The thing is, recumbents are available. Both for casual riding and for racing. I see them around from time to time. And other frame designs have been tried, too. Look at triathlon bikes, where designs have been tried removing the top tube, the seat tube, the seat stay, the down tube, or some combination of those.
I don’t think recumbents have taken off because they actually aren’t very good to ride. They’re great if your goal is to go as fast as possible with as little energy, on relatively flat and straight courses. But they’re awkward going up hill, don’t go around corners as nicely, are a little more difficult in situations where you need to stop-start a lot, and are less visible in traffic. Recumbent trikes might help with that stop-start issue, but probably make it worse with steering through narrow entries and around tight corners.
The variant TT designs just don’t provide any real advantage for normal people, and even the supposed advantage to professional triathletes is marginal at best.
The diamond frame just happens to be a really, really good design. That’s why variants on it are used on everything from TT bikes (well, the majority of them) to the Dutch step-through bike.
@Zagorath@zerakith recumbent trikes are excellent at low speed manouvers, which can be a boon in busy areas where any bike must be walked. I only once tried to corner too fast and that was faster than I corner on a bike anyway.
Hills are fine, in theory better than a bike as you have something to push against. So if you are light and have poor arm strength you can put out more power in a recumbent. Or just someone with legs stronger than that
The thing is, recumbents are available. Both for casual riding and for racing. I see them around from time to time. And other frame designs have been tried, too. Look at triathlon bikes, where designs have been tried removing the top tube, the seat tube, the seat stay, the down tube, or some combination of those.
I don’t think recumbents have taken off because they actually aren’t very good to ride. They’re great if your goal is to go as fast as possible with as little energy, on relatively flat and straight courses. But they’re awkward going up hill, don’t go around corners as nicely, are a little more difficult in situations where you need to stop-start a lot, and are less visible in traffic. Recumbent trikes might help with that stop-start issue, but probably make it worse with steering through narrow entries and around tight corners.
The variant TT designs just don’t provide any real advantage for normal people, and even the supposed advantage to professional triathletes is marginal at best.
The diamond frame just happens to be a really, really good design. That’s why variants on it are used on everything from TT bikes (well, the majority of them) to the Dutch step-through bike.
@Zagorath @zerakith recumbent trikes are excellent at low speed manouvers, which can be a boon in busy areas where any bike must be walked. I only once tried to corner too fast and that was faster than I corner on a bike anyway.
Hills are fine, in theory better than a bike as you have something to push against. So if you are light and have poor arm strength you can put out more power in a recumbent. Or just someone with legs stronger than that
They are trash at going through narrow spaces.