Welcome to the first Honza’s blog (HLOG). I don’t want to mess up RECUMBENT.news with a lot of posts from each of my ride, but here and there I would like to share some of my experiences with you. And here is the first one.

There are quite a few bikes in the world that I would like to try sometime. Bikes that I like with their look or concept. Bikes that I might never buy myself and I couldn’t find a use for, but which are just amazing. If we were talking about recumbent bikes, Challenge Hurricane would be one of them. Dual 20 ”mid-racer of compact dimensions with the rear wheel tucked deep under the seat. It’s such a hummingbird, but especially in its SL version with a rear and front carbon fork and a carbon front boom, as well as with light road components, it’s a nice little but very powerful storm.

Time to time a bike from a competing manufacturer appears in AZUB. Sometimes as a trade-in, sometimes for service, sometimes the customer comes on it. And just like that during one beautiful day, a blue-purple Challenge Hurricane appeared in our warehouse. The Dutch Challenge Ligfietsen (the Dutch word for recumbents) was one of the most important recumbent bike brands many years ago, and you have found their demo bikes at every major recumbent bike dealer in the world. But then Paul Voerman, the owner of Challenge, stopped production due to financial difficulties and sold the brand. Today, it is cared for by the Van Vugt family, the owners of the Dutch dealer Elan, and still manufactures selected Challenge models. However, to a rather limited extent and as far as I know, basically only for the needs of their own shop.

And so I had the opportunity to ride a bike that I liked so much so many years ago. I liked Hurricane with its small size but big abilities. Two 20″ wheels of the same size gave it a symmetrical look. Its SL fork was downright beautiful, as was the perforated aluminum saddle. The components have also been tuned. In short, the bike was very nice. Now I thought, “How’s it going to be? Will it be as good as it looks? ”

I had the opportunity to try it in a slightly hilly landscape at about 50 km / 31 miles. The bike could not be extended enough to my height, the seat was small in size and the overall setting of the bike corresponded to the flat Netherlands rather than the hilly areas on the border of the Czechia and Slovakia. I was still excited. After all, I realized my little dream. I didn’t deal much with the fact that the seat dug into my back and that I didn’t feel comfortable at all on the bike. I was happy to ride one of my dreams. I was happy to be in a beautiful environment on a bike I really like. It is true that the geometry of the front fork of this one Hurricane gave very unstable driving characteristics, and that the seat twisted quite a lot, but I still didn’t care. I simply enjoyed the ride.

And what should be the result of my article? What should the resolution be like? Actually, I don’t know. Probably in the belief that fulfilling dreams that don’t make sense at first glance really makes sense. Even so, they will make you happy. And the more fulfilled dreams there are, the better!