Rowingbiking on Crete 2004
The rowingbike is a fast and comfortable piece of equipment. Some people think that a rowingbike is less suitable for mountainous areas. The truth is that it is superbly suitable, so much so that normal cyclists can be overtaken while going uphill.
So much was proven by 10 CVT riders in 2004.
The rowingbike holiday wa organized by Derk Thijs and very successful. The apartments were ideal and located at the beach and the picturesque village of Mirtos is very nice.
De road to Males (15 km) has become a well-known term: the heaviest route with hairpin turns and steep climbs (up to 13%). Nearly every day we went there using different well-paved routes.
It turned out the CVT rowingbikes did great, including the new gear shifting mechanism. Trips of some 45 over mountainous areas were made, but sometimes we even made 90 km trips.
Overall 600 kilometres were recorded over a timespan of 2 weeks. Many people noticed a surge in stamina.
Participants
- Caroleen Meerman: Caroleen biked up hills wonderfully, but made good use of the beautiful beach and the hot Greek sun.
- Angelique: Mithical rowingbiker, was noticed in a couple of individual time races.
- Wim Thijs: rowingbike philosopher with controversial visions for the future.
- Derk Thijs: the designer of the rowingbike showed that the best technique to climb a mountain is to row uphill calmly (sometimes less than 4 km per hour without falling over). That way your can row up mountains all day with getting fatigued, like he showed in his Tour 2002, but when necessary he’ll pull like a drunk on a closed liquor store’s door and flattens out all that comes in view.
- Cor Geluk: rode his CVT 240, which is quite a performance because with sharp curves and slippery asphalt (springwater on the road) the bike isn’t ideal. Still, he made it to every single top.
- Beb Thijs: the Dutch rowingbike champion turned out to be quite strong in the mountains, even with a CVT 240 she could keep up with the men on a 222.
- Ed Komen: “Ed-effect”-man and specialist in stamina building, trained consciously towards Cycle Vision and the EC, tested the newest CVT-prototype.
(The Ed-effect is to rowingbike a lot, get a good book, read, and wake up only to realize you didn’t read 10 sentences). - Bartel Lamers: rides on character the most mountainous kilometres, specialist in extreme descends (motor driver) and record holder for the time race Mirtos-Males (58 minutes), champion in regularity.
- Jacques Choppinet: Belgian climbing goat, specialist in irregular mountain sprints, was punished with painful legs and overheating.
- Johan Marynissen: powerman, powerful and regular Belgian Amsterdam-dweller, also specialist in fast descents (motor driver).
- Harm: rode with his “recumbent technique” more that well, he never came out of his seat. We look forward to his new rowingbike prototype (EC perhaps?).