When I was at high school, I read some advertisements in local newspapers about the phenomenon "recumbent bike'.
A local cycle-dealer advertised with those bikes.
Not long time thereafter, I read an article about HPV's (Human Powered Vehicles) and the
IHPVA
in the popular Dutch youth-magazine 'KIJK'.
It interested me very much.
At that time, the world of recumbent bikes was simple and plain.
In the Netherlands there was only one type of recumbent bike of only one brand: the Roulandt:
At present, the Roulandt is no more considered as a real recumbent bike, but more as a sitting bike,
because you sit pretty upright on it.
This bike had many 'children's diseases' and designing errors: It was a real pioneer. Eventually the production ceased in 1988.
At that time, I still didn't buy my first recumbent bike, because of lack of money, and because I still had a well-functioning traditional bike.
But as my old student's bike broke down, I made my plans to continue with a recumbent.
Roulandt had ceased, and at that time there were three dutch brands:
M5,
FlevoBike
and Jouta (the latter ceased in 1993).
While comparing these three brands, the Flevobike Bike
and the Flevobike Trike were the most attractive to me,
with their weird steering mechanism with wich you could drive hands-free (see photograph),
with their front-wheel drive, with their possibility to divide them in two parts in a turn of a hand,
and their convertibility from bike to trike and the reverse.
I decided to start with a trike (which was somewhat easier to learn, and which had more possibilities for luggage),
and later, buy an additional bike rear part.
So it was gonna be a trike of FlevoBike.
(to continue: Click on the arrow right at the bottom.)
