They’re supposed to be better for people with back problems in that they let the spine keep a more natural, reclined posture. Some people with back problems can’t ride road bikes at all.
Also, separate from back problems, just getting old makes you lose flexibility and again the aero road posture becomes (even more) uncomfortable. I can see why being able to recline would be attractive.
Plus, people like to be unique.
No, they were called mopds.
I am a bicycle snob.
Well, at least the author is honest. I’ve been an avid cyclist since I was a kid (as in, my first century ride was in grade school) and even I don’t pretend to have this sort of spiritual connection to bicycles. It’s fun, it’s often more convenient than driving, and as long as you aren’t being a rude asshole you’re helping clear the streets of traffic, which makes everyone’s life a little easier.
This judgmental “pecking order” crap is in skating culture too. I’ve been doing that since I was a kid too and I’ll fucking mall grab if I want to.
Uugh, 5 seconds before me. Gotta be quick in this game.
In the cycling pecking order, e-bikes reside somewhere just above a recumbent, but just below driving around with the AC blasting out the open windows of our diesel belching pick-up.
This depends on local circumstances. In San Francisco, with the hills, e-bikes have become ubiquitous in the last few years. Tons of serious bike people have become converts as they age into kids, cargo bikes, needing to commute to new biz districts in parts of the city not served by fast transit, etc. I think the stigma here is basically gone.
For those who use imperial units, 32kmh = 20mph, and 40kmh = 24.8 mph.
Those numbers only really work for people on road bikes with skinny tires and ideal conditions. That makes a huge difference. On a flat stretch of fresh cement I can get a road bike up to 20-25mph fairly easily. Take my big squishy mountain bike, even if I put my commuter/hybrid wheels on it, getting up to that speed is going to take some actual effort.
For the record, I almost never ride the road bike because although it is much faster, it’s boring and overall much less capable than my mountain bike running that set of wheels + tires.
That sounds about right, On my MTB on flat roads i can manage roughly 18mph, ~20 down a reasonable hill (example on my work commute, the downhill part of a flyover on a major roundabout), more than that would require a steep and long downhill gradient. (and be somewhat terrifying 
)
Regarding the wheels, on my old bike i swapped the knobbly tires for hybrid ones (think a central band of slick rubber for roads and the rest of the tyre having many treads) Oddly enough on the new bike, i haven’t felt the need to swap the tyres, seems much faster on the road than the originals on the old bike 
I would think that’s more the aerodynamics at work than ergonomics (and racing is a very different thing than commuting anyway.)
Nevertheless, all good points I was not aware of. (It’s a mental image that gravity helps pushing down the pedals, I can understand how that’s not true, but I think we can also understand the illusion.)
And I’ll just post this here to confuse the debate further:
They avoid uncomfortable pressure on the perineum. If you bike frequently or for long periods of time, a traditional upright leaning forward position can get painful. It can cause numbness, and in extreme cases, damage to important parts of the reproductive system. So inevitably you end up trying all kinds of saddle shapes, saddle materials, saddle padding, etc, until you find one that works for you and your position. A recumbent bike is a solution for many people.
It reduces back strain. The upright position with your back curving forward, and neck bending back to keep your head up, can be a strain on your back and neck, and even your hands on the handle bars. Over short durations it may not be a big deal, but over long periods of time in the saddle, this can be a real pain in the neck.
BUT that being said, I would never ride a recumbent on the road with cars. Since they are low to the ground, visibility to cars is very poor. I have a friend who was killed riding a recumbent in the shoulder of the road, because a car went wide around a bend, and slammed into him. They claimed they weren’t paying attention and never saw him.
The bike world is weird and opinionated. One large segment of bike enthusiasts tends to view anything that diverges from UCI racing bike standards as hopelessly uncool.
There are other schools of thought, however…
I use hybrid tires on my mountain bike whenever I’m not specifically riding trails and I like them a lot. I do swap back to knobby ones if I’m going trail riding or if I expect to have to deal with mud or anything of the sort, it has been my experience that hybrid tires don’t work so well on mud. On any kind of loose mud those things will zip right out from under you 
My next upgrade is likely a rear rack and I’d planned on getting a “slow moving vehicle” warning triangle (I ride a lot at night, want to stimulate a large region of retina) to mount on the back. Now I’m thinking safety pizza may be what I need!
Never mind the fact that a commuter is probably going to be carrying more weight. Even the best panniers add wind resistance.
(Ha! I’ve actually been kind of jonesing to see that movie again.)
Can you get those with anchovies? Asking for a friend.
Lights are better. I have a rear reflector that I would love to remove since it interferes with my seat wedge, but it appears that whoever installed it did it the strength of a thousand suns. That being said, reflectors are better than nothing.
Reflectors are great because they can’t run out of batteries. Light are great, don’t get me wrong… but you still need reflectors.
Light/reflector combinations remain partially functional when the batteries run out.
Reflector mounts are typically plastic, why not cut it off?
