Wednesday, July 12, 2006
The Perfect Bike?!? redux
Okay, folks. Here I am again, talking about biking stuff. (Bored yet?!? lol)
Anyway, above is a pic of the EZ-1 by the Sun Bicycle Company. This is the 'little brother' if you will of the EZ Sport that Kim rides.
In the words of this review article from the Bent Rider Online.com website, this is a good choice for a first time 'bent buyer or someone who wants a good second bike; like me. ;-) (Read the article, it explains what I mean pretty well.)
"But what makes you want one, gC? What makes you think of it as 'Perfect'?!?? Well, I have to be honest: it may not exactly be 'Perfect'. Maybe more of a 'perfect' kind of perfect; if you know what I mean... Let's just say that -for whatever it is that I am thinking that I want at the moment- it is about as close to 'perfect' as any kind of anything can get. ...orsomethinglikethat...
Anyway... the bike:
I have taken one of these bikes out on a test ride a couple of times in the past. And for the most part, it rode pretty good. I must be honest. It does take a couple of minutes to get used to it. Like with most recumbents, you need to get past the thought of leaning forward when you start off on it. 'Sit back and enjoy the ride' is the norm, not the exception with this and most any other recumbent bike. And if you insist on leaning forward while riding this bike? Well, let's just say that the handling suffers a lot until you sit back and then it plays nice really quick like. ;-)
How does it handle, really? Fairly close to an upright (or 'regular' if you prefer) bike, believe it or not. The reason for that I am sure is the fairly upright seat position. It is about as close to your kitchen table chairs as anything you will ever see. AND it is really comfortable too, since the part you put your posterior on is about as thick as a sofa pillow. (Well, some sofa pillows at least...) This ends up making sitting on the seat enjoyable both at the start of your ride, AND after you have been riding for a while. And isn't that why a lot of folks -and you KNOW who you are- give up and bike riding in the first place? ;-) I know that it is one of the reasons why I like recumbents a bit more than uprights... Add that to the list of reasons why I want one of these bikes.
Another thing about this bike that I like is that it isn't really that big of a bike. Well, relatively speaking of course. I looked at the specs for this bike and -with the aid of my Handy Dandy Tape Measure- have discovered that it is about as long as my upright bike is. Needless to say, that I was surprised! I think that the fact that it has a 16" wheel in front and a 20" wheel in back helps it in that department. Methinks that it's relative size compared to Grape and Kim's bike is another of the reasons that I like this bike.
What kind of gearing does it have? Basically, it is geared almost identically to the way that I have Grape set up. Granted, the 20" rear wheel is noticeably smaller than Grape's rear wheel. (FYI: the size of the rear wheel dictates the type of gearing on any geared bike) But amazingly -well, to me at least- once I did the math to figure out the gearing, the numbers between Grape and the EZ-1 were almost identical. Needless to say, I was happy. One less thing that I would 'have' to change if I were to get this bike. There's another thing to add to the 'favorites' list...
What else, what else, what else... Well... methinks that the biggest thing that I like about this bike is the fact that there isn't really that much on it that I would want to change. :-O I know, I know... Sacrilege to my nature and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah... whatever. Like I may -or may not- have said in a previous post -believe me or not, your call- I am not as whooped up about changing things on bikes as I used to be. And let's face it, I have changed a lot of stuff on a lot of bikes over a lot of years. I can safely say that I am at least 98% sure that if I were to get an EZ-1 I wouldn't be terribly quick to change stuff on it. (Of course, there are those 2" wide tires that I have seen that would fit nicely on these wheels...) Anyway, never say never... ;-)
And let's be honest too, there is ALWAYS going to be something or the other that I would want to 'customize' for my own evil purposes: a rear (or under-seat) rack, a computer, lights, fenders, bottle cages, etc, etc, etc... You get the idea. But that kind of stuff is fairly inexpensive. AND I already have most of those things in my part box anyway so... ;-)
The bottom line on the classification of the EZ-1 is this: "Perfect" or "perfect"? Either way it would be a nice little recumbent to have for basic tooling around town just because like. Granted, I still have Grape and it isn't like I 'NEED' another bike. But variety is good and if having a second bike could help me get out and ride more -and I am not saying with any certainty that it would or wouldn't- I think that it would be a good thing.
That is the end of my very long post and I hope that I haven't bored too many of you with it. Thank you for you times and I will blog at you all later!
(Now... time for bed... zzzzzzzzzzz)
# posted by gC @ 8:32 PM 
Comments:
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(Get ready to laugh...) I was thinking something along the lines of "Mighty Mouse", when I realized that name had already been taken. lol Of course, I am merely in the 'Information Gathering' phase of this one. I mean, you have to get something naming it... ;-)
Funny article! Looks like you want to convince someone that you should have it! You were hoping that Kim would read this, weren't you?! lol!!! In a sense, it feels like when DH talked about the XBox 360...
The explanations about the position on the bent bike are helpful, and I think I'd like to try one of these someday.
Take care!
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The explanations about the position on the bent bike are helpful, and I think I'd like to try one of these someday.
Take care!
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