On my quest to exercise happiness, I have resumed my part-way commute to work a couple of times a week again, after a year's break. Impression after the first few rides: Ouch! I'm not complaining about the well-deserved ache in the legs, that's just natural and part of the game. Not even so much about the pain in my seat area, although that was pretty bad, but mainly the pain in my wrists. This has become more and more of a problem in recent years and, while it is due to handlebar design and could possibly be alleviated by a radical change in that bit of MTB hardware, I have decided to go one, nay: several steps further.
The milestones on my path to cyclopaedic enlightenment were few enough to jot down: long chats to my friend, ex-bike shop colleague and recumbent bike geek in Norway; intensive research on the internet with visits to many a forum and loads of reviews; frustration that the nearest recumbent cycle specialist dealers are in East Sussex and London; a bit of a revelation that one hasn't got to stick with two wheels; the discovery of Inspired Cycle Engineering in Falmouth (West Cornwall); a call to ICE...
"Hello, could I come and visit you this afternoon" - "Sure, no problem, bring your bike shoes"
...Three wheels better!
Time owing claimed, cover for the ward arranged, TomTom set to TR11 4SN, 70 miles later arrived in an industrial estate somewhere near World's End, welcomed by what surely must be some of the nicest people in the business.
ICE haved quite recently moved to a very generously sized unit in the industrual estate and are still in "yay, we've got space!" mood, proud and happy, and for good reasons; having bike shop and workshop experience myself, ICE's home is a dream.
After a tour of the premises (they've even got their own photo studio and a brandnew Canon 5D), I was shown a wide array of recumbent tricycles from old XLs to recent Ts and Qs to "hush hush" future 2 and 3-wheeled models that were quickly rolled out of the way when I asked for a couple of photographs (see below).
Neil (one of the company directors) gave me all the attention and time I could wish for (over 3 hours all in all), explained everything and let me look, touch and test his "babies". He had me sussed pretty much straight away after our preliminary chat and said "go and try the lot, but I reckon you'll go for this one", pointing to a QNT. And yup, he was right.
I rode a few models outside on the estate (dodging the city buses in their depot) and quickly found the position, stable handling and speed of the QNT (by the way, the "NT" stands for "Narrow Track", not "New Technology" as you will be relieved to know) very much to my liking. Time for a bit more of a test ride. "Out of here, up to the road, turn left and just keep going."
The road took me down (weeeeeeeeee! About 300 feet over only a small part of the 2 miles) to Maenporth beach. At that point I was smitten with the Trice, but a little apprehensive as everyone keeps saying how much more difficult climbs are on recumbents. An ice cream later, I got back in the saddle, pardon: comfy mesh seat and made my way back up. Given how deconditioned I currently am, the climb was not worse than it would have been on my MTB. I was never one to go out of the saddle (granny gear man, me) and am used to pulling as much as pushing the pedals, so the effort seemed quite unspectacular. Best of all, being on 3 wheels, I could go as slow as I liked and even stop to, er, admire the views without falling over or even unclicking my feet from the SPD pdeals.
As for the inevitable question of "and what about the cars?", it was very much as I expected. Although the silhouette of a recumbent is lower than that of an upright bike, it is sufficiently unexpected and different for drivers to notice and pause for thought. Add to that the width of a trike and the drivers were not at all tempted to squeeze past me, instead they queued up behind and waited for an opportune moment (or my hand signals "road clear, carry on") before overtaking. Nevertheless,
I arrived back up at ICE with what's commonly known as the "trike grin" on my face. My soul was lost, my heart had already joined the dark side.
We then looked at how I could load the trike into the back of my Golf Plus and, to my great delight and surprise, I don't have to change the (considerable) length of the Trice at all nor take off the seat. With the rear wheel between the front seats, the QNT fits upright and straight into the back of the Plus. If anyone cracks another joke about "Golf plus what?", my reply will be "plus enough height to get my Trice in". It was obviously a conspiracy between VW and ICE long before I knew I had to fit the two together.
I gave myself two days "cooling off period", but found that the momentum still kept going and none of my friends or loved ones found the idea (or in fact the cost) as ridiculous as I feared.
Yesterday afternoon, therefore, I placed my order for a brandnew Trice QNT, just like this one:
Normally, ICE send their trikes dismantled for self-assembly, but we agreed that they would build it for me (as we really haven't got the space in the house to do it comfortably) and so I can go back down to Falmouth and pick it up. When? Oh, on Wednesday afternoon! w00t!
Watch this space for further outbursts of enthusiasm and gratuitous cycling geekery.
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