One of the highlights of my week was getting to talk with Randy Schlitter, the man behind Rans recumbents.
Here’s a guy that not only designs bikes, but planes. If you can trust him to keep you in the air, certainly you can trust his bicycle designs. And you can probably expect them to efficiently convert your energy into speed. It’s a passion he’s been pursuing in one way or another since 1974. Although they are pretty well known after being in business for that long, I almost get the impression that he would have continued to build his recumbents, regardless of commercial success, just to continue refining the design as far into the future as he can take it.
At their booth, they had on display everything from affordable commuter type bents, to a disc rear, (Hed?) racing machine that looked* lightning fast just sitting there. And all their bikes are designed to be comfortable as well, a feature lacking in many other designs.
While I’ve heard many people suggest that as America ages, more cyclists will be turning to recumbents, I have to agree with Randy that you don’t need to be suffering from a bad back to enjoy a recumbent – you just need to appreciate comfort and efficient design.
Keep building them, Randy, and converts will keep spreading the gospel of “Getting bent”.
*I know you’re thinking, “Brian, you knob, where are the photos?” Oddly enough, we had two cameras, yet it appears we somehow have no photos of this awesome machine.