An Advantage of Uprights?

posted by Danni

I would never have thought a day would come when I would have to admit that there is an advantage to riding an upright, but being the person of integrity that I am, I must admit that I have found one. You see, on New Year's Day I couldn't resist taking my recumbent out for a ride. It was such a beautiful day and I couldn't think of a better way to start off the year. The ride was amazing even though the roads were wet and sloppy. I had a wonderful time but at the end of the ride my bike was the dirtiest it's ever been.

Unfortunately, just after that ride I got ill . . . REALLY ill. I was 'down for the count' for three weeks. It was not fun. And adding insult to injury was the fact that every time I walked by my bike and saw how dirty it was, I felt even worse!!! My bike had never been that dirty for that long . . . ever! Anyway, today was the first day that I finally had the time to clean my bike.

With a beer in hand (Scott has taught me that it just isn't possible to do a good job cleaning a bike without the proper lubricants ;-) I went to work. Things were moving right along until I got to oiling and polishing the chain. I think the process took twice as long as cleaning the rest of the bike. Although I was enjoying the process, thinking of fun rides I had had over the summer as I worked, I must admit there were a couple of times when I thought that the task would be MUCH less time consuming if I had an upright.

It then occurred to me that if I rode an upright, the task wouldn't have been less time consuming, it would have been non-existent. I don't think I would have gone for a ride that day if I hadn't had a recumbent with which I could ride in comfort while seeing the world around me. What would be the point? Hmmmm, maybe I need to rethink this one . . .

Maybe uprights don't have an advantage. I guess it's all a matter of how you look at things. I mean if I had a shorter chain to clean, I wouldn't have as much time to drink beer while cleaning it!! ;-)

Once again, the recumbent reigns superior!!! Ahhh, I feel better now!