Jay Duchene of Mount Lebanon saw an Easy Racer recumbent bicycle at a Sharper Image store in the early 1990s and thought it would be more fun to ride than his regular bike.

It was and it is.

The recumbent bike, with its wide, thick comfortable seat and adjustable back rest, attracted a lot of attention when Duchene and his wife, Wendy, rode on local and regional rail-trails during the remainder of the decade.

In the early 2000s, Duchene bought recumbents for his wife and their son Joe. He taught them how to ride them on the Great Allegheny Passage near Confluence in southern Somerset County.

"I was sure I was not going to be able to do it and so was Joe," she recalled. "I was certain it was going to be too hard to learn to balance.

"We rode all the way to Connellsville that day [28 miles] where we had left a car. We drove back to Confluence triumphant. Nothing hurt. Nothing hurt the next day. I was hooked."

Jay Duchene, who works in the banquet department at the Westin Convention Center Hotel, thought others would enjoy riding recumbents. He and his wife, an attorney, formed Allegheny Recumbent Tours in 2003 and based it in Confluence, where they have a weekend home.

After conferring with Larry Lynch, the owner of the Ambridge Bike & Sports Center, Jay Duchene chose the E-Z Sport designed by Easy Racer and manufactured by Sun Bicycles. He bought 24 of them because it is "the easiest recumbent for a non-recumbent rider to learn to ride. The seated position is natural and the balance is not so different than that of an upright bike."

Although he envisioned assembling groups of riders for executive team-building or family reunions, he learned that customers wanted to take the bikes out on their own. So ART became more of a bike rental business.

It now is based at Confluence Cyclery, a full-service bike shop that faces the town park. Brad and Maureen Smith, the owners and operators who also rent regular bikes, said recumbent bikes take the pressure off the neck, lower back, shoulders, wrists and buttocks.

"They take a little time to get used to, but they are comfortable," Brad Smith said.

He's right. I rode one this week. It's like riding a comfortable lawn chair. You pedal with your legs in front of you. They rent for $30 a day or $25 half-day.

"Our bikes appeal to a wide variety of folks, [especially] baby boomers and older," Wendy Duchene said. "These are folks that do not like the soreness they often get from regular bikes, find them uncomfortable, are drawn by the wide seat and back support or just want to try something new."

The Duchenes added to their rental fleet when they received a grant from the annual Somerset County Tourism Grant Program to purchase four recumbent trikes. "The trikes have been a great addition because they allow folks with balance issues to ride the trail," Wendy Duchene said.

She has rented trikes to women who had never ridden a bike before and were able to accompany their husbands on the passage. She also has rented them to a woman who had multiple sclerosis and a woman who couldn't ride a regular bike because of an injury from a car accident.

"I had a group of men aged 18 to 82 that drove up from Pittsburgh while all the women in the family attended a baby shower." She said. "They rented every bike. The four men over 80 rode the trikes. That was a terrific day."

For more information on ART, go to www.alleghenyrecumbentours.com or call 1-888-395-2453. For more information on Confluence Cyclery, go to www.confluencecyclery.com or call 1-814-395-9380.

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