I bought a Speedmachine in June '05, by this point I'd been riding recumbent trikes of various sorts for about two years and was looking for something different, as well as rather liking the idea of having suspension on Durham's rather poorly maintained roads.

Why did I choose a Speedmachine ?

I'd been eyeing up HP Velotechnik's Speedmachine for some time as it fitted well with my criteria which were roughly thus:

Which as far as I could tell only left the Speedmachine, I had managed to blag a go on one at the York cycle show (although this one had the race bars) and had thouroughly enjoyed myself; so when one came up for sale via the Velovision small ads I jumped at the chance although I did knock the seller down to £1.5k including shipping which was a pretty good price.

Why do I still own a Speedmachine nearly 5y later?

For me the Speedmachine is the perfect balance between sportiness, comfort and practicality. For what is essentially a lowracer it offers an amazing level of versatility. Once I really got used to the handling ( which took the best part of a 6 months and a different handlebar arrangement ) I felt perfectly comfortable riding it round town. The suspension combined with my choice of fairly wide slick tyres mean that I can ride on unmade paths fairly comfortably, and there's much less need to worry about accidentally damaging a tyre or rim.

It's hard to overemphasise how comfortable this bike is for me. I ride with the seat reclined almost all the way because otherwise it puts too much weight on my glutes and I get "recumbutt". I find this a very natural position and get no fatigue other than my legs even after long rides. The seat fits me perfectly, and the special woven mesh seat pad that Kamil sent with the seat has done a great job of keeping me cool in summer.

It has been a fairly trouble-free ride, although on the few occasions where it has needed maintenance it's been a bit of an adventure. I recently had to drill one of the quick releases that hold the seat, out of the frame and some time ago the suspension needed some attention. Mine has hydraulic brakes full of DOT 5.1 fluid which seems to need bleeding fairly regularly, but that's not the bike's fault. Overall the drive train stays pretty clean and seems to last a long time.

Upgrades

I bought a fantastic carbon-kevlar seat from Kamil Manecki of Velokraft, great person to deal with, highly reccomended. It weighs practically nothing and knocks almost a kilo off the weight of the bike and has still stood up to all manner of abuse. I've cut the seat down at the top so that it fits between my shoulder blades because I find hardshell seats uncomfortable if they rest on my shoulder blades.

I threw away the old spring and oil shock, and bought a lovely DT Swiss air unit. This saved a bit of weight too, but mainly this is a comfort upgrade and boy does it work. Cobbles hold no fear for me now, it would be very hard for me to go back to normal suspension. So far it's been on the bike for about 2 years with no apparent need for maintenance although I do make sure that the mudguard is working well so it stays clean. One disadvantage of this setup is that the suspension travel is increased which means that if the shock isn't pumped up enough and you hit a really hard bump the mudguard can hit the rack, or the back of the seat. I have broken one mudguard this way.

I've cut the original 'tour' style bars down to a much more conventional hamster bars setup. Handling is much improved by this because the width of the original bars made the steering very twitchy -- it was very hard to stay relaxed and in a straight line because so little steering input was needed. It's also noticeably faster, and no less comfortable IMO.