It became pretty quiet here on BentBlog.de. I have quite a lot to do in my feed-the-family-job. Nevertheless, sometimes this job is useful for my blog articles as well. When I returned from a four-day meeting in Noordwijkerhout (Netherlands) some weeks ago (yes, that long ago), I managed to plan the route in a way that I could visit two recumbent manufacturers. The first of them was Optima Cycles.
I had told them in advance that I was visiting them with my colleague and boss Gisela; she is a motor-cycle enthusiast and therefore she can well understand my addiction to a certain kind of vehicles. She could just not imagine to ride one of these herself. I was curious whether she might change her mind.
Around noon on a Thursday, we arrived at Optima’s address, Salland 5, Beverwijk, which is located in a commercial park. We had to turn around twice until we understood that the grey, unobtrusive factory building was our goal. Optima Cycles moved there recently and has not yet put a logo, hence, you won’t find it if you don’t know the address. They are sharing the building with another (upright-) cycle-firm and after we were directed by an employee from this other firm, we finally ended up in the Optima-Cycles offices on the first floor where we met Arend-Jan van Lent. If you were amazed by the videos on the net showing the concept of an Optima Baron being folded/unfolded or if you saw this demonstration on the Spezi, you may have seen him already. We had a coffee with the recumbent movie star and learned a little bit about the firm he is working for.
Arend-Jan, who holds a Master in industrial design engineering, joined Optima Cycles recently after having developed the aforementioned foldable Baron in his master thesis. You can read more about this fantastic vehicle below. There is one more industrial design engineer in the team, Yme Boomstra. Another employee, architectural engineer Thomas Ettema was not there as he had to recover from a severe accident riding his fixie bike, all the best for you, Thomas! Further Marcel van Haasteren, who is assembling most of the bikes and Mark Scherpenzeel, the former manager of Airodin France, which used to be Optima’s best French dealer, and who is now the marketing/sales/PR manager at Optima are working for this recumbent firm which is led by CEO Michael van der Meijden.
The most interesting part for a visiting BentBlogger is the hall below the offices. Arend-Jan led us around and showed us the little workshop for metal-works where they build most of their prototypes. They cannot heat-treat the aluminum frames there, so this is not meant to be the production place for “final” models. Nevertheless, it is important for them to see where the problems in aligning the parts prior to the final welding process are or what other handling and production problems may occur. You cannot see this on the screen of your computer aided design workplace. Other things that simply need to be checked in real-life are the fit of parts, product aesthetics and of course product ergonomics. Hence they use this workshop to test this. The final frames are produced in Taiwan, which is – Arend-Jan explained – not only because of the prices, but also because the quality of this Taiwanese firm is extraordinary. Taiwan has become THE country for bicycle frame production, Most of the worlds’ bicycles are produced in Taiwan and China nowadays. Optima is frequently visiting their production site in Taiwan, which was the reason that we could not meet Michael van der Meijden and Mark Scherpenzeel.
Optima made rather few changes on their current models in the last couple of years. Now they dated up one of their most elegant bikes (I know this is my impression, others may see this differently), the Cougar. The main change on this bike refers to the rear fork, which is now produced in a nicely curved shape with a neat mount for the rear shock (see picture). The mount of the shock in the frame also received a fashion upgrade. This 26/26 bike aims for high maneuverability with a relative short wheel base and a – compared to other Optima bikes – rather low seat height. Its weight starts at around 11kg and no special rider weight constraint is given. I saw one of the first (yet the only) new frames in the process of being assembled. Hey guys, when these become widely available, I’d like to have a review model!
I also took place on a Baron Elite (a Baron with a carbon rear fork, and a little higher bottom bracket). This was a huge fun for Gisela, as this machine did have a non-foldable tiller and I am, well, hm, a little short for my weight. So there was rather few space between tiller and aero-belly and it looked kind of odd as I was getting up from the bike again. As a severe contrast I tried to take place on an Orca as well. To my surprise, I could well get on and off this rather high bike – so if you are thinking about riding a high comfortable travel-recumbent and you are not sure about whether your legs are long enough, don’t worry. The inner length of my legs is only approx. 80cm and I would have been able to ride this bike if the noseboom was adjusted correctly.
However, visiting Optima was mainly for two reasons: seeing the foldable Baron live and test-riding the Lynxx, as I thought about purchasing one.
The foldable Baron is in essence a foldable Baron Elite as this concept prototype has a carbon rear end and the more sportive bottom bracket height as well. Arend-Jan’s target specifications did not only consist of a foldable frame of a low-racer recumbent. His aim was to develop a bike which could be folded and unfolded daily in a quick, clean and easy way by a commuter travelling on train. Also, it had to be possible to store the bike at home as compact as possible, fit in a car’s trunk and had to be moveable when folded without having to carry it. He wanted to archieve this by a folding mechanism which ensures that all parts remain mounted to the bike, so you end up with a single package to carry. Well, Arend-Jan did a fantastic job. He demonstrated the folding process some hundreds of times during the Spezi and did it again for us (see video). It takes, without getting stressed, less than 15sec (with some practice even within 10 seconds). The seat is released with a quick release and folded beneath the front wheel, after you folded the tiller forwards. Then two frame-joints are released (and held in alignment by springs, to prevent the bike from uncontrolled collapsing) and you can easily fold the bike. The chain folds quite nicely without being twisted too much. Arend-Jan made up his mind about a further detail as well: you can grab the handle-bar to move the folded package forward; it will roll on the front wheel, thus you can move forward and backward (which would not be possible if it rolled on the back wheel. This is the first folding recumbent bike I ever saw, which I would consider for a daily folding/unfolding process in a home-work commute on the train. A fantastic piece of engineering.
I asked when this model will be available. The answer was that they are still optimising the production process of the frames. The cuts through the frame are not perpendicular, which makes production more complicated. They hope to bring it to market in the course of the year.
Then it was time to test ride. Arend-Jan adjusted the noseboom of a Lynxx for me and I went for a short ride. Optima advertises the Lynxx as an allrounder. Well, this is a good description for this bike. Seat height is high enough to be seen in urban traffic and low enough to easily get on and off. Bottom bracket height is well above the seat, giving a comfortable, yet efficient riding position. Steering the Lynxx is easy – it just behaves as you expect it. It is manouverable in corners but if you lay your hands relaxed on the handle-bars it will also ride very quietly straight ahead. The bike I rode did only have rear suspension, and I came to the conclusion that riding on streets, this is sufficient with this bike.
Returning from my ride, I saw a velomobile standing in a hidden corner in the back of the hall. I first did not realize what it was and asked the guys. It was a Glyde. Optima Cycles is European distributor for Greenspeed trikes – which explains all the semi-assembled trike frames in the workshop – and therefore also for the Glyde velomobile.
Okay, it was time for a second test ride;-) The Glyde looks fantastic – from outside. Seeing the hatch open has something from standing in front of a sports-car. Once it is opened, you wonder about how to get into the vehicle. Of course, this will get easier the more often you did it, but there are quite some places in the velomobile where you should not place your feet. It took me really long to get in. Getting out on the end of my ride was way easier. I just did it as I use to get in or out in a kayak. Hands at the coaming and then lift your body with your arms until you can put your feet somewhere where it doesn’t harm the vehicle.
My only comparable experience with a velomobile was a ride with an Alleweder A4 some months ago, so the absolute value of my thoughts on this vehicle may be limited. I had the joystick steering under control after about four corners, this was no problem. Steering is pretty direct and the vm accelerated faster than I expected. When I heard later that it weighs around 39 kg, I was kind of amazed. However, I did not climb a hill with it, in the region where I live this would be a hard argument against this vehicle. The Glyde has 16” front wheels and this results in two effects during riding: First: It is very manoeuverable, no problem to turn on a usual road. Second: You feel every road hole as the small tires will just drop into it. After a really short ride, I returned to Optima. I oversaw a police car coming from my right on a small crossroads. They would have right of way – but I did not hit them and they did not complain, maybe the vehicle looks just friendly enough;-). There were no mirrors on this Glyde, and I was really missing them. While I could well observe the traffic behind me on the Lynxx, this was impossible in the Glyde. When the hatch opened so I could leave the Glyde, I felt the fresh air around me and realized how humid and warm it had become inside the velomobile though it was nor a long ride neither a fast ride. However it was an experience to ride this bike.
You may remember that we were on the way back home from a meeting and that one more recumbent manufacturer was waiting for us. So we had to leave the friendly Optima crew. This was a nice visit and Gisela was amazed how many different technical issues have to be solved in building a recumbent bike and how tiny and slim all things have to be, compared to a motor-cycle. However, even though she had already taken a seat on a Lynxx as well, she still did not want to ride one.
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