Back in April I bought a recumbent bike and I’ve been riding it at least three times a week since then. Do I like it better than a regular bike? Yes, it turns out, I really do, even though it has a lot of disadvantages when compared to an upright bike. Oh, really? A lot of disadvantages? Well, yes. As a matter of fact, there are so many things I don’t like about this one particular recumbent that I would have given it up and gone back to a regular upright bicycle, if not for the few things I really, REALLY like about it.

The best thing about a recumbent, no contest, I don’t even have to think it over, is that it has a seat instead of a saddle. I have spent many hundreds of dollars over the years buying a wide variety of saddles — wide saddles, split saddles, padded saddles — in an attempt to find some comfort while riding, and although some of them hurt less than others, at the end of any ride over fifteen or twenty miles, every one of them has left me feeling more or less like I got kicked in the butt over and over by someone wearing waffle-soled work boots.

My butt’s a lot happier on this recumbent. I’ve taken it on 30-mile rides that didn’t leave me the least little bit sore — well, my thighs and calves were sore, sure, but I was able to sit down without wincing. I could probably ride a recumbent all day without hurting, if I had the stamina to do that. Not sure I do any more.

My butt’s not the only part of me that feels better. My fingers, wrists, elbows and shoulders feel way better, too, because I don’t have to lean on them while riding a recumbent. I have to lightly hold on to the hand grips to steer, sometimes with no more than my fingertips, but all my weight is on the seat. This is no small thing for a guy on the high side of sixty years old with arthritis coming on.

Also, this recumbent cost me only four hundred dollars. I thought if I ever bought a recumbent, I would have to spend upwards of twelve hundred dollars (and even that’s wishful thinking), but I lucked out and found this one on Facebook marketplace. The previous owner had just upgraded to a three-wheeled recumbent and was clearing out his garage.

Just one more good thing: it’s a cool-looking bike. Everybody says so, especially little kids. Every time I go out, I usually pass at least one cluster of kids, and one of them will shout, “Cool bike!” or ask a question like, “Is that hard to ride?” (I lie to them and say “no.”)

Footnote: I’ve wanted a recumbent ever since I saw Christopher Walken riding one in the movie “Brainstorm.” Any recumbent, not that one in particular. Funny thing is, the one I ended up with looks a lot like the one Walken rides (or Walken’s double; he always appears to ride it in a long shot).

HOWEVER, almost everything else about this recumbent bike is not great. Keep in mind this is a very old recumbent bike. I like to believe that, in later versions, the builders ironed out a lot of the kinks and a lot of the negatives are not a problem any more.

Probably the biggest gripe I have against this bike is that it falls over way too easily. Not when it’s moving, but absolutely when it’s at a dead stop. It didn’t even occur to me this might be a problem on a recumbent because I don’t fall over on my regular bike. I just don’t. If I start to tip over, I plant my feet on the ground and hey! I’m standing. On a recumbent, though, if I start to tip over and plant my feet on the ground, I’m practically in a squat, and I’m already tipping over. So I just keep tipping over. Once I start to fall off this bike, it’s virtually impossible not to fall. I learned on the second day that if I start to tip over, the best thing to do is not to fight it, but to curl up in a ball and roll on to my back. It’s not dignified, but it’s better than fighting a losing battle with the bike as it rolls over on top of me.

Starting from a dead stop can be a problem. When I know I’m going to stop, I prepare by racheting the gears way down so I can put a lot of power into the crank when I start up again. But if I come to a sudden stop with no time to prepare, and I end up at a dead stop in high gear, getting it moving again is a chore, as grueling as climbing to the top of a long, very steep hill.

The steering is soooo sensitive. The slightest twitch of the handle bar turns the wheel, and because the wheel’s way out past my feet, even the smallest turn can become an unexpectedly sudden, crazy maneuver. This is not ordinarily a problem. I can easily hold the bike on course down a straight road or trail. But when I take one hand off the bar to adjust my helmet or scratch an itch, suddenly changing from full concentration and full control to split concentration and half control, I very often end up veering crazily across the trail or onto the shoulder. It’s more than a little unnerving.

And lastly, nearly the whole length of my lower leg is right next to the bicycle chain, which means that every time I go for a ride, I end up with a big splotch of black grease on my leg. It always happens, on the shortest rides or the longest. I get the feeling there’s too much grease on my bike’s chain, but even less grease wouldn’t change the fact that I rub my leg against it every time. And there’s not enough room between my leg and the chain to mount some kind of fender.