of route in the only way it knew how, by disintegrating around a crucial fixture and rattling at a volume incompatible with tranquil enjoyment of the remaining miles. On the plus side, it was no longer necessary to issue verbal warnings of my approach to slower riders. I made it as far as Symonds Yat, where there is a great pub, and this time I failed to resist the lure of a cold pint and the offer of a lift home from my wife. A lot of my A to B rides seem to end this way.
So that was that. 58km, some bruises to my dignity (and one gash on my left shin from a chainring) and some aching muscles from the unfamiliar pedalling position. On the plus side, that's the longest recumbent ride I've ever done, I think. The limiting factor in my longer rides, increasingly, is my wrists and shoulders when I'm on an upright, and I'm pleased to find that there's barely a trace of pain there when on the recumbent. If I can stop falling off the bloody thing, I might even do more than one ride on it before selling it again.
First pic is from the one and only ride I did the first time I owned it. Second is in the station car park before setting off; note the shiny new rainbow flag, and note that it's disappeared by the time I got to the Severn Bridge and took the third pic.
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