Riding a trike

When I discovered trikes in late December 2015, I was still so weak from all my cancer-treatments, that I couldn't stand upright more than a minute. Inspite of never having tried out a trike and not even having seen one from afar, I decided that this thing was for me. But it would need an electric motor, otherwise I'd never been able to climb those mountains with it that our house is surrounded with. But I had some experience with "ordinary" electric bikes (which we call "Pedelecs" in Germany and which are subject to several regulations, regarding speed, power and throttle-control): they used to be much too lame for my taste to be fun; the latest generation seems to be a bit better, but still lame, in comparison). So I called up an ebike-shop and told them to sell me their hottest motor-kit that is still barely legal. Which they did, of course.

When the trike and the e-kit arrived, I had to put it all together myself, which included taking the bike apart and adding lots of parts, like the motor, a box called "Cycle Analyst" (to control everything) and several other bigger or smaller parts. I had to sit in a chair while working on my bike, and pause every couple of minutes to catch my breath or simply to stare holes into the mountains, waiting for my body to gain the next little bit of power to continue. It took me several weeks to get ready …

But once I got it all working, I couldn't stop – it was too much fun. The motor-kit turned out to be really worth its price: It is strong enough to push me up the steepest hill, even at times (=almost always, initially) when my legs were much too weak to even propel the trike on a flat surface. The battery that they had sold me turned out to be surprisingly sturdy: even with minimal pedaling from my side its power would last for about 50 miles up and down the steepest hills and the speed of the trike was … well, I better not mention it, but be sure that it is enough to pass everyone on two wheels, no matter how athletic they may be. I'm sure, they all hated me, when I surpassed them on these often long-winded hill-roads, smilingly, with just one hand on the steering.

And then the scenery! For several years, while sitting in the car, driven by my wife to one surgical operation to the next, I had always dreamed of being free to enjoy nature – and now the trike would take me to the remotest spots, into areas that I would have never made the effort – even in healthier days – to get there. Now I could visit three of such places in one tour! And I didn't even have to feel guilty, like when using a car to get near such destinations (if possible at all): no exhaust that I would be causing, no noise, no pollution, no annoyance of other nature-lovers. And no sweat, except when I chose to exhaust myself for the sake of rehabilitation. But I can tell you that in the first weeks my ambitions to do so were close to 0 – I was already glad to be ride at all.

The many surgical procedures had left deep scars in both of my groins (from inserting catheters that were pushed up through the main artery until the neck, where they would let loose the chemotherapy drugs.) Each pedaling motion initially caused discomfort in my legs and cramps. But that's what I had the motor for …

Anyway, I want to tell you that riding this thing (and I rode about 1.800 miles in the first season alone!) was the best thing that I could have done, in terms of rehab. Even though today I still wouldn't ride without a motor (not in this moutain-area!), but my legs no longer hurt when I pedal, I have considerably more power and feel much better overall. Meanwhile, we bought a second trike for my wife, and going together with her on long trips into the wild has become one of our favorite activities.

Trikes are great fun, especially when combined with a motor. Still, they may not be for everybody: They're expensive to begin with, hard to come by, and unless you want to be dependent on your bike-dealer, it takes some willingness to deal with the technology of bikes and of electrical motor systems. I was never a bicycle-enthusiast and also had not developed any technicial skills at all, so I had to start from scratch. But now I am well-equiped in terms of bike-repair, I understand the motor-kit (sort of) and can do most of the repairs and maintenance myself –which is always necessary, you shouldn't make a mistake regarding this detail. There's always something to fix, and having to rescue the trike from the middle of nowhere because of a broken motor or a flat tire happened to us more than once. It's an adventure to ride these things, and it takes some willingness to deal with such uncertainties, plus a not-so-short learning curve in order to learn how to ride them properly and with some elegance.

On the other hand: I have several friends and acquaintances, who fell off their bikes – often resulting from trivial circumstances, but ending up severly injured. On a trike this would rarely happen. For people like me, whose sense of balance got severely corrupted, trikes might be the only safe solution to ride a bike. After all, you are already sitting close to the ground! And the three wheels will make it much harder to fall over. (But it IS possible, as my wife demonstrated unwillingly several times, when she was new to trikeriding, by driving too fast into a curve, without leaning to the inside of the curve).