Getting caught up

I started a local "log" file until I could get the time to create the Trike Land blog site. Here are those first 5 days:

Trike Blog

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Looking for interest

After the usual Saturday morning events the entire family stopped by our local bicycle shop, Bikes @ Vienna (www.bikesatvienna.com), to test ride recumbent trikes. What a rush! Everyone enjoyed scooting around the parking lot just inches from the ground and without the fear of balance issues normally associated with cycling (especially bicycling). The intent of the outing was to see if my youngest son (16 years old) would be interested in getting a trike of this style to ride the local trails with me. I didn't intend for everyone to get so excited about them.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Looking for an omen

After the bicycle shop tour on Saturday my wife & I had the urge to ride the trails and planned a fairly early Sunday morning start. I checked out the bikes on Saturday evening and we left out for the W&OD trail at about 8am. We decided to carry the bikes to the trail with our truck instead of riding the two additional miles each way. We had been debating the merits of possibly trading my aging Trek 8000 in and buying a trike. All I was looking for was an "omen". We headed down the trail around 8:20 and had gone just under 3 miles when I got my "omen". My front tire popped. Luckily it wasn't an explosive lose control flat but it was a sudden down to the rim experience. So we walked the bikes back to the truck. I had my "omen". If the Trek was willing to leave me with a 3 mile walk it was time for a new ride. We decided to get a light breakfast & wait for the bike shop to open at 10am. Now the decision to purchase a trike was done the hard part was selecting a model and figuring out how two people in the family would go for rides and determine which one got to use the cool trike. After reviewing the various models again I decided to go with an "entry level" but well equiped unit, the Terra Trike Cruiser and to avoid the 2 person arguments I went ahead and bought two! The local shop did some fine tuning and adjusting before we set off on our maiden voyage, a 3 mile ride home. What a rush! The trikes ride like the "Big Wheel" and "Green Machine" many of us had as kids. Low to the ground, easy to turn and overall pretty quick. The afternoon and early evening was spent cruising the cul-de-sac and answering questions from curious neighbors about the strange looking device.

Here is a link to the Terra Trike Cruiser product page:
http://www.terratrike.com/cruiser.php

Fun video of the trike in action can be found here (that's not us in the video):
http://www.utahtrikes.com/playvideo-8.html


Monday, August 4, 2008

Ejection seat!

The riders at the bike shop assured us that the new trikes were stable and difficult to flip or roll. Maybe I should have asked more questions once I managed to almost do an "end over" during the initial test rides. This is the second day of riding the trikes and my son as already found the "ejection seat". A "panic" stop with consistent pressure on both breaks will cause the trike to flip forward and if one hand grips harder than the other then you get a locked wheel, twist and then lunge. The end result is that the trike comes to some kind of stop but the rider bolts forward. If you've managed to stay mostly straight you can just put your feet down and "run it out". Second day of riding and my son has already "ejected" himself multiple times. Only once did he manage to not catch himself with his feet and totally leave the trike and that was almost a roll over. We've got a lot of things to learn but we're getting there as quick as we can.

Tonights ride was maybe 4 miles. We rode from our house to a local park, which required us to "port" our bikes across a narrow curving road with inattentive drivers. But once in the park the path was wide and fun. Back in the neighborhood we did some hills, praticed tight turns with figure eights and continued to experiment that "ejection seat". I'm sure things will settle down but I fear it will cost some skin and repair money along the way. But the first rides have been a blast and the learning curve is not nearly as high as a two wheeled cycle.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Still searching

If it was going to happen to one of the trikes I'm glad it was mine but I noticed during our Monday ride that the rear gears were slipping when climbing. This would be a real disaster on a two wheel cycle and standing up to climb a hill. On a trike it's a big nuisance and means losing some momentum but nothing really bad. So today I threw the trike in my truck and was at the bike shop when it opened. I explained the problem and left the new baby for the day. My wife was nice enough to pick it up in the evening so we could do a ride just before dark. The result after a day in the shop? Better but not perfect. It's still searching for the right gear when climbing. I did some searching on an owners group forum and found several references to this as an "index problem" and directions on making the adjustments.

We did manage to get a quick ride in maybe 2 miles total with the half way up, gears slip, go back down try again plan of attack. This time it was my wife & myself. We're both still getting used to how the ride "feels" but she seems more comfortable on the trike than she ever was on her Hard Rock.

Wednesday, August 5, 2008

Slow burn

Decided to use the trikes for returning DVDs to Blockbuster. I knew it would be a race against sunset so we needed to have a decent pace for the 5+ miles round trip in less than an hour. Without lights on the trikes yet I didn't want to be near the road when it got past dusk. Our pace was anything but speedy as we coasted out of the driveway and down the first hill. It seems that since his first ride on Sunday my son has developed a serious nervousness about speed. So much so that I've literally seen him jog faster. Of course a slow descent makes for a slow ascent coming out of the valley. He seems comfortable with grinding out the climb while I would prefer some assistance from the downhill momentum. Rather than leave him I let him set the pace and I proceeded to do a slow burn, not only up each hill but down the other side. The space between my ears probably burned as much as my legs.

Bottom line: we spent another hour plus out on the trikes, used zero carbon fuel for a trip to town and even met some nice people along the way. Not a bad way to unwind from work.