This year was the first time that I was able to attend Recumbent Cycle-Con Trade Show and Convention, the largest recumbent cycling event in the world, held over the weekend of October 7-9 in Cincinnati, OH. If you’ve not been before, you really need to put it in your calendar now for 2017 - simply it’s a really great event.
The gathering of so many recumbent and adaptive sport businesses in one place just leaves your head spinning with so much to look at, walk round, try out and generally salivate over.
Greenspeed had a large booth with a huge number of models on display, including new production models and prototypes. Ian Sims was also present for the show and seemed to be permanently in conversations with those attending! I also really enjoyed the AZUB booth with a broad selection of models, including a very nice recumbent tandem.
ICE were displaying new graphics and a very nice VTX while Schlitter had a good selection of the carbon Encores, including the new Encore 20. Bicycle Man has done a very nice job with the Linear recumbent bikes since taking over and was also displaying a prototype trike, the Avenue. It seemed that everywhere I looked, there was a tempting trike or bike.
Being part of the recumbent industry, I was fortunate to be able to attend on the Friday dealer/industry day as a non-exhibiting business. This does provide a little more time and space to walk around, compared to the following two days that are open to the public.
Seminars are available on all three days and I particularly enjoyed listening to Pat Franz from T-Cycle discuss installing accessories and the various options for mounting that are possible with their brackets and clamps.
As eye-candy goes, the winner for me was probably the table-top Encore with deep-dish wheels. I hadn’t lifted up an Encore before, although I am very used to my relatively similar (or perhaps distant relative) Bacchetta Corsa, and I found it significantly lighter than my own bike. Second place eye-candy would likely be a Cruzbike; Silvio or Vendetta, they both looked great.
If you’d like to read a little more about the individual brands and models that were on display, Bryan Ball has already produced a nice write-up of the event over at Bentrideronline (and he also took much better pictures than I did, too!). I also tried out several models myself; you can read my thoughts in a separate blog post.
Just make sure you get it into your calendars for next year - October 6-8 2017.