Trike Mailing List and Summarization

[MOinIOWA at aol.com]

FYI...

The Trike mailing list was created as a forum for trike owners and would-be 
trike owners to discuss specific issues relating to trikes. To subscribe, 
send a message to majordomo at ihpva.org and put subscribe trikes as the body of 
the text. (If you would like the digest mode, subscribe trikes-digest to get 
all the day's messages combined into one mailing.)  I have been subscribing 
to the list for a few months now.  I glean bits and pieces from it, but much 
of it is quite frankly discussions of matters which are over my head.

I know this is redundant, but, for AK's considering a bike/trike purchase, I 
wanted to summarize some of major points to keep in mind from our discussions:

1) We have discussed four distinct categories of human powered vehicles: 
    a) two wheeled bicycle
    b) two wheeled recumbent bicycle
    c) tadpole recumbent trike 
    d) dual mode tadpole recumbent trike :

2)  A recumbent bike/trike will often provide a more comfortable seating 
position, when compared to a standard bicycle, with less strain on hands, 
elbows and shoulders of the amputee which may already be subject to abuse by 
long-term crutch use.  Seating is generally larger and may be more suitable 
to high AKs or HDs which may find normal bike seating even more uncomfortable 
than the general population does.  On the down side, hills may be more 
difficult to climb with the recumbent, but you are in a nice position to 
enjoy the scenary as you do climb.

3) For the amputee and non-amputee alike, the recumbent tadpole trikes 
(Greenspeed, Crystal Engineering/Trice, Earth Cycles/Dragonflyer) have an 
advantage over a standard two-wheeled recumbent bikes (Bike-E, Rans, Vision) 
in that they are recumbent but also that they allow the user to come to a 
dead stop and start again without removing the feet (or foot) from the pedal 
clip/cleat.  

4) The dual-mode tadpole recumbent trikes allow the AK to power the bike with 
arms and foot (or feet), the significance being that the pedal can be brought 
around for the down stroke with the arms rather than lifting or carrying it 
around with the one foot.  

5)  I have been told that cardiovascularly (new word there), the dual mode 
trikes provide no advantage over single mode trikes since your entire 
cardiovascular capacity can be "used up" by the large leg muscles.  However, 
I don't know if the physician that made this statement properly considered 
that an amputee has only one set of those large leg muscles, and regardless, 
utilizing the smaller arm muscles brings my heart rate up much faster, which 
improves the efficiency of the work-out I get with the dual mode vs. foot 
only pedaling.  Anyway, that is my theory, and I am sticking to it, 
regardless of those facts which I may be otherwise presented with :-).

6)  The more specialized/sophisticated/unique the bike/trike may be, the 
higher the price will generally be.  However, when compared to the cost of 
wheelchairs and prosthetics, these specialty bikes/trikes are really not that 
expensive in the big picture (besides, you can't coast down a hill at 30 mph 
on your prosthetic device unless you are being dragged).  

Michael