Climbing on the VK2

While still nursing my road rash from my Saturday ride I headed out on Monday evening for a little climbing. We have a local 8% grade of about 1000 feet grade with a nice University at the top that is perfect for short training sessions. Like many low racers the VK2 can be set up with a narrow preying mantis tiller style handlebar configuration or a U-bar handlebar similar in shape to a city bike handlebar. I ordered the bike with the narrow tiller bar but quickly swapped it over to a U-Bar using a triathlon base bar flipped upside down on a standard 120 mm stem. This configuration allows me to sit up and pull on the bar when climbing or lay back and get more aero on the flat. Every DF rider know that you need to be able to change your body position and hip angle to climb effectively and this is certainly true on a recumbent bike too.

Another interesting issue is gearing. Recumbent riders expound about their preference for lower gearing and spin climbing. I reason that if I can comfortably climb an 8% grade on a road bike with a 39/27, I should be able to do this on a recumbent too - and in fact I found this to be the case. I like climbing with a cadence in the 65 rpm range and I found that as long as I could sit up in a more powerful position and close my hip angle I had no trouble turning this gear on my VK2.

I also found that sitting up drastically improved the low speed handling of the bike. With more weight over the front wheel the bike gets more responsive and requires smaller corrections to maintain balance. On one short 16% grade I was able to leg press my way to the top at a crawl with no instability; the bike handled amazing well as long as I was sitting up. It occurred to me that this may explain why many long wheelbase recumbents use indirect steering.