Recumbent bikes

I went broad in my first post, obvious in my second, so let's get into a niche and be slightly more arcane in this one. Unfortunately, recumbent bikes are not arcane enough. Their popularity seems to be growing, and in 15 or 20 years, I will probably be forced to saddle up on one myself.

Why would I someday ride something I'm now mocking? If you must be that personal, it will be, I predict, due to prostate problems, since it's usually old white guys you see riding them. And all old white dudes have giant swollen prostates, right?

Look at the guy in the photo. He already rolls on a small recumbent and, from his expression, is fighting a case of Recumbent Envy -- or maybe he's just insecure about the size of his recumbent. He is also wearing slip-on checkerboard Vans, so you know he passed the cool test in 1982 and just kept on pedaling. BTW, the Oompa-Loompas called and want their hair returned.

If you've never seen a recumbent bicycle wiggling uphill towards, say, Mt. Bachelor, you haven't experienced the feeling of wanting to reach out and knock someone over. Often they have orange geek flags waving on a long pole on the bike, presumably for better visibility being all radly low-slung and all. I like to ride my bicycle, too, but if I have to look like that, then, well, no.

And, no, you do not look like you're riding a chopper.

Maybe it goes back to childhood for me. In the late 1970s, all I had was a worn-out Big Wheel, the brittle plastic wheels wearing through from so many then-cool, now-rad asphalt skids. Then along came the Huffy Green Machine, which totally blew away the Big Wheeling 6-year-olds community in my home city. I'll venture to say, just for shiggles, that the choppered-out Green Machine might have been the birth of what came to be called "extreme."

So I guess recumbent bikers resemble, to me, overgrown children on Green Machines. That's it! The problem is with me, not the cyclists who are saving their knees and taints.

I rushed to judge. I take it back.

Just kidding. Recumbent-riding adults are the "take my lunch money" crowd of the bicycling world.

(Photo by Payton Chung via Flickr.)