I do a fair share of cycling but I have my concerns with those recumbent. The group I ride with there is a guy who has a cruzbike and two other recumbents. What I see is this. When he climbs, he's all over the road (which shows up on the cruzbike video). This was true with the other recumbents he has and every other one I have seen over the years with various riders. It's fine when you are on an open road with no traffic and a good sized shoulder but the problem is, that doesn't exist most of the time. I'm riding the edge of the pavement because I don't want to even get close to any car. A big truck is even worse. With that recumbent, he's always crossing the white line on those climbs. Stopping on a hill means, you are going to walk it to the top.
Another issue is 4 way stops in traffic. If you are a cyclist, you have to stop or you will get ticketed. On a recumbent, they never want to stop because it's not very good for stop and go. He tries to time it and just run signs and lights. We knew it would come back to haunt him and sure enough, he got a ticket.
Then there's riding in a group. It's OK but he's much faster than us on a downhill but we kill him on an uphill. It's constant passing. Then there will be the long distance rides of like 100 miles in a day where you are with 7K other riders. Every time there's a stop, you have a few thousand cyclists maneuvering themselves around. The recumbents just get off and walk it in and out because they don't have the maneuverability.
As for the cruzbike, it is easy to do a donkey kick. Almost too easy. There's too much weight on the front tire. It gets a bit hairy when going 35-40 downhill on one and you need to get on the binders for an emergency. More than once, I've seen it almost go over at a high rate of speed, plus the rear brake is worthless as the wheel locks up.
I understand why people ride them but they are not the cure all for cycling. Then there are the trikes and they are nice but hard to see with cars, plus not great for that dreaded narrow shoulder.
