Owner experience on a Cruzbike Q45 recumbent road bike after spine surgery

Rick Winslow is a Cruzbike Q45 owner who recently joined the Cruzbike community. Here he shares his overall impressions, comments and advice for new owners after three plus months of learning and enjoyment. Thanks for putting this together for us to share with interested cyclists, Rick!

Overall Impressions

WOW! The Cruzbike Q45 is an awesome piece of machinery. It is fun, fast, and functional.  As a mechanical engineer I can also comment that this is a very well designed and fabricated piece of mechanical equipment.

For any newbies / interested buyers I’ll offer the following overall comments and impressions:

You will need to re-educate yourself a bit on how to ride a bicycle

• Follow the guidance provided by Cruzbike.
• Take the ‘re-education’ process step-by-step as shown in the Cruzbike videos. I was riding around a parking lot by my third session.

When first learning and riding on your Cruzbike recumbent expect the following:

• Your core body muscles and nerves will tire quickly.
• If you have had spine surgery, this method of bicycling will be quite comfortable but ensure the following before trying:
• Ensure you are sufficiently post surgical and have your surgeon and/or physical therapist's concurrence.
• Post surgical spine patients frequently have ongoing nerve reconnection as part of the recovery process. Don’t be surprised if certain coordination issues are less than hoped for in the bicycle learning process. Keep at it - you may be reprogramming some muscle commands, etc.
• This will be a very effective method of building symmetrical core body strength.
• At first, expect muscle fatigue early. This will gradually disappear as these core muscle groups learn to work together and strengthen.
• Stop immediately if nerve pain and/or numbness or muscle pain develops. Let your body rest and recover before continuing. For me these rest and recovery time periods were initially 2-4 days long.

Ride and Handling

• This is a very fast machine for its style and tire sizing.
• This bicycle is very maneuverable and requires a great deal of handle-bar movement at slow speeds. This can take some getting used to, if the previous machine has been a road bike.
• This bicycle maneuvers extremely quickly with a slight weight shift at higher speeds. Upper body coordination / fine motor skills will need to be developed along with the lower core body strength.

-Rick Winslow

If your cycling has been limited by saddle, back, neck or wrist pain or injury and you're not willing to sacrifice performance for comfort, join us. We've adapted standard road bike performance technology to a fast, fun, dare-we-say liberating riding position.