A Tale of Two Trikes

Photos by Lanny Thompson

I never thought that when I took delivery this May of the 2010 Can-Am Spyder RT-S for its CW long-term test that I’d discover a completely unlooked-for artifact of riding it: improved fitness. See, on the night of my 56th birthday, back in May, 2004, I got much too up close and personal with the sheetmetal of a 1995 Chevy. Ever since I was able to get out of my wheelchair three years ago, I’ve been going to the local gym to get the musculoskeletal system back up to some kind of speed. 

As my aging bod sweated its way through each session at the gym, though, I chafed to be outside again, on my bikes—that is, my motorcycle and my bicycle. Not gonna happen, cowboy. Fractured pelvis sheared some nerves that never got repaired, so key muscles in the left leg just don’t work. With a full leg brace and a cane, I can stump around, but the ambulation I use is called “hip-hiking,” which makes you look like a drunken sailor with a peg leg, but it gets the job done when walking a short distance is needed.

I discovered at the gym that I could use Bontrager MBX bicycle clip-in shoes to work the pedals on a recumbent bicycle exercise machine, so eventually the legs got strong enough to consider venturing out on a recumbent trike. The right one for me turned out to be a “tadpole” (the bicycle guys call trikes with two front wheels “tadpoles” and those with two rear wheels “deltas”) made by Inspired Cycle Engineering in Cornwall, England. I got a new “Adventure 2fs” that is fast, easy to ride and keeps my lower legs working as well as I could expect them to—without my having to go to a gym.

But until I got the other three-wheeler, the Spyder, I was forced to use the gym for serious upper-body work. At first, when riding these Can-Ams, I found it not only weird but strenuous to steer the big machines with the handlebar as a tiller. You steer a Spyder just as you do a car, and though it comes with a power-assisted steering unit, racking up miles on the thing with a full load in long sections of serious twisties can get tiring. It’s tiring because (duh!) it demands muscular effort, which I know turns off some riders. But not me: Among the reasons for my liking the Can-Am is that I can get a workout of my entire upper body, including the muscles of the back, since in addition to the pushing and pulling on the tiller handlebar, I do the usual motorcycle torso twisting to stay situationally aware. I now mention this every-ride pleasurable workout to people who ask why a would-be Spyder rider shouldn’t just get a convertible car for the same money as a Spyder.

Everyone’s fitness level is different, of course, but because my own was so low when I was able once again to climb onto the Spyder or into the seat of the ICE Adventure 2fs, it’s been made clear to me how they have helped me heal and get stronger. This aspect of the two trikes reminds me of the oft-cited saying about age and riding: “You don’t stop riding because you get old; you get old because you stop riding.”