sothach wrote:
> What sort of price do they go for?
Bit upwind of a grand, typically, for something like that. Which still
represents a substantial saving on the sane thing new.
> I'm up for giving bents a go, but
> the price always puts me off, I need a nice Taiwan knock-off.
If you want a cheap one then the Dutch Speedbikes DIY kit may be the way
to go. Peter Amey's built one up and has sounded quite pleased with it
so far IIRC.
http://www.dutchbikes.nl/uk
Otherwise, be aware that although something like the Grasshopper is
expensive you are getting what you pay for. Don't forget it's a serious
bike with full suspension designed and implemented for the road by folk
that Know What They're Doing, and that sort of engineering doesn't come
cheap on any sort of layout. But it's certainly a big chunk of money to
chew, so best thing IMHO is take some opportunity to play on a variety
(Bikefix (London), D-Tek (Ely), Kinetics (Glasgow), London Recumbents
(London, Brighton), Futurecycles (E. Sussex), Norman Fay (South Shields)
Westcountry Recumbents (Derbyshire) and Rainbow (Wirral) are the UK's
principle sellers, and will probably be happy to let you demo, and
Laidback Ligfiets will let you hire in Edinburgh) as that way you can
see what you want.
"Recumbents" come in at least as wide a variety as "uprights", and that
should be seen as a caution for a semi-random buy from eBay: if I bought
a random upright and it turned out I really wanted an urban shopper,
getting a full-on road racer wouldn't do me any good at all, so I'd
suggest being rather more targeted than "a recumbent". Best way to do
that is try a load first, and then decide if it's worth the fuss.
Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net
[email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
