My latest fun with the Halfbike involved my friend Dee who was with us over the weekend. Dee lives in California and I was quite surprised he hadn’t exprienced the Halfbike before.
As Dee is into bikes, this seemed the obvious thing to do. He has built thousands of bikes over the years and these include basic kids bikes, right through to more exotic bikes (including “kaaarbon feebray” bicycles as he says with his American accent) and his current speciality is tricycles over there in sunny California. He has also built, from scratch, recumbent bikes and so he definitely had the right mindset for the Halfbike. I imagined the designers of the Halfbike would have been just like Dee, experimenting with different components, frame designs and just letting their imagination fly.
It only took Dee a couple of goes before he was wizzing up and down the road on the Halfbike. A bit more practice would have him doing this more confidently especially as cornering was a bit tricky.
On the subject of cornering, I remember also finding this was a skill I needed to learn. The important things are to RELAX and HAVE THE CONFIDENCE to go fast enough to simply lean and let the Halfbike follow your lean and turn smoothly. Perhaps that’s easier said than done but it is very possible!
Dee is a little older than me and blew away my theory that it is easier for younger people to learn riding the Halfbike. Sure you need to be able to ride a normal bicycle but this isn’t the same, it is something you need to learn. Nevertheless Dee got the hang of the Halfbike quite quickly, certainly quicker than when I had my first few goes earlier this year.
We chatted about where you would ride the Halfbike and the use it would have. We both agreed riding in busy traffic would be difficult but on a nice open promenade the Halfbike would be fantastic fun. The nearest we have to that is our very own Busway with its cycle track running alongside.
So, it was really fun getting the Halfbike out for a bit of fun. And that’s just what the Halfbike is about: having some fun. In having some fun, you also learn a new way of moving, use some different muscles, relaxing and knowing people will stop and stare as you can be pretty sure they’ve never seen a Halfbike before.
I know some of my local friends read my blog, so peeps, if you’d like to borrow the Halfbike for some fun, let me know!