Cycling UK Forum

Hi, I am looking at a trike as due to a weakness in my arm I am struggling to balance on an upright bike. However, I love competing, having done triathlon and time trials for years. Are there any events for trikes? Time trials, road races etc? Can you use one in a sportive? Also I would still love to cycle with my cycling pals. How does a trike compare? Are they going to be waiting for me on every hill (which could be a bit bruising to my ego tbh!)?

If you are looking for a sporty trike then the vortex is the obvious choice. You won’t be as fast uphill, trikes are heavier, and you can’t honk, but you will get up them. Getting down the other side... you’ll be on the brakes to stay with upright riders.

There are various HPV events for competitive riding, and I’ve taken the trike in audaxes without issue. Sportives may have their own peculiar rules.

They are also fantastic fun.

You might also want to consider a two wheeler - these are faster still, but you need to learn to ride a bike again. Weakness in one arm *probably* won’t matter too much on something with hamster bars, and you can end up being pretty fast uphill as well (still no honking, still some additional weight, but not nearly as much).

thanks. I like the idea of a trike as it is a bit "future proofed" in terms of my progressive condition. What do you think about a removable e-assist so I can ride with my faster pals and remove when needed?

Easiest “semi removable” e-assist is probably similar to mine - a rear wheel adaptation - you can get rear wheel motors with a cassette (rather than a freewheel) if you are careful.

If you don’t mind answering - what condition (if you’d rather reply by PM or not at all then either is fine).

Contrary to many people's thinking, trike does not necessarily mean recumbent. Have you considered an upright machine? On that you can ride time trials as you did on two wheels, this is not permitted for a recumbent. There are some criterium races too where we latch onto the BHPC events which feature mainly recumbent folk. The one thing you cannot do on 3 wheels of any sort is to ride sportive events. I have yet to see any sportive that welcomes anything other than routine geared upright bicycles. Electric assist is just as viable as on any other upright, but of course you could not compete using it. The down side of an upright machine is that as an experienced bicyclist you would have to learn to ride the thing whereas a recumbent tricycle does not offer as much of a challenge. With one weak arm you might also find yourself a bit limited in cornering acrobatics, but that is only needed when riding "vigorously".

Hi, it is a multifocal motor neuropathy, a very rare autoimmune condition that leads to progressive muscle weakness, but thankfully should stay in just my arm for a while. I looked at upright trikes but I am trying to avoid any weight on my arm if I can help it. E-assist in the form of a rear wheel I can take on and off sounds great!

Yay for auto-immune conditions...

Obviously the battery mount and various bits of wiring would remain (unless you got something like a Copenhagen wheel... but I don’t know what compromises are involved in having everything in the wheel

You can ride some sportives on a recumbent or trike. I know this because I do them on a recumbent. I have seen trikes and handcycles at sportives too. This is mainly in Scotland but the attitude is quite positive and more events are being opened up to recumbents if you specifically ask.

Generally I would email in advance and ask if recumbents are allowed.

Round here the Etape Royale (Deeside and Moray) didn’t care what I rode. The Etape Loch Ness were distinctly sniffy about non-standard machines and I think if I’d turned up even on a Moulton I’d have been turned away. I did the Bealach Beag years ago and there was a tandem recumbent trike.

[XAP]Bob wrote:You might also want to consider a two wheeler - these are faster still, but you need to learn to ride a bike again. Weakness in one arm *probably* won’t matter too much on something with hamster bars, and you can end up being pretty fast uphill as well (still no honking, still some additional weight, but not nearly as much).

Warning - thread drift - I maintain that inability to 'honk' is not a disadvantage.

Maximum power on an upright may well be when standing up, using all your body weight (plus a bit from pulling on the bars) but a lot of arm pulling and side to side wandering is wasted effort.

On a recumbent your back is hard up against a solid seat, all the power goes straight into the pedals limited only by the strength of the knee joints and the chain. I've broken chains on recumbents but never on uprights. Recumbent weight and frame flex might sap some of this power but I really don't believe that the inability to honk is a factor. In fact you can do a recumbent 'honk' after a fashion. On really tough hills I slide down the seat a little to plant my shoulders firmly in the seat pad, which changes my knee angle somewhat too, then I lower my cadence to bring in more of the 'fast twitch' muscle fibres. I think this works the same way as the 'honking' I used to employ when I rode uprights.

I believe the venerable Mike Burrows has done a series of experiments climbing hills on recumbents and uprights to demonstrate that there is little if any difference.

Any one concur?

I suspect you *can* get up a hill at a similar speed on a similar weight machine whether honking or not. But when tired the ability to recruit other muscles for a bit, even if overall less efficient, is a useful change.

If you want to see why I agree with you watch the TdF riders as they go up the serious climbs. Other than very short sprints by the KoM contenders they have a significant tendency to even put their bursts on “in the saddle”.

Getting to that stage of fitness and skill though is always going to be a challenge.

Drifting back to the thread somewhat.. the steps motor that ICE sell as an option might be an even better “removable” choice - though you’d need to buy a second boom, and reset the derailleur (is there a secure way to have a splittable gear cable (Moulton riders might know). The steps motor is *really* nice!

[XAP]Bob wrote:is there a secure way to have a splittable gear cable

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/cables/jtek ... wire-black

I put on a Ride London 100 training ride for Scope, a couple of years ago. The guy in the recumbent trike suffers from Cerebral Atrophy. The first picture is at the top of Leith Hill, the way it’s done in the PRLS. So yes, Trikes can do hills, and with a disabled person riding it. The one he was riding was an ICE trike.

My understanding, but it may be wrong, is ......

Due to the change in the back-hip-thigh angle, your maximum sustainable power output is lower on a recumbent.
Basically you rely more on your quads and less on your glutes to generate power.
Plus this change means that your glutes fatigue quicker.
Hence needing a little time to get truly recumbent fit even if you're a cyclist.
On the flat, the aero advantage more than out weights this slight loss of power.
Hence you see glowing reports of "at X mph this bent only needs Y watts to power it".
It's hill climbing where this slight loss shows up, hence the saying "bents cannot climb hills".
They can but you do need to be a little fitter for a light bent to climb as fast as an upwrong.

Also trikes are around 15% slower than bikes due to their increased rolling/air resistances .......

Luck ...........

I was just reading a recent Tricycle Association Gazette. I'm sure it said that Cycling Time Trials have now (subject to racing restarting!) allowed organisers to make reasonable adjustments to the normal restrictions, which require upright machines, where riders need recumbents.

That said, I rode another club's evening event series decades ago. One regular rider was on a hand-cranked recumbent, whatever the rules said. No-one questioned it; we were far too busy being stunned by his times on a hilly circuit