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Imagine thinking that the only thing that matters to riding a bike is the efficiency with which you can extract power from your legs.

Normal bikes are way safer because you can actually see around you and you're also much easier to see. That's not even taking into account how much agility you lose on a recumbent, or how easy it is to get off of regular bike while it's in motion and let it do the crashing while you walk away.

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The piece is based on a talk given a conference on cycling optimization. The author is not in any way recommending that day-to-day cyclists change to a different form factor. It seems entirely to be an intellectual exercise asking "what is the theoretically optimal form for transferring human energy to a bicycle".

Max power output indeed is not the most important consideration for most riders. However I do feel the need to point out how recumbents optimize for other things too.

On most recumbents, the gaze is naturally forward with no bending the neck. And legs forward with low center of gravity feels like a good position when headed for a crash.

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