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I made the switch from an upright bike to a recumbent bike about four years ago. I still ride the upright once in a while, and it mainly serves to remind me why I ride a recumbent.

Each summer I ride in a 500 mile fund raising ride for Habitat for Humanity cleverly named the Habitat 500. I ride my bike to train during the early part of the summer. The ride generally takes place during the second or third week in July. Once the ride is over I continue to ride, but I am not as regular about it once the need to train is less urgent.

This year was the ninth year that I've ridden in the Habitat 500. I did the first rides on my upright bike, which is a Schwinn cross bike. I had issues after riding the upright bike 500 miles.

First, my hands would go to sleep. My upper body weight rested on my hands as my hands gripped the handle bars. I'm not sure if the numbness comes from lack of circulation or from nerve damage. Either way it is not pleasant. The last time I rode my upright bike 500 miles it took about a month for the feeling to come back to all of my fingers.

Second, my neck would get sore. If you are leaning over your handle bars as you ride then you need to bend your neck upward to see where you are going. Five hundred miles of doing that gave me a sore neck.

Third, I got blisters from my bike seat. You'll have to take my word for that because I didn't show them to people. I couldn't really see them myself either, but I knew they were there. By the end of the ride the blisters would break open and bleed. Five hundred miles of rubbing back and forth against a bike seat takes a toll. People who don't weigh very much and those who have trained enough to develop calluses in the critical area aren't bothered by bike seat discomfort, but I don't fit either of those categories.

My recumbent bicycle solves all three of those problems. My handle bars are under my bike seat on the recumbent. My hands do not have to hold up my upper body weight. They simply rest on the handle bars and they do not go numb any more.

I don't have to tilt my head to see the road while riding my recumbent so I don't get a sore neck. My body is in the position of a person sitting in a reclining chair with the feet rest up, and the chair only slightly reclined. I can see the road in front of me very well in that position.

My bike seat is made from two metal tubes with webbing stretched between them. When I peddle my leg lifts off my seat and comes back down on to my seat. There is no rubbing

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