Bikes vs. Trikes

For those who are interested in a comparison between two-wheeled bikes and three-wheeled tadpole trikes, I offer my experiences and some commentary on the  pros and cons of each.

In 2013 I suffered a detached retina and was unable to exercise for three months. I had played volleyball for 20-odd years, and every time I sat idle I could just feel myself going downhill. In the fourth month I could do light exercise, but could not yet return to volleyball.

During that period my wife, who had to retire from volleyball due to wrist problems, got a Catrike Pocket, a recumbent tadpole trike. She chose a trike because there's no strain on the wrists (it has bar-end lever shifters instead of twist shifters). When I could finally exercise again I also got a trike, a Terratrike Tour II, for similar reasons: I have neck and back problems, and I remembered how uncomfortable my saddle was on the 10-speed Motobecane I got in college, and how my wrists always bugged me.

We rode over 3,000 miles on our trikes during the summer of 2013. We mostly rode on trails (asphalt and crushed limestone) in the Twin Cities. We took a couple of two-day trips.

In late summer of 2014, expecting to ride in inclement weather, we bought hybrid two-wheelers: I got a Trek 8.3 DS and my wife got a Trek Neko WSD. We've now ridden about 700 miles on these and I can now compare trikes vs. bikes.

Trike Pros

Trikes are very comfortable: you sit on a mesh seat with your legs in front of you, with all your joints in a neutral position. It's like sitting in a lawn chair.

You're more reclined on the Pocket and more upright on the Tour II. With either one, there's no wrist, neck or seat discomfort.

Unlike two-wheelers, locking cleated bike shoes into your pedals has no downside. In fact, you're much safer clipped in because your leg can't be sucked under the trike if it slips off the pedals. I would personally never ride a trike for any distance without having my feet clipped in. Old-style toe clips don't hack it because your feet can fall out the back.

It's almost impossible to fall over, though you can do it if you brake very suddenly while turning. You can go up hills at a slow crawl, and never worry about toppling.

If you run over a small obstacle on a trike you are unlikely to lose control or fall over. An acorn can make a bike fall over.

You're low and compact on the trike, so there's less wind resistance. Just coasting downhill we typically go faster than people on two wheels who are pedaling madly away.

Even though you can't stand up like you can on two wheels, you can get a lot of leverage by pushing your back against the seat. When you're clipped in you can produce a lot of power (and you really need it on hills).

Trikes can turn and stop very quickly. Because your legs are in front of you, and your weight is low and back, you're much more stable than a bicycle and you're not going to come off.

You don't need special clothing for trikes, other than cleated shoes if you use clipless pedals, and something to keep your pant legs from getting in the chain.

One thing that didn't turn out to be a problem was the low derailleur: it's only a couple inches off the ground. At first I was afraid it would be destroyed by the first rock I came across. After 4,000 miles I've never hit the derailleur on anything.

A bike is an extension of your person. A trike is like a tiny car.

Trike Cons
The main difference between a bike and trike is convenience: a bike is an extension of your person, and a trike is a separate vehicle. On a trike that means you can't just hop a curb; you have to unclip, get off, pick up the trike, move it over the obstacle, put it down, sit back down, and clip in.

Some of the trike's advantages are also disadvantages. You're very low to the ground, which means you'll never get hit in the head by a low-hanging branch. But you're below the sight lines of drivers getting out of their cars, so you may be more likely to be doored (flags help, but they're small and many drivers won't recognize them for what they are). Being low also makes it hard to see over bushes and cars.

The recumbent position is much more comfortable, but it also means that you can't stand up to pedal. That's a disadvantage for two reasons: First, standing up lets you use your own weight to make it easier to ascend hills. Second, being able to change position is a big plus, especially on longer rides. On a trike you are always stuck in one posture.

Trikes are much wider and unwieldy: there are many times when maintenance workers or construction block the trails and roads making it impossible for a trike to get through, when a bike will be able to squeeze by. When you run into these you have to get off and haul the trike around the obstacle.

Trikes have three wheels, and are 30-35 inches wide on the ground. Every stick and rock in your path requires you to decide how to avoid it on your trike: can you go over it to the left or the right of the rear wheel (remembering that the derailleur's on the right), or do you have to go completely around it. Ditto for avoiding holes in the road. A bike is essentially only as wide as its tires at ground level, and it's much easier to avoid obstacles.

Every bump in the road rattles your spinal column on a trike. You can ameliorate this a little by tensing your glutes. On a bike you simply stand up and let your legs absorb the bumps. If you have shocks in the front, like hybrids do, rough roads are mostly a non-issue. You can get trikes with shocks, but they're very pricey and very heavy. On trikes with a greater recumbent angle there's correspondingly less shock on the spine, but in that position you have to twist your neck forward with your chin on your chest so you can see.

On a trike you are very close to the ground, usually six inches or less. If the ground is wet, the bottom of your seat (and your shorts) get wet and muddy, even with fenders. Riding in the rain is pretty miserable.

Trikes take more muscle power and energy to go the same speed as a bike.

Trikes are less efficient: it takes more muscle power and energy to go the same speed: I didn't realize this until I rode a two-wheeler again. I would estimate I go 2-3 mph faster on a hybrid bike with significantly less effort. This is partly due to more road friction because of three wheels, and the really long chain, and the greater weight of the typical trike. And I'm guessing the 20-inch wheels have something to do with it. Going up hills on a trike is a real grind, even compared to a 30-pound hybrid two-wheeler.

On a trike I noticed that after about 30-35 miles my quads just started to wear out. Forty miles is a real grind, even at the end of summer when I should have been used to long rides.

Somewhat paradoxically, I can fairly easily hit 23 mph on the trike on flat ground (24 speed with 20" wheels), but have a much harder time doing that on the bike (24 speed with 700 mm wheels and similar gearing and tires). I think it's due to wind resistance, which increases at the square of the speed.

Trikes can be a hassle to travel with. The Pocket will fit into a hatchback easily, but the Tour II is long and wide. We got both of them to fit into a Subaru Forester, and once you know the tricks it's not too bad getting them in and out. But it's still a big pain in the neck compared to plopping a bike on a hitch-mounted bike rack. If you're on an organized group ride outfitters and sag wagons are equipped to carry a large number of two-wheelers, but really have nowhere to carry a trike. Finally, many buses and light-rail cars have facilities for transporting bikes, on a rack on mounted on the front outside or in vertical racks inside. Trikes are just too big and nonstandard.

The long chain on a trike can cause problems. First, you inevitably get grease on your right leg. The chains can't be as taut as they are on a bike, and they tend to come off the front chain ring fairly often. I had a problem with the chain escaping the idler every time I hit a bump for the first 500 miles. Eventually it just stopped happening, and nothing I did or the bike stores I took it to seemed to have fixed it.

While the basic sitting position on the trike is much more comfortable than a bike, it's the only position. Sitting in the same position for extended periods can get uncomfortable.

Depending on the trike, it can be a hassle mounting accessories. You often have to buy custom mounts or special gear that's designed specifically for your trike.

Bike Pros and Cons
Most of bike pros were implied by trike cons and were covered above, but a couple of things need to be emphasized.

Bikes are just a lot less comfortable and ergonomic. Wrist and seat problems are extremely common. Bikes are dynamically more dangerous: it's much easier to lose control, and you're much more likely to fall (especially if you don't clip out your shoes fast enough).

Many bikes require that you wear special bike shorts because saddles are small and have such a small contact area.

On the plus side, bikes require less muscle power to ride. A 45-mile ride on a bike doesn't wipe out my quads like a 45-mile ride on a trike.

The basic sitting position on a bike is much less comfortable than on a trike, but the advantage is that you can change your position: you can lean forward or straighten up completely, or stand up on your pedals. This is especially important on longer rides.

Many of the ergonomic problems of bikes can be remedied with different equipment. That requires a long, tedious search for the right saddle, handlebars, handle grips, stem, twist shifters vs. trigger shifters, and so on. If the bike you buy happens to be just right for you as is, count yourself very lucky.

My wife started having wrist problems almost immediately, but a pair of Ergon handlebar grips resolved her issues (I picked some up too, though in the large size because the original grips were too small for my hands).

When I test rode my bike the saddle seemed fine, but once I started riding seriously it became clear it was totally wrong for me. The original one had a rounded top that contacted the inside of my sit bones: all my weight was concentrated in a very small area, which became uncomfortable after 15-20 minutes. I went to several bike shops looking for a new one.

Saddles are either very expensive and extremely small with almost no padding, or big and cheap with too much padding. One store recommended a $200 leather saddle that would (eventually) form itself to me. I didn't really want to spend a third of what the bike cost on a saddle.

After you adapt the bike to you, you have to adapt to the bike.

I finally settled on a mountain bike saddle that the sales guy brought out as an afterthought: it has a flatter surface so that the bottom of my sit bones rest atop it, instead of the saddle digging into the insides of the bones. At $30 this was also the cheapest saddle I found.

After you adapt the bike to you, you have to adapt to the bike: there's a break-in period for your body, where you just have to get used to the way it is. It took a while, but I eventually got used to the saddle and my wrists

Bikes are the standard. Bike racks in public places are built for them. You can take them on buses and trains. Transporting them on cars is easier with hitch- or trunk-mounted racks. Bikes are lighter and because of their shape they're easier to lift and carry.

Because bike design is standardized, most accessories will mount on most bikes: there's room on most handlebars for lights, computers, bells, mirrors, etc. Most rear bike racks will mount on most bikes, and you can get trunk bags and panniers that will fit those racks. Seat-post bags, locks, etc., are all designed to mount on standard bikes.

You're higher on a bike, so you can see traffic and scenery more easily. Bikes are better than trikes for roads because drivers can see you more readily and you can avoid common hazards like potholes and rocks more easily.

Bikes are easier to adjust and maintain. Every bike mechanic knows how to set up and fix a bike, but most bike shops aren't very good at setting up trikes. Both of us had problems with the "toe-in" on our trikes: one of my tires wore out completely after only a couple hundred miles because the wheels weren't aligned properly.

Finally, bikes are a lot cheaper. A trike will probably cost three to four times as much as a bike with equivalent features, mostly because trikes are hand-made by small American, European and Australian manufacturers, while bikes are mass-produced in Asia.

Summary
Trikes are best suited to riding on flat paved bike trails that have minimal interaction with automobile traffic. While you can keep up with bikes, you have to expend a lot more energy doing it. Trikes are also non-standard and can't use a lot of the standard bike infrastructure.

If you have orthopedic problems or balance issues and you have access to flat paved trails, you will be happier on a trike. If you ride on streets alongside cars or on rough trails, or up a lot of hills, you will be happier on a bike.