Will 2-Wheel Recumbents Survive the E-Assist Boom?

The topic of 2-wheel recumbent survival is one that I have been thinking about for many years. I'm certainly no expert about 2-wheel recumbents but, from my perspective, I see the recumbent market shrinking and not growing. I've been seeing this downward trend for a few years.  

Gold Rush Long Wheel Base

2-wheel recumbents have been around for decades. Even though these bikes hold multiple speed records, they have never been taken seriously by the cycling world at large. For instance, Maria Parker won RAAM (Race Across America), the most difficult race in the world, on a Cruzbike but this incredible achievement garnered few accolades outside of the endurance and recumbent worlds. 2-wheel recumbent bikes continue to be considered oddities by the mainstream cycling community. 

Maria Parker riding a Cruzbike during RAAM

Recumbent riders are typically reduced to 2 stereotypes. One of the older, pot-bellied, retired man wearing Birkenstock sandals with a long flowing white beard. The other is the ultra-high tech racing streamliner competing at Battle Mountain attempting to break speed records. Neither is a picture most people can relate to.

Battle Mountain Speed Challenge

Everyone who rides recumbent knows how efficient and comfortable they are. Over the decades, many manufacturers have come and gone. I first learned about recumbents in 2005. At that time, Easy Racers long wheel base bikes were very popular and some say they are the finest long wheel base bikes ever made. It was popular to attach a fairing to the handlebars and a body sock covered the bike for added aerodynamics. Like Easy Racers, lots of other manufacturers have not survived.

Rans e-Phoenix

Metabike Mystique

Cruzbike with it's front wheel drive and Jonathan Garcia with his Metabike Mystique and Phoenix have been passed the baton keeping the tradition of innovation alive. Bachetta has been given fresh life by it's new owner, Dana Lieberman of Bent Up Cycles. All of these bikes, as well as many others, are engineering marvels. You can ride for hours and hours in comfort. Even though these bikes can easily climb any hill in their path, conventional talking points continue to, erroneously, insist they can't climb. 

Schlitter Freestyle

Bacchetta (stick bike)

With such fantastic bikes available, why isn't the recumbent market growing? This is a question that many people are trying to answer. We all have our own experiences and this question got me to thinking about what brought me to recumbents.

Socked and faired Gold Rush

Socked and faired in motion

It was 2005 and I really wanted to start cycle touring. I had one very big problem that I needed to solve before I could even consider where I would ride or how long my tour would be. My problem was that I didn't have the strength to ride a 2 wheel bike up and over the hills without walking. I had been commuting to work using a Cannondale and not only did I have to walk all the hills, I had significant neck, shoulder, wrist and butt discomfort after 15 miles.  Being in Portland, a recumbent mecca, I saw a few riders using the Easy Racer bikes on the Springwater trail which was my commute route. After a few conversations, I was convinced the Fold Rush model would solve my problems. For the most part, this bike did solve my problems except for the most pressing one. I still couldn't get up and over the hills without walking. I tried for a year and nothing improved. This is what led me to trikes and, as they say, the rest is history.

I have toured all over the world on my trike. My 1st tour went from Canada to Guatemala. I spent 6 months in Mexico and had a magical time. Since then I have toured on 6 continents and over 20 countries. Buying a trike was probably the most influential purchase of my life.

For the last 2 years, I've been traveling with a truck and RV trailer keeping my trike under the canopy of the truck bed. I've also added electric assist which has given me a lot of freedom. With the truck I can meet anyone anywhere. With the e-assist I can keep up. This combination has made my travels much more social as I meet cyclists while exploring bike trails and paths all over the US.

As I am exploring the US, I am also witnessing an explosion of electric assist upright bikes everywhere I go. It seems like electric assist is the biggest thing to ever happen to cycling. On most of the paths and trails I ride, I see far more electric assist bikes than unassisted.  This got me thinking about how I started touring. I'm questioning if the electric assist bikes that are available today had been available when I started touring,  would I have even entertained buying a recumbent, whether 2-wheel or trike.

Hear me out. 

If I had found a 2-wheel bike where I could ride up and over the hills without worry, I bet I would have jumped at it. We all know how expensive recumbents and trikes are. These electric 2-wheel upright bikes available now are made by much bigger companies and cost less than 1/3 of what I paid for my trike. And that's before adding electric assist to the trike. Most of the stores that offer e-assist upright bikes don't stock recumbents and I doubt I would have had a reason to ever consider them. It's possible I wouldn't have even known recumbents exist beyond weird bikes I would see occasionally on a trail. I expect this is the experience of most people buying the new 2 wheel upright electric bikes today.

All of these new upright bikes have integrated e-assist. The batteries, motor and components have been designed, spec'd and warranted by the manufacturer. Recumbents are just starting to offer integrated e-assist but many still do not. Buying a complete system that you can roll out the door is far more appealing than adding an after market motor system that may void the warranty of your bike.

Radpower 750W step through, $1600

I also know that my tours, had I bought an e-bike, would have looked completely different. So many places where I have traveled no one has ever seen a trike. As I'm riding in a foreign country taking in new experiences looking around in awe, from the locals perspective, I am the most interesting thing on the road. People are honking, giving me the thumbs up and wanting to know who I am. During my last tour in Colombia, my picture was probably taken 20,000 times. None of this would happen riding a 2-wheel upright. And, of course, the route would have been much different because it's not possible to get e-assist batteries on a plane. My tours would have been limited to North, Central and South America which would have been very interesting as well.

When I started touring, few people were riding trikes. Easy Racers was king of the recumbent market. It was unthinkable for people riding 2-wheel recumbents to even consider trikes and certainly not e-assist. Now these same people are 15 years older and almost all are riding trikes with e-assist. 

And that brings me to another point of observation. I'm not seeing younger people riding recumbents, 2 or 3 wheel. The people who attend the Recumbent Retreat are mostly retired riding e-assisted trikes. The demographics of my Youtube channel, (Travels By Trike, Truck 'n' Trailer) is 95% white male and over 65. I've been on group rides all over the west coast and everyone is older. Why don't younger people ride recumbent?

I'm not worried about the trike market because that is clearly growing. Electric assist and the safety feature of trikes is drawing people in and boosting this market. What I'm concerned about is the 2-wheel recumbent market which has already been shrinking. Will the new electric assist 2-wheel upright craze have an even bigger effect on this downward trend? 

Even though recumbents have been around for decades and proven themselves to be very comfortable, much faster and far more efficient than uprights or diamond frames, they continue to garner only a small sliver of the cycling market. Why is it these attributes aren't enough to gain more market share?

When I first got into recumbents, there was a real passion for speed within the community. A Portland recumbent group, OHPV, hosted a racing event every year where you could see the latest innovations. There was also a very influential magazine published quarterly called Easy Racers where you could read articles about what riders were doing to get more speed out of their bikes. I'm not seeing anything like this now. 

I want 2-wheel recumbents to be successful and grow. This niche of the cycling world is where the most important innovation happens. It is where the latest and greatest designs are developed that push the envelope for speed and aerodynamics. Of course, only time will tell.

I would love to know what you think.