Megan Lynch (she/her)Now That's Interesting! Highlights from Spezi 2025 with our Panel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su6Jhqj68-g #Spezi2025 #Recumbent #BikeTooter @fedibikes @bikenite
YouTube
Another attempt to add upper body workout to lower. https://www.velogym.de/
One thing that I've seen and also heard is that more recumbent trike manufacturers are adding handcycle options to their lines.
If this sticks, it's very good news for disabled riders who need it as the competition will likely bring prices lower. #Recumbent #Accessibility #Spezi2025
Golo cargo quad system by Flevo. Flevo has been in recumbents for decades and worked with Velove to develop the Armadillo. But Velove stopped selling the Armadillo to the public and Flevo seems not to work on that anymore so they had to come up with their own design. This is probably the closest thing you can buy (if you're not a business) to the Armadillo system. (The Armadillo looks better to me, though. I have not ridden either.)
Home - GoLo, delivering the future!
GoLo, delivering the future! revolutionary Comfortable Build to last Modular https://golo.bike/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/golo_render_animation_final_no_logo0001-0696.mp4 The GoLo The GoLo is a unique cargobike platform that is as versatile as it is practical. It combines comfort with cargo capacity and practicality, making it ideal for day to day operations. One of the unique aspects is the low cargo area between […]
The panelists are enthusing about the Cixi chainless system that GoLo and others are using. It allows you to pedal in reverse, which is definitely something trike and quad users need due to not having as tight a turning radius as short wheelbase bicycles.
EDIT: Also has automatic shifting and allows use of regenerative braking (if I understand correctly).
They didn't mention an URL for it, but there was an advanced prototype of the Carbike there and they said it was constantly busy on the test track...very popular.
I think we're seeing a rise of enclosed e-bike/trike/quad ideas in order to get folks out of cars, whether they see themselves as "bike people" or not. There's a segment of the population that really wants an all-weather, inexpensive e-vehicle.
I hope the macho ableist "that's cheating" guys shut up. #Spezi2025 #Recumbent #BikeTooter
If we want to get people out of cars, esp gas cars, old guard macho ableist cycling culture has got to unlearn their ableism and other toxic crap.
If people want a covered bike/trike/quad with e-assist, you should be happy they are going car-light or car-free! Be supportive!
It is a real frontier period in micromobility so there are still things to work out as far as infrastructure, rules, etiquette, etc. but we'll do better if we work together #Spezi2025 #Recumbent #BikeTooter #ClimateChange
Jesse@meganL I love e-bikes as an assist to allow more people with varying abilities to access cycling, but my big concern is the increase in speed, weight and size that e-bikes can allow and the decrease in the 'active' part of 'active transport'.
I worry a bit that e-bicycles will evolve to just become a different kind of car again with similar space and danger problems.
@jessta Again, that's an ableist way of looking at it. Some people need that and it's better that something affordable be available for them that is less of a drag on the environment than cars, esp gas cars, are.
It's one of the things I hate about the "active transport" framing - it gets a lot of its funding from orgs that have ableist and eugenicist aims. Which means it's only a lateral move compared to dismantling ableism entirely.
@jessta I've never met an "active transport" advocate who gave a single shit about my health and about accessibility. Supposedly that's why it's important to be active - my health. It's all concern trolling.
Few of those people signed the petition I had to make infrastructure accessible and ensure accessible micromobility choices and absolutely ZERO of them joined me in the hard work of showing up at meetings, lobbying, etc. for it.
There are and will be growing pains because of how transport
@jessta is changing right now. I have already had problems with pseudo-bikes on cycle paths in Davis.
But working in coalition and figuring out how infrastructure, rules, and etiquette need to change to be anti-ableist, pro-environment, etc works better than hoping the tide doesn't advance or simply joining with car-centric NIMBYs to ban e-bikes, etc.
@meganL The design of a bicycle didn't change much for 100yrs mostly because you have to pedal it. The fact that you had to put physical effort in to moving it naturally put restrictions on the design. You couldn't really go that fast or accelerate very quickly. The bike was relatively light and had to be relatively aerodynamic. My worry is that without these natural restrictions the market will push them to be faster, bigger and heavier and more car like with the only way to restrict this being regulations.
I also worry that this will get so out of hand that there will be additional regulation on traditional bicycles (eg. removal of bikes from shared paths or dense pedestrian areas, and with greater policing and stricter enforcement).
@jessta The design of the bike didn't change much for 100 years because people were bending the knee to Union Cycliste Internationale.
Recumbents are more aerodynamic and they were banned. https://www.bikeroute.com/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews/2013/06/30/best-history-of-the-recumbent-why-its-faster-how-it-came-to-be-banned/
The way to deal with that worry, in my opinion, is to do outreach and build activist coalitions for an anti-ableist and climate-forward consensus instead of fueling the talking points car-centric NIMBYs are already promulgating.
@jessta We have to talk back to the focus on cyclist behavior anyway. On any given day drivers kill and injure more people than any e-cycle rider.