Vision R40 Recumbent Bike – Overview

This video is a detailed review of my Vision R40 Recumbent Bicycle which was manufactured in approximately 2002 or 2003. After detailing the basic specs of the bike, I give a brief history of this model and the company that made it. There are some parts of the bike that I go into more detail about, such as the seat, the steering and the length adjustment. I wrap thing up with a quick explanation about how to ride the bike and a summary of what I love / don’t love about the bike.

I bought this bike in late November 2022 and I filmed this video approximately 11 months later. During this period I rode the bike nearly 2,000 km, almost exclusively within Toronto, ON, Canada.

The Vision R40 was manufactured in Seattle, WA by Advanced Transportation Products Inc (ATP). This model was produced from 1993 until 2003, and its unique selling feature was the ability to convert between Short Wheel Base (SWB) and Long Wheel Base (LWB), and also between Under-seat Steering (USS) and Over-seat Steering (OSS). Additional parts/kits are needed to do these conversions.

To learn more about the history of ATP/Vision, there’s a website with a lot of great resources.
http://visionrecumbentinfo.com

I hope you enjoyed this video. Please COMMENT and subscribe!
Thanks for watching.

Hello to CJ Hoy in this video I’m going to give you an overview of my vision R40 recumbent bike so I bought this bike last November which means I’ve now had it for almost a year but I’m not the original owner of it and this bike is

Actually about 20 years old already so I’ve been aware of vision recumbit for quite a long time and this bike just happened to pop up for sale in a location that’s pretty close to where I live for a reasonable price at the time I wasn’t really in the market for

Another bike so I mostly just decided to buy it out of curiosity now for some context at the time that I bought this bike I already had two other recumbent bikes a 1992 Iowa linear recumbent and a much newer linear limo recumbent so in other words I already had two other

Bikes that I loved and I honestly expected that I would use this bike and just test it out for a couple of months but by the time that spring rolled around that I’d be ready to put put it back up for sale so that someone else

Could buy it and enjoy it but much to my surprise I completely fell in love with this bike and it quickly became my favorite bike for riding around the city in the nearly 11 months that I’ve owned this bike I’ve ridden at almost 2,000 kilometers already so when it comes to

The basic classification of recumbent bicycles there are two things that we focus on the first one is the wheelbase length and the second one is the steering configuration so because the front wheel is behind where the cranks are and because the steering is below where the rider sits we would consider

This bicycle an UND seat steering short-wheelbase recumbent bike this bike has a 20-in front wheel and a 26-in rear wheel the brakes on both the front and back are V brakes which are my favorite type of brakes this bike has three chain rings at the front paired with a 9-speed

Cassette on the back making this a 27speed bike those speeds are accessed by a pair of Shimano Dior combined brake and shift levers the handlebars connect with a stem down here which is directly fastened to the front forks which means that this bike has direct steering or in

Other words there is no steering linkage the main frame of this bike is made of crali steel and it’s actually a pretty simple design just consisting of one perfectly straight piece of metal tubing with the head tube and chain stays welded on so while the chain stays are

Welded on here the seat stays are actually just bolted on and that that is to allow this point here to be able to Pivot to accommodate for different tilt angles with the seat speaking of the seat the tubing which is used to form the seat frame is made out of aluminum

But despite the majority of the frame being constructed from steel the bike is actually surprisingly light so this bike has a front suspension Fork which is an optional upgrade for this particular model of bike the fork is made by a company called ballistic and it’s an elastomer based Fork so it’s not an

Airshock but it actually works quite well and I’ve been really happy with it the fork has these red adjustment knobs on top which can be used to finetune How firm the suspension is by preloading the Springs so this bike was made by a company called ATP which stands for advanced Transportation products and

They were based in Seattle Washington which is where this bike was manufactured ATP operated from 1991 up until the end of 2003 so it wasn’t in a particularly long run but during those 12 years they manufactured an awful lot of bikes and in fact before they went

Into business their claim to fame was that they were the largest producer of recumbents who manufactured all of their bikes right in the USA so the manufacturer of the bike was ATP but the model name of the bike is a vision R40 which from what I understand was their

Most popular model so the vision R40 first launched in 1993 and the main selling feature that they emphasized in their original marketing material for this bike was that the bike was designed to be able to be converted back and forth from a short wheeel base to Long

Wheel base and shortly after they also started selling a kit that you could buy for the bike which allowed it to be converted from UND seat steering to above seat steering so with this one bike you’re actually able to get all four combinations of the basic classifications of recumbents for some

Context this was during a period where recumbents were really starting to grow in popular ity but it was before there’s recumbent sitting in a lot of bike shops so it meant that there weren’t a lot of opportunities for test riding and if you wanted to buy one in many cases you

Needed to order it without being able to try it out ahead of time and if it was your first recumbent how would you know whether you preferred above seat steering below seat steering long wheel base or short wheeel base so selling a bike that was capable of converting

Between all of them was a really smart marketing move now of course there are disadvantages of that from a technical perspective because when you design a product which is for multiple function it means that while the product may be good for many of those functions it’s

Never going to be great at them and it’ll never be able to compete with a product which is purpose built for just the one function because compromises need to be made to allow for the versatility so the vision R 40 was produced from 1993 up until the company

Went out of business 10 years later in 2003 I’m pretty sure my bike was manufactured pretty close to the end of that 10-year period when ordering one of these bikes you had the option of choosing different frame same sizes to account for riders with different lengths of legs the bike was also

Available with a 16-in front wheel as opposed to the 20-in front wheel which mine has during his 10 years of production the company made a few changes to the bike in the early years this Pivot Point here used to be about 2 in further back and about halfway

Through the production run you know around year five they moved it further forward which apparently gave the bike better stability they also made a similar change with their long wheel wheelbase variant of this bike moving the front wheel a little bit further backwards and they actually reclassified

It from being a long wheel base to a medium wheel base I’ve also noticed from looking at photos from earlier model years that the frame on a vision R40 didn’t use to always have this main piece of frame tube being a perfectly straight piece of tubing in the early

Years there used to be a bend in the frame around this Pivot Point here so I mentioned that the front suspension on this bike was an optional upgrade but they also sold a variant of the R40 which had a rear suspension as well so my bike has a number of accessories on

It most of which I’ve added myself and the most noticeable of course being the big milk crate that I’ve mounted back here for carrying cargo with me when I’m riding that’s just mounted onto a standard rear bicycle rack on some recumbit it’s hard to get a rack to fit

But Vision made it really easy uh they put eyelets you know down there where the rack can attach and even eyelets right there at the front so you can just use the standard Hardware that comes with your rack this rack was actually already mounted on the bike when I

Bought it though I did add these fenders to the bike though which is also fairly straightforward again using the same eyet down there and they’ve also given you another mounting Point down there to hold the front of the fender on the front fenders on the other hand were

More tricky than that because there is no eyelet down here so I experimented with just using a zip tie to hold the fender on which goes around a piece of inner tube and so far that’s been working working just fine I also added this water bottle cage back here behind

The seat and of course every bike must have a bell but now that I’ve outlined the basics and I’ve given you a little history lesson on this bike there are a couple other parts in the bike that I want to show you in more detail starting

With the seat so the seat frame is fastened to the bike in two locations and they’re both held in place with quick releases when I released them I’m now able to adjust the Tilt angle of the seat so right now I have the bike configured with the seat in in its most

Upright position which is how I initially thought I would want to have this bike configured all the time considering I do most of my riding within the city and I like an upright riding position so that I’m able to see over top of things like parked cars

However I encountered sort of an issue with having it set this way because I found it uncomfortable cuz you’ll notice that when I have it like this the front of the seat actually kind of tilts forward and it kind of feels like you’re sliding off the bike when you have it

Like this so I ultimately found that I preferred it with it in a more laidback position the same two quick releases allow you to fully remove the seat from the bike so this seat has a mesh back which is held in place using lots of strips of

Velcro the bottom of the seat consists of a layer of fabric which covers up a piece of foam which sits on top of a thick fabric sling this top layer of fabric though on my seat is not original and I know that because I replaced it

Myself about 6 months ago this is the original piece of fabri fabric that was installed there when I first bought the bike which is made out of some type of fleece material I’ve been wondering whether my seat may have at one point spent quite a bit of time inside of a

Church because as you can see the seat has become quite holy the holes are really just a cosmetic concern but the bigger problem was that there’s supposed to be a piece of elastic cord which goes through here that holds the foam cushion in place and the rubber inside that

Elastic cord has failed and so it was no longer doing its job properly when placing this part in my seat rather than doing a like for- likee replacement using more fleece material I decided to buy this more durable canvas type material which is similar to what my linear limo recumbent bike uses to

Simplify my design I also didn’t use a separate piece of fabric for this part here where the elastic goes instead I just made my main piece of fabric longer and folded it over and sewed a little Channel where the elastic could go the original piece also had the elastic cord

Sewn in at either end where in my design I use one of these spring clips which allows me to adjust how tight the elastic is and it also means that when this elastic cord eventually dries up and fails I should just be able to pull it out and thread in a new one

Unfortunately it seems that seat fabric problems are pretty common on Vision recumbent bikes but the good news is that if you don’t feel like doing your own fabric repairs like I’ve done there’s a company online right now that actually makes reproductions of the entire seat fabric assembly that you can

Order online for these bikes so while we have the seat removed let’s now take a closer look at the steering on this bike like I mentioned earlier this bike has direct steering and one of the limitations it has is that when you try and turn sharply your handlebars bump

Into the frame here with the handlebars Twisted as far as they can go to the left we can see that the maximum steering angle is only about 35° while it does kind of seem like a cause for concern in my experience the only time that I really notice that limitation is

When I’m doing a U-turn another Quirk about the steering on this bike is that when making a sharp turn to the right the handlebars actually come in contact with the chain for that reason when I first got the bike there was quite a bit of paint missing from this area of the

Handlebars but recently I actually put a piece of inner tube rubber over top of it to protect it but as you can see even that’s already started to wear through so I don’t have the necessary parts required to do it but like I said before

This bike is designed to be able to be converted from UND seat steering to over seat steering and that would be done simply by removing the steering parts from down here and installing the appropriate over seat steering stem up here so before I install the seat back

Onto the bike I wanted to show that there’s a second hole here where the front quick release can be installed mounting the seat in that other hole which is further forward allows the seat to be tilted even further back but aside from those two holes there there’s no

Other forward and backward adjustment of the seat and that’s because leg length on this bike is adjusted using this boom here at the front to adjust this this all you have to do is loosen off this quick release here which then allows the boom to be slid forwards and backwards

To account for Riders of different heights they’ve even included an alignment pin up here which stops this boom from rotating from side to side now there’s usually a bit of a drawback with having a bike which is configured this way because while it is very easy to move that boom forwards and backwards

While you’re doing that you’re changing the distance between the cassette and the cranks which means that for the bike to continue working properly you also should be adjusting the length of the Chain by adding or removing links to it but on this bike they’ve employed a clever Solution by having these extra

Two idler pulley this top pulley is fastened to the main frame where this bottom pulley is fastened to the boom arm and that means that as I slide this boom backwards this pulley moves backwards as well and takes up the extra slack from the chain this is a feature

That the company added within the last couple of years of production and I’m sure it was really appreciated by bike shops because it’s really useful to have a bike which is easy to adjust when you’re going to be letting a lot of different people test ride them the

Disadvantage of course of having these extra idler pulley is that they add additional friction and a little bit of extra weight with that being said these parts are designed to be entirely removable so after someone buys the bike after they’ figured out what position they want to have the boom set at they

Can take off the idler pulley and the chain can be shortened to the appropriate Lev permanently in my case I’ve decided to leave these on so I think it’s kind of a neat feature and I also like the idea of being able to adjust my bike so that I

Can let other people try riding it speaking of the length of the chain I recently replaced the chain on this bike and I ended up having to buy three standard lengths of chain to be able to do it I started off trying to just splice two of them together but I found

That it wasn’t long enough even when I tried excluding the extra idler pulley so I had to open up this third one and I used less than half of it it so at least they’ll be able to hang on to this one so next time I should only need to buy

Two chains when I replace my chain so again I don’t have the appropriate parts to be able to demonstrate it but like I mentioned earlier this bike is designed to be able to be converted from short wheelbase to Long wheelbase or actually medium wheelbase as Vision called it in

Their later years and that would be done by loosening off this quick release here and sliding this boom all the way off and replacing the boom with another one which is very similar but has an EXT section out here which is where the forks would get relocated to in this

Configuration the bike would no longer have direct steering because there would need to be a steering linkage from this Pivot Point here up to the front wheel we can also see that the bike has an extra set of cable stops here which would be used by the front brake cable

In this mode but with those technical details out of the way let’s talk about actually riding this bike so to get onto the bike you step over the frame like this and sit down on the seat you then take your hands and place them on on the

Handlebar grips and you want to find where the brake levers are this is also a good chance to get used to how the steering feels on this bike but once you’re feeling comfortable you can then lean back in the seat like this and you want to take one of the pedals and put

It so that it’s in the fully upright position like this and then in one smooth motion you’re going to push off with this foot here and you’re going to take your other foot off the ground and place it on the pedal and you’re going to ride forwards when you’re eventually finished

Gradually apply the brakes and as the bike comes to a stop let your feet drop down to the ground to catch yourself if you’ve never ridden a bike with underseat steering before it’s a good idea to have someone standing behind you holding onto the seat while you get used

To it on your first test ride now there’s one important Quirk to be aware of regarding the steering on this bike so I showed earlier that if you make a sharp turn the end of The Handlebar bumps into the frame but if I repeat that demonstration now with the seat

Installed you can see that not only doesn’t bump into the frame but the end of The Handlebar essentially disappears underneath of the seat so when you’re actually riding the bike you’ll find that your hand bumps into the side of the seat long before The Handlebar bumps

Into the frame so the trick for making sharp turns on this bike is that you need to let go with one of your hands and let the other hand do all the work for the duration of the turn until you straighten back out let me demonstrate

This takes a little bit of practice but eventually it just becomes second nature so there’s one other thing that I wanted to mention with respect to the Quirk with the steering on this bike and it’s a bit of a safety concern on one occasion I was riding my bike and I was

Really thirsty so I reached back here and I had my water bottle in my hand and I took my first step of water but while I was swallowing it I put my hand down here and I rested it back on the handlebars while I was swallowing

Because of course I was going to take a second sip but while I was doing this of course there was a little bit of a curve in the road up ahead and when I try to turn of course my bike wasn’t able to turn because the water bottle was being

Wedged between the handlebar and the side of the seat so since then I’ve made a rule for myself which is that if ever I’m riding the bike and I’m holding something in my hand be it a water bottle or my phone or something that that hand is not allowed to touch the

Handlebars until whatever that thing is has been put back away so why do I love this bike well the main reason is because it’s fast or at least it feels fast I don’t have any numbers to back this up but to me this bike feels noticeably faster than my linear limo

You kind of expect it would be because the cranks are mounted a fair bit higher which makes for a more aerodynamic seating position I believe the bike is also a fair bit lighter as well the other main thing that I love about this bike is the front suspension before test

Riding this bike I really wouldn’t have expected that a front suspension would make that much of a difference on a recumbent bike because the back wheel takes so much more of the weight but I guess because this is a short wheelbase the front wheel takes more look load

Than it does on a long wheel base and that’s why the suspension works so well so the suspension has been greatly appreciated especially considering I do most of my riding in the city and my city has its fair share of uneven pavement and potholes the only thing

That I don’t love about this bike is The Handlebar position and it’s for the reason that I talked about earlier but also just because I really like the way that my linear has the handlebars where they’re basically these posts that come up like this and you hold on to it and

You steer kind of like this I just really find that comfortable uh but on the other hand one advantage of having the handlebars like this is that they’re quite a bit narrower which is good for riding within the city when you have to squeeze through tight Gap sometimes but aside from that there

Really isn’t much that I don’t love about this bike and I’m really glad that I bought it anyway I hope you enjoyed this video and thanks for watching