A recumbent is a pedaldriven vehicle, equipped with two or more wheels, where one sits reclining backwards on a chair instead of a saddle. The best general link to recumbents is the home page of the International Human Powered Vehicle Association. Another nice general recumbent link collection can be found behind the URL http://recumbents.com.
There are several FAQ files available dealing with recumbents. One can be found in rec bicycles FAQ part 7.12. Another one is the IHPVA FAQ for Recumbent Bikes.
I ride a SWB OSS Greenspeed GBR 20/26 recumbent bicycle. Here is an older picture of it taken in wintertime.
I was in Cologne in 1997 when the World Human Powered Vehicle Championships were held for the second time in Europe. I have here some pictures from that event. Here are some links to some future and past HPV competitions on the WWW.
I went to Roskilde, Denmark in 1998 when the HPV ECs were held there. A few pictures from that event can be found on this page.
I rode the Vätternrundan 2000 on my Greenspeed SWB recumbent. For some pictures of me and Bo Dellensten, Tor Lindberg and Kristian Spolander, the other participating recumbent riders look here.
Who will be the first to pedal faster than 120 km/h (75 mi/h)? This is approximately 1/10 of the speed of sound, so the competition to reach this speed is called appropriately deciMach. The most serious candidates for achieving this price will meet the 1st to the 6th of October 2001 at Battle Mountain, Nevada, USA, to race for nothing less than the World Record. For more information look here.
Some of the fastest racing recumbents are shown on Michael Grafs page (in german).
I have compiled data on rolling resistance of bicycle tires from three different magazines here.
Winning Forbidden is an interesting story about the Velocar built by Georges Mochet and ridden by Français Faure. For more pictures of the Velocar have a look here.
RECUMBENT HISTORY is an interesting story about the early recumbents in the 20th century.
The most famous HPV pioneer in Finland is Reino Karpio who
designed, built and rode an "amfiibiokinneri" (an sociable tandem
amphibitrike) from Helsinki, the capital of Finland to Grisslehamn in
Sweden in 1949. His adventours voyage together with Matti Näränen
has been told many times in the international press, most lately Bike
Culture Quaterly featured an article about Reino Karpios amfiibiokinneri
in issue 18. The three page article without the pictures can be found
online in the BCQ archives
In 1949 prior to Karpios voyage to Sweden the very first international
Finnish HPV competitions with faired trikes were held in Helsinki. One
of the two Swedish competitors was the winner.
Another HPV pioneer in Finland is Jorma Ponkala who also has constructed an amphibian HPV. His has also designed a very interesting solar boat, which is in his active use. This is a short article about his solar boat.
There is a European magazine specialized in recumbents only. Recumbent UK started in 1997.
I have collected a list of articles and books about recumbents. It's mostly in finnish, but some of the references are in english.
