Does your riding position influence the chances of head injury?

[pjclinch]

What you have posted is not a recumbent.

Yes it is, specifically a prone recumbent rather than a supine recumbent.

The feet are in front the rider, the feet are attached to pedals which are orientated in a vertical position. If the front wheel stops the pedals also stop. The feet push against those pedals and cannot go any further. The legs are already bent and braced. The legs take the strain and bike and rider remain as one and stop together. This isn’t theoretical I’ve had this exact same situation.

This reasoning, along with the way I've never gone through a car windscreen, "proves" that nobody ever goes through the windscreen of a car that stops too suddenly. Except they do.

It’s akin to jumping off a flat roof to the ground and bending your legs as you land. But in a more stable scenario. All perfectly absorbed at typical cycling speeds.

But if you're going downhill as fast as possible you're not at "typical cycling speeds".

And even though you can reasonably demonstrate going over the bars on a 'bent probably isn't as likely as on, say, a Brom, it remains the case that going over the bars isn't the only way to get a head injury.

Pete.

[Audax67]

Graeme Obree's Beastie is a recumbent too...


Pete.

You'd have to have a brain injury before riding that thing. And if you were mad enough to mount it, the first good bump would have your lunch all over the front wheel.

[Blondie]

What you have posted is not a recumbent.

Yes it is, specifically a prone recumbent rather than a supine recumbent.

The feet are in front the rider, the feet are attached to pedals which are orientated in a vertical position. If the front wheel stops the pedals also stop. The feet push against those pedals and cannot go any further. The legs are already bent and braced. The legs take the strain and bike and rider remain as one and stop together. This isn’t theoretical I’ve had this exact same situation.

This reasoning, along with the way I've never gone through a car windscreen, "proves" that nobody ever goes through the windscreen of a car that stops too suddenly. Except they do.

It’s akin to jumping off a flat roof to the ground and bending your legs as you land. But in a more stable scenario. All perfectly absorbed at typical cycling speeds.

But if you're going downhill as fast as possible you're not at "typical cycling speeds".

And even though you can reasonably demonstrate going over the bars on a 'bent probably isn't as likely as on, say, a Brom, it remains the case that going over the bars isn't the only way to get a head injury.

Pete.

Nope it’s prone but still not recumbent. The clue is in the name. Recumbent as in recline.

[Blondie]

What you have posted is not a recumbent.

Yes it is, specifically a prone recumbent rather than a supine recumbent.

The feet are in front the rider, the feet are attached to pedals which are orientated in a vertical position. If the front wheel stops the pedals also stop. The feet push against those pedals and cannot go any further. The legs are already bent and braced. The legs take the strain and bike and rider remain as one and stop together. This isn’t theoretical I’ve had this exact same situation.

This reasoning, along with the way I've never gone through a car windscreen, "proves" that nobody ever goes through the windscreen of a car that stops too suddenly. Except they do.

It’s akin to jumping off a flat roof to the ground and bending your legs as you land. But in a more stable scenario. All perfectly absorbed at typical cycling speeds.

But if you're going downhill as fast as possible you're not at "typical cycling speeds".

And even though you can reasonably demonstrate going over the bars on a 'bent probably isn't as likely as on, say, a Brom, it remains the case that going over the bars isn't the only way to get a head injury.

Pete.

Nope, it’s is idiotic to argue that having a head first, high centre of gravity where you perch on the bike has the same probabilities of hitting your head as a feet first, low centre of gravity (below top of wheels), reclined head back position within the bike where you’d have to work extremely hard to be thrown from the bike, let alone hit your head .

[bjlabuk]

Recumbent Bicycle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle#

Prone Bicycle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prone_bicycle

Of course we could look at the Latin root of the word 'recumbent', its Old English or American English use etc etc and its synonyms.

[pjclinch]

Recumbent Bicycle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle#

Prone Bicycle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prone_bicycle

Of course we could look at the Latin root of the word 'recumbent', its Old English or American English use etc etc and its synonyms.

And in the first of those we see...
"Recumbent designs of both prone and supine varieties"...

In https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/grae ... empt-38984 we see Graeme Obree saying...
"I had a prone recumbent (ridden stomach down) which I messed around with in the 90's and it went pretty quick"

I guess anyone doubting him can take it up with him, and it might be quite an entertaining watch if they did...

Pete.

[pjclinch]

Nope, it’s is idiotic to argue that having a head first, high centre of gravity where you perch on the bike has the same probabilities of hitting your head as a feet first, low centre of gravity (below top of wheels), reclined head back position within the bike where you’d have to work extremely hard to be thrown from the bike, let alone hit your head .

You have fallen in to the trap of assuming "if all else is equal". As has been pointed out, all else is not necessarily equal.

Nope it’s prone but still not recumbent. The clue is in the name. Recumbent as in recline.

The Dutch name is ligfiets, "lying cycle". It doesn't specify whether you're lying face up or face down. The English recumbent is not specifically reclining face up.

Pete.

[pjclinch]

Graeme Obree's Beastie is a recumbent too...


Pete.

You'd have to have a brain injury before riding that thing. And if you were mad enough to mount it, the first good bump would have your lunch all over the front wheel.

Obree is famously a bit mad, plus that was built specifically for Battle Mountain which is as close to a billiard table as roads get. Having said that, he tested it round town near his home in (IIRC) west Scotland.

Pete.

[bjlabuk]

And in the first of those we see...
"Recumbent designs of both prone and supine varieties"...

In https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/grae ... empt-38984 we see Graeme Obree saying...
"I had a prone recumbent (ridden stomach down) which I messed around with in the 90's and it went pretty quick"

I notice you only quoted the first few words of that section, which goes on to say that this was in the early days of cycling when classes had not yet been really established.

According to the World Human Powered Vehicle Association (WHPVA):-

http://www.whpva.org/hpv.html

"A recumbent bike is a bicycle with a seat position that is inclined backwards and the bottom bracket and the pedals are attached front."

Far be it from me to correct Graeme Obree though! I wouldn't dare!

[pjclinch]

And in the first of those we see...
"Recumbent designs of both prone and supine varieties"...

In https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/grae ... empt-38984 we see Graeme Obree saying...
"I had a prone recumbent (ridden stomach down) which I messed around with in the 90's and it went pretty quick"

I notice you only quoted the first few words of that section, which goes on to say that this was in the early days of cycling when classes had not yet been really established.

According to the World Human Powered Vehicle Association (WHPVA):-

http://www.whpva.org/hpv.html

"A recumbent bike is a bicycle with a seat position that is inclined backwards and the bottom bracket and the pedals are attached front."

Far be it from me to correct Graeme Obree though! I wouldn't dare!

That's according to the WHPVA. According to the UCI recumbents aren't proper cycles at all... unless you're a handcyclist.
The WHPVA are, like the UCI, creating categories for their particular events, not formally defining things to some ISO standard.

Personally I'll take Graeme Obree's word for it.

But if we want a recumbent where you're not prone but where being recumbent doesn't obviously protect one from head injury relative to being more upright, try this...



And yes, I'm deliberately selecting edge cases, but edge cases are where you start to see cracks in generalised assumptions and then you start realising that generalised assumptions tend to need careful qualification if you're going to make sweeping claims like you're far less likely to get a head injury if you ride one of these. And if one has a generalised idea of "a recumbent" as something like, say, an HP Vel Streetmachine GT then it turns out to be a bit like assuming any "upright" is basically the same as a Dawes Galaxy, and it's just not that simple.

Pete.

[bjlabuk]

That image looks like a unicycle, not a bicycle.

Yes, the UCI banned recumbents from racing in 1934. Recumbent races and records are now overseen by the World Human Powered Vehicle Association (WHPVA) and International Human Powered Vehicle Association (IHPVA). And that was the current WHPVA definition I gave, and I see no reason to question it.

This seems to be an argument over the word 'recumbent' being used as an adjective or a noun.

The Great Sphinx of Giza has the body of a recumbent (adjective ie lying down) lion and the head of a human.

A Recumbent Bike (noun phrase) is defined above as a type or class of bicycle sharing similar characteristics.

A Recumbent Bike and a Prone Bike have different characteristics.

[pjclinch]

That image looks like a unicycle, not a bicycle.

I'm talking about riding position, not the number of wheels.
Riding position is not particularly dependent of the number of wheels.

Yes, the UCI banned recumbents from racing in 1934. Recumbent races and records are now overseen by the World Human Powered Vehicle Association (WHPVA) and International Human Powered Vehicle Association (IHPVA). And that was the current WHPVA definition I gave, and I see no reason to question it.

So you tell Graeme Obree he doesn't know what he's talking about, and I'll get some popcorn in.

But in the meantime, while I imagine distractions in to showing I'm wrong are endlessly entertaining it's missing the point, that point being that assuming a recumbent riding position, even if you assume it to be supine and on a cycle with multiple wheels, doesn't lead to you slam-dunk conclusions about the relative chances of head injury.

Pete.

[bjlabuk]

Shrugs

[axel_knutt]

OED, Recumbent:

"Of a person, animal, or thing: leaning, reclining; lying down. Also figurative."
"Of posture: leaning, reclining, lying."
"Designating a type of bicycle ridden in a recumbent position."

OED, Recline:

"Recumbent"

[pjclinch]

Here's a recumbent, conventional supine compact long wheel base BikeE, and I hope this illustrates that the position one rides in is not an absolute indicator of chances of a crash and how/where the bike is ridden will be a factor too.



No spoiler that he doesn't crash, but was it less likely to have happened with head impact than if he was on, say, a downhill MTB?

Pete.