Cannondale Easyrider

Hi, I was wondering if any one has had any experience with a Cannondale recumbent. Thanks in
advance, George

 

What do you want to know??

 

On 5/8/03 9:32 PM, in article [email protected], "Nathan"
<[email protected]> wrote:

> What do you want to know??
>
>
Hi,

I want to buy my first recumbent and I wanted to know two things:

1) How does the bike compare, with it's 20/16 wheels, to bikes with larger wheels and
2) if people have been happy with their Easyrider after a few months of riding.

I live in Massachusetts and this and two Burley's are the only recumbent that I have been able to
test ride. I do like the looks of the EasyRacer's Tour-Easy, but there is no one in a radius of 150
miles that has one to test ride.

Thanks, George

 

I took a short test ride on the Cannondale and found it uninteresting. Not enough gears and it does
not handle that well. Your best bet would be to test ride as many models as you can and try to do
some hill climbs if you can. I found the Tour Easy the best handling bike of the ones I tested, with
the Sun Bicycles EZ Sport LE a close second. I hope this helps you. Good luck. I know it's kind of
hard to decide if you don't have a dealer in your area. On Fri, 09 May 2003 20:44:09 GMT, George
Newton Jr <[email protected]> wrote:

>On 5/8/03 9:32 PM, in article [email protected], "Nathan"
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> What do you want to know??
>>
>>
>Hi,
>
>I want to buy my first recumbent and I wanted to know two things:
>
>1) How does the bike compare, with it's 20/16 wheels, to bikes with larger wheels and
>2) if people have been happy with their Easyrider after a few months of riding.
>
>I live in Massachusetts and this and two Burley's are the only recumbent that I have been able to
>test ride. I do like the looks of the EasyRacer's Tour-Easy, but there is no one in a radius of 150
>miles that has one to test ride.
>
>Thanks, George

 

There is a bike shop in Old Saybrooke, CT that has many recumbents. I believe that they also had a
toureasy. There is a also a bike shop in Boston that sells recumbents.

 

> Not enough gears and it does not handle that well.

I find your comment "Not enough gears" quite interesting as the C-dale recumbent comes stock with a
27 speed drivetrain. Many recumbents are still coming with 21 to 24 speed drivetrains. The mid drive
arrangement gives this bike a gear range of somewhere around 18 to 116 gear inches. Do you need more
than this?

The handling issue is of course personal preference and what may seem "uninteresting" to you, is
nirvana to another individual. Different strokes for different folks as they say

Edward Wong Orlando, FL

 

Thanks. Do you know the name or where in Boston that bike shop is. I have found Old Saybrooke Ct on
the map and I am going to drive down there to find
it. I would love to test ride the Toureasy. George

On 5/10/03 12:23 AM, in article [email protected], "Jonathan Kaplan"
<[email protected]> wrote:

> There is a bike shop in Old Saybrooke, CT that has many recumbents. I believe that they also had a
> toureasy. There is a also a bike shop in Boston that sells recumbents.

 

781-749-1968 MA-HINGHAM Harbor Cycle (Easy racers dealer). I used to own a toureasy. Great Bike. It
rode very smoothly and was fast. I sold it to purchase my Penninger and Trimuter trikes.

I'll try to find the Boston dealer for you. The one above came from the Easy racers website.

"George Newton Jr" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:BAE26F75.6C3EA%[email protected]...
> Thanks. Do you know the name or where in Boston that bike shop is. I have found Old Saybrooke Ct
> on the map and I am going to drive down there to
find
> it. I would love to test ride the Toureasy. George
>
> On 5/10/03 12:23 AM, in article [email protected], "Jonathan Kaplan"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > There is a bike shop in Old Saybrooke, CT that has many recumbents. I believe that they also had
> > a toureasy. There is a also a bike shop in
Boston
> > that sells recumbents.
> >

 

George Newton Jr <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi, I was wondering if any one has had any experience with a Cannondale recumbent. Thanks in
> advance, George

Be sure to check out the reviews of the bike on Bentrider Online and Recumbent Cyclist News (I
believe the review is in one of their sample issues).

I have only taken the bike out on a short test ride, I found that it was very easy to ride both at
low speed (Definitely a little friendlier at slow speeds than a full long wheel base bike, and
easier for a first time recumbent rider than a SWB bike). I didn't get it up to much speed (maybe
20mph) but found its handling perfectly stable at that speed.

Personally I think as long as you realize that this is not the bike you want to try to break world
records on (unless the record happens to be time spent riding a bike) this is a wonderful (if a
little pricey) first bent.

Another bike with alot of the same features but a bit less pricey would be the HP Velo Spirit (I
think it looks nicer, but that is definitely personal).

--
Bill

***************************************************************************
We'll get along fine as soon as you realize I'm God.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home page - http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~wmchal1
***************************************************************************

 

Hello George....

> 1) How does the bike compare, with it's 20/16 wheels, to bikes with larger
wheels and

Of all the recumbents I drove, the C-dale was the best handling. It was the only one of the sprung
bents that did not bob. Part of the reason for this is C-dale's mid-drive. This device decouples
front pedal torque at the rear pivot joint from making the bob. Most bents have just very long
drive chain.

The suspension system has open a number of roads in south Louisiana that I had abandoned for
bicycling as their surfaces were way to rough for HP tires on a diamond bike. The rough roads are
still energy sapping, but they no longer tear your joints from their sockets.

> 2) if people have been happy with their Easyrider after a few months of
riding

The Easy has been the first recumbent I have owned. Over all I do like the bike, but I find it
somewhat heavy. A better set of tires would help, thought the ones they supply will work on almost
all road surfaces except maybe ice.

Workmanship is excellent probably the best of any manufacturer.

Braking; you almost need seatbelts and airbags! This was also my first bike with a rear disc brake.
Even at 40 mph descent, the C-dale has gobs of brakes.

Besides the tires (maybe the weight), my biggest dig against the C-dale is what I like to call the
'lawyer's pin' at the end of the seat rail. When mounting and dismount the seat from the rail (for
transporting), you must remove/install the seat from the front. The rear pin prevents you from
running the seat off the rear of the bike. It does help prevent someone from forgetting to engage
the seat locks and running the seat off the back of the bike....

I rode the Burleys, and yes I thought they were pretty good too...I just thought the Easy
was better.

One bike I wish I did try was a sprung Rans SWB fully sprung. It looked very interesting, but most
SWB were incredibly twitchy.

Hope this helps, Nathan Gifford

 

william lingo <[email protected]> wrote:
> I took a short test ride on the Cannondale and found it uninteresting. Not enough gears and it
> does not handle that well. Your best bet would be to test ride as many models as you can and try
> to do some hill climbs if you can. I found the Tour Easy the best handling bike of the ones I
> tested, with the Sun Bicycles EZ Sport LE a close second. I hope this helps you. Good luck. I know
> it's kind of hard to decide if you don't have a dealer in your area. On Fri, 09 May 2003 20:44:09
> GMT, George Newton Jr <[email protected]> wrote:

I think you need to define your terms a bit better. Particularly what you mean by not handling well.
Do you mean that the bike is unstable at low speed (Which I found it is very stable for a 2 wheeled
recumbent), at highspeed? Or something else?

While I wouldn't want to do the hilly hundred or the mountains of misery on the C-dale, I thought it
climbed well enough to get up most hills that most riders would encounter in their daily rides.

--
Bill

***************************************************************************
We'll get along fine as soon as you realize I'm God.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home page - http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~wmchal1
***************************************************************************

 

The bike in question has been renamed the Cannondale Recumbent as anything recumbent related with
"Easy" in it is usually associated with bicycles designed by Gardner Martin.

Tom Sherman - Various HPV's Quad Cities USA (Illinois side)