Two Japan videos of AZUB TWIN
This AZUB Twin tandem recumbent was the very first one we ever delivered and it riding in Japan now. Its owners made a great videos of it and placed on Youtube.
Enjoy!
Thermos bottle for AZUB riders
Ronny Svensson is one of our Swedish customers who ride an AZUB ECO trike. He makes custom engraving on thermos bottles and other objects and he made two very nice thermos bottles for us. And we would like to offer such a nice thermos also to our customers. If you like them you can order them with your customized text. But you can order them only from Ronny directly. Not from us or any of our dealers.
Look at our recumbent web page here for more info.
Valdson on Paris-Brest-Paris
This is an e-mail we received from one of our customers Valdson. He ordered an AZUB MAX with Rohloff, SON hub dynamo, some carbon parts etc. just few weeks before the so known and respectful Paris-Brest-Paris race. The oldest bicycle race on the world which is still organised. But just once per four years.
The MAX is his first recumbent so it would be hard to think he can manage such a race without having problems, but at the end he did around 900 km which is great. And here is a very short summary from him:
“Sorry for the delay on writing to to you to say something about my experience with the Azub Max on PBP…
Well, I think the Rohloff noise is a bit lower now, as you said, and I got used with it, so it is ok!
I think the speeds are ok, in fact it’s common the need of using the lowest speed on some climbs. It’s more useful to have the low speeds than to have higher speeds, so I think it is ok. Maybe I’ll think about adding a Schlumpf gearing system in the future, if I really feel the need for higher speeds. But for now it is ok, I’m happy with the current configuration.
I have twisted my ankle 3 days before the PBP! I was getting out of the train, carrying the bike, and the doors were closing, then I run and I didn’t see the stair steps… My ankle got really swollen and purple, it was hard to walk, but no problem to pedal.
It was a little hard to find bicycle stores to buy the stuff I needed. Then, saturday and sunday, the day of the PBP start, I had yet some things to buy and then I could not sleep during all day, before the starting, as I wanted.
I started the PBP with the seat on lowest inclination angle. Then, after some time I started to feel pain on the buttocks and I started to increase the inclination angle. When I felt pain again, I have increased the angle a little bit more, until I put it on the highest inclination angle. Then I didn’t feel more pain!! It was really nice to pedal the Azub Max recumbent bike in this long distance travel! After I have put the seat inclination angle in the maximum (the most layed down position), I didn’t feel any pain on the buttocks, on the back, on the neck, or on the hands! The only pain I felt was on the legs, on the knees and on feet. Then I tried to find the best distance between the seat and the pedals, and the best height of the seat too. After a long time pedaling I have felt numbness on the feet. But the numbness could be solved only stopping for a couple of minutes and then I could start another long time pedaling before feeling the numbness again, so, it was not a big problem. I have liked to put seat on the higher height to have the pedals relatively lower.
On the last section before getting to the control point of 310 km, I was without battery on my Iphone, I think that because the recharge was not working properly probably due to some problem on my USB cable. Then I had not any information about time and distance. I had no clearance on the time, because I was a little slow on climbs, I think that mainly because I have not the muscles used on recumbent bikes well worked out. And I missed some time too at the seat adjustments. In that section I was very asleep, probably because I had not slept how much I wanted before the starting. And my initial plan was to sleep only on the control point close to 400 km. To complete, it rained a lot on that section, on a moment I stopped for some time because the rain was very strong with a lot of lightning. I think I don’t had good clothes to get protected from the rain on a recumbent. So, when I arrived on the control point of 310 km, I was delayed, asleep, soaked, with hungry. Looking to the time, I would have to continue on the same moment to try to recover the time. But I needed some time to be able to continue, mainly some time to sleep. Then I decided to abandon the proof there, to take a shower, to eat and to sleep, then return the 310 km enjoying the travel! It was really nice. In a moment I have got a better adjustment of the seat and then it was really confortable to pedal!
The bike calls so much attention in the streets! It is like a parade! For now I prefer to use my regular bike in the city and let the Azub for long distance travels.
Again, thank you very much for the effort you and everyone from Azub have made to prepare the bike as I wanted on time! It is a really nice bike!”
Twelve brave – a TV show with Aleš Zemánek, owner of AZUB BIKE
This TV program was in the TV in 2007 as a part of the prestigous Twelve brave series produced by Vodafone. Every year 12 business owners are presented only. They speak about their dreams which turned out to be sucessful business. In 2007 also Ales Zemanek – owner of AZUB BIKE – company producing recumbents and recumbent trikes, was one of those twelve businessmen.
Quite some things has changed since 2007. The company produce 12 models at the moment (end of 2011), has 8 employees, all the building is rebuild now and offer enough of office space and just enough of assembling and stock place for producing recumbents. Also the number of produced recumbents per year has grown a lot.
But the ground of the company, passion of its emploees and passion of Ales Zemanek can be nicely seen in this document.
Pink lady
The weather outside is not really nice nowadays everything is gray or brown and people do not smile at each other as in Summer. So let´s come with some sweet pictures with shiny bike and smiling lady.
Rebecca saw her bike on the SPEZI show 2011 in Germersheim and she was dressed exactly as you see her on the picture. The color of her t-shirt matched absolutely with the color of the bike. It was amazing and it was a love at first sight. She bought the bike directly on the show and sent us these pictures few weeks after.
The bike you can see is an AZUB Max with 24″ wheels and color scheme from our color shop. The color itself is RAL 4010.
We have been waiting with publishing them until now, when they will make your grey day a bit more colorful.
AZUB Team wish you more colorful days in your lifes.
How to transport recumbents in public transport mostly airplanes
There is a lot of disscusion about protecting your bike especialy recumbent in an airplane. Mostly because none is 100% safe. People who are responsible for loading and unloading the luggages to/from an airplane and all others around do not really care what is inside and they are in fact not responsible for any demages at all. So two extreme opinions are:
1/ Let your bike as it is, unpacked. Only remove pedals, bars and the seat and maybe protect some important part. People on an airport will see it is a bike and will care more. BUT, some airlines do not allow such transport and the bike is at the end not protected at all against any scratches.
2/ Pack your bike as much as you can for example into paper box, tape it, protect it inside etc. BUT, nobody know what is inside, there can be other suitcases thrown on the box, it can lay down etc. And the box is also much heavier than „nothing“
I have traveled quite a lot with our recumbents not only in airplanes, but also in buses and trains. I can give you some recommandations, tell you some experiences, but please, note, that I do not care much about little scratches here and there. My bikes are used for hard travelling and they are scratched quite a lot anyway. I even like bikes which look used. They have kind of challenging look.
So, here are some points, suggestions, experiences. In a big mix and maybe a little bit messy, but I hope it helps you.
- You can use different size of the paper box and pack the bike inside. Very safe way which also airlines like.
- Or you can pack your bike or trike into a fabric bag. We have one like that in AZUB and plan to have it in the offer soon. It is recommended to use some protecting material inside too. You can fold an AZUB TRIcon inside or I can pack inside my prototype of folding AZUB Mini recumbent.
- Or you can use kind of simple thin fabric bag and just wrap the bike inside and than tape it around. You have to disassemble your seat, bars and pedals from your bike.
- If you can, let stands your bike/trike on wheels.
- Always remove rear derailleur and let it hang on the chain. Or in fact tape it than to the frame securely or using the zip ties. Also disassemble derailleur hanger as this is very fragile part and can be easily demaged. To be sure, you should have one spare too.
- Airlines usualy allow to pack only a bike inside the box or bag, but you can use your clothes as a protecting material. Should not be a problem with that and you save weight of your second checked in luggage. Or you can even go only with hand luggage. I like to put my matrasse inside and time to time also sleeping bag or part of the tent.
- Security officers usualy want to see what is inside the box. Think about it. They should have a chance to somehow look inside, but the bike should stay packed also after that. They can look inside even after check in. Especialy when you travel with a need to change from plane to plane.
- Check with the arlines what are the conditions of transporting a bike. Some offer it for free. For example KLM offers for intercontinental flights one hand luggage, one checked-in luggage and one sport equipment. EL-AL (israeli national airlines) offers that too up to the weight of 20 kg of the bike. But for example Delta charges like 80 EUR per one flight! Most of the low cost airlines will also charge for a bike. So check all that before ordering the ticket. The cheapest one can be quite expensive at the end…
- Check also for the size and weight of the box/bag allowed. If they do not mention it and talk only about sporting equipment or bike, you win. BUT, note that the maximum weight of one luggage is 32 kg world wide. Even if there is allowance of combined weight for two or three travellers. Those people who lift your luggage to the plane are heros, but not robots!
- Bikes are usualy checked in on different place as they are oversized. So you should go to the check-in counter with all your luggages include the bike and they will tell you what to do later and where to go.
- Same when you pick up the bike after your flight. There is always a special counter for oversized luggages. It happened to me just once my bike appeared on the same conveyor belt as other luggages.
- With buses it is far more different. They do not like such a big boxes as the trunks of buses are much smaller. But we traveled with a non-foldable recumbent tandem from Czech to Greece by a bulgarian bus. Or in fact from Brno to Sofia and than in another bus to Athens. The company confirmed to me they will be able to bring the bike from Brno to Sofia for 10 EUR. But than, nobody knows. We risked it knowing you can always give some „additional“ fee to the driver. And we suceed 
- We also travelled by train from ukrainean Crimea peninsula via Kiev to Uzhorod on slovakian border. We had a portable tandem with trailer. Huuuge. I disassembled it completely and it took me 8 and half hours to assemble it back
- Once in China they did not know what to do with my bike as they did not have a special counter for oversized luggages. So they told me to stand on the conveyor belt with the bike and sent me through the rubber flaps and wall inside the airport. You can imagine faces of people on the other side looking at the bloody european foreigner standing there with a bike!
I will probably add some more experiences and picture soon when something pop up in my mind. The thing is travelling is great and a little bit of hassle when transporting a bike is just part of the big adventure called travelling.
All the best during your travels!
Honza Galla – www.galla.cz
Links to articles about AZUB Team´s visit in USA
We visited USA in October to see the recumbent world and recumbent market there, to visit the Recumbent Cycle Con show in LA and to introduce our bikes and trikes. Especialy the AZUB TRIcon impressed many dealers and recumbent riders and all the journey was very sucessful for us. I think I will post bigger gallery sooner or later, but here you can see at least links to all different medias which published articles and galleries about our visit.
http://www.bentrideronline.com/?p=5952
http://www.bentrideronline.com/?p=5933
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150329481904843.369931.77961169842&type=3
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150326392329843.369390.77961169842&type=3
http://www.urbanmobilityproject.com/2011/10/no-need-to-go-dutch-urban-mobility-project/
http://www.recumbentjournal.com/blog/item/465-gallery-azub-tricon.html
AZUB Cartoon from Velodreamer.com
We just received a beautiful cartoon of our recumbent from Velodreamer´s Karina. Seems to be an AZUB MAX We like all the projects you can find on their web page www.velodreamer.com and Karina´s set of cartoons is really nice. I recommend to visit their page and enjoy all the photos and videos you can see there. Even they are all in ukrainean.
Three AZUB recumbent trikes towing ponny buggy during wedding celebration
Ales Zemanek, owner of AZUB BIKE, got quietly married in March 2011 and celebrated his wedding with family, friends and employes in May. AZUB employees prepared him a little surprise and towed him and his wife Hanka to the restaurant with three trikes. Unfortunately the weather was not really good, but we all enjoyed it a lot.
You can see two AZUB ECO trikes and one AZUB T-Tris towing ponny buggy. Two trikes on sides had an electric assist but it was pretty easy to tow the buggy very fast even without working engines. We had to practice a bit before we went for the ride, mainly to coordinate doing sharp turns, but when we get used to it was quite smooth.
Enjoy the pictures and video.
AZUB MAX for co-founder of Google?
Sergey Brin, one of two Google co-founders, is looking for a recumbent bike. In his Google+ account he ask his followers to recommend him a recumbent with following properties: nice mix of performance, comfort and safety. So, probably 20′ish pounds, not too upright, not too flat, good visibility, maybe an optional fairing.
We are not really a company producing light and super fast road recumbents (not yet , but we would be able to match most of his requirements. We think that the good bike for him would be an AZUB MAX with carbon seat and RAW wheel set plus Durano tyres for light weight and good performance. Thanks to our IPS he would be able to find the best riding position. Not too upright, not too flat. AZUB MAX is one of the taller recumbents so the visibiliuty would be good anyway, but to increase it he might go for an orange or light green seat from our new color shop option.
I write about a bike for Sergey mainly because many of you found AZUB because of Google and also because I (Honza Galla) just finnished reading a book Google story about the sucess of a world know Google company. So I am a bit more into this company right now
I found the info aboit Sergey via www.businessinsider.com where they even made a nice photomontage of Sergey riding on recumbent (see below).
