The following links are to other websites with recumbent bike and trike FAQs. They are included to help offer a rounded view on the subject, and often tackle the same questions and issues. Some discuss recumbents from manufacturers other than Greenspeed, but whose points are relevant nonetheless. Some offer opinion different to my own on some matters.
All are the property of their authors, who retain all copyrights to the material.
Greenspeed Recumbents FAQ
Bicycle Evolution - Recumbent Cyclist News
Why Doesn't Everyone Ride A Recumbent? - bikefix.co.uk
Frequently asked questions about recumbent bicycles - recumbents.com
The IHPVA recumbent FAQ
Westcountry Recumbents Trike FAQ
John's Recumbent FAQ
Cyclegenius Recumbent FAQ
Urban Triking/Cycling Tips - Karl Auer
Bikefix.co.uk also have a cracker of an article on the history of recumbent bikes - well worth a read!
Can car drivers see a trike on the road?
They look too wide. Is that a problem on cycle paths?
The seat or position looks really uncomfortable. Are they uncomfortable to ride?
Are they harder to ride than a regular bike?
Are they as fast as a regular bike?
Can they climb hills?
So how safe are they?
Is maintenance difficult on a trike?
Can they carry a load, or a passenger?
This is generally the very first question people ask as they inspect how low trikes ride.
Will cars see you?
Yes, for a number of reasons:
one, you take up more or less the same area as an upright cyclist. True, you're lower to the ground and are a squatter, wider shape but you are reasonably brightly coloured on a GT3 with a yellow seat and fluoro orange flag. Some people also claim that a trike doesn't blend in with a vertically-oriented background of signs, posts and trees either, which enhances your visibility;
two, you're an odd thing to see on the road, and that alone makes drivers wake up slightly to take notice; and
three, just because you're low doesn't mean you can't be seen - road markers, for example are on the road surface and get seen, edge post are about the same height to the side and get seen, and cats or dogs that run on the road are all generally seen if not always avoided.
It's true that once you've ended up beside an SUV or 4WD you cannot easily be spotted, but a driver should have been able to see you on approach. If they haven't they're the sort of driver who is just as likely to miss seeing cyclists, pedestrians, motorbikes or other cars, not just trikes.
As with regular bikes the best defence is to make yourself as visible as possible - wear bright clothes (and bright wet weather gear especially if it's wet or dark), use a flag or spinny and always use lights (preferably flashing and steady) at dusk or at night. Flags and spinnys have the added bonus of being good magpie-proofing in the breeding season too!
The visibility issue is whether YOU can see ahead of the cars. In heavy traffic it's pretty much an essential to be able to see what lies ahead, and it's here that trikes are less effective than an upright bike. In Canberra we do have two things in our favour: one, that "heavy traffic" in Canberra is rarely more than twenty cars long, and generally doesn't occur at all beyond a 30 minute peak hour period on the major roads; and two, there are alternatives to most major roads that have little or no traffic. These can be either side streets or cycle lanes or paths.
Greenspeed's folding trikes are all 800mm wide - narrower than most doorways. I've yet to find a set of bollards on cycle paths in Canberra I can't get past with no effort at all.
Paradoxically their perceived extra width on the road works strongly to your advantage. In the worst-case scenario a driver will only allow an upright cyclist the space on the shoulder that they are perceived to need - the width of their handlebars. This is wrong - in fact an upright rider generally needs at least an additional 10-15 cm on either side to allow for the small course corrections or obstacle avoidance that is part of everyday riding.
Drivers perceive trikes on the other hand as being substantially wider than they actually are, and will - grudgingly - try to allow for it. I've found that cars give my trike a wider berth than they generally give my upright bike. This experience is common among trikers everywhere.
No! Emphatically not! The seat and position are astonishingly comfortable to ride in - it's no coincidence that most seats in the world look more like the trike seat rather than a bicycle saddle. As for legs-forward pedalling, yes, it does take a short while to get used to. I now find the upright riding position fiercely uncomfortable.
In many ways it's the comfort of the ride that marks the biggest difference between the recumbent trike and an upright bike. I'm not a professional cyclist or even a particularly gifted amateur. I rarely ride more that 100km a week, and for me 50km is a long trip. My favourite ride is from home in Rivett, up and right around Lake Burley Griffin and back again. It's a circuit of about 45km and it takes about an hour and three quarters. When I'd finish this ride on the upright bike my bum was sore, my arms were tired and my right hand was numb (it went numb after about 30 minutes, usually) and if it had been a hot or sunny day I usually had a headache as well (a combination of glare and neck muscle fatigue). After the same trip on the trike I'm tired because I've just pedalled 45km, but I'm not sore anywhere.
You could even argue that it's not the comfort of the trike ride that's important - it's the absence of discomfort that's the difference!
No, they take pretty much the same or slightly less effort to pedal than an upright bike.
Recumbent riding uses the same muscles as a regular bike, but it uses them in different proportions - generally, your quadriceps (the muscles running along the top of your thighs) do a bit more work than on an upright bike, but after a month of regular riding you'll be acclimatised to this and you'll be putting the same effort in as you've always been. The difference is that you'll be a lot more comfortable in the process.
What's really being asked here is "will I be as fast as I am on my regular bike?" The short answer is "Yes".
Once you're used to how the trike handles, and you've found your "trike legs" (the acclimatisation takes about a month) then you are a little faster if you're on the flat, and a bit faster again downhill. I put it down solely to aerodynamics, which gives you a good advantage even at a relatively modest 25km/hr, but which is then slightly whittled back by the (slight) extra weight of the trike and by the additional rolling resistance of the the extra tyre on the pavement. For what it's worth, my average "cruising speed" over a longish flat distance on the upright bike was about 27km/hr. On the trike over the same routes it appears to be about 30-31km/hr. Your own mileage, however, will vary 
.
For the first 6-9 months I was slower up hills on the trike than I was on the upright. On the upright I got up hills relatively quickly before by simply standing up in the pedals and mashing down as hard as I could for as long as I could, using gravity to assist in the push downwards as much as possible. For short hills this technique does get you over the top. But you pay a price - first in exhaustion, because this is not an energy-efficient technique, and second in the extreme stress you put your knees under in the process.
On the trike it's not possible to stand up and mash your way up hills. So, you need to use the technique of spinning instead (you'll find a brief description of spinning here). It has the two advantages of being a lot less effort than mashing ever was, and it's hugely easier on your knees. The disadvantage is that, especially for small hills, it'll be slower when you first try it. The more you ride the better you get - it took me about 6 months before I really started to get the same hill-climbing speed as I used to - but it's a lot easier on my knees!
Most bike accidents are from falls, and occur with no contact with anything else. Riders can simply fall off their bikes for any number of reasons - swerving to miss an obstacle, cornering too hard, or not hard enough, travelling too slowly up a hill, too fast down the other side, or simply not getting their foot out a cleat or toeclip in time when coming to a stop. In contrast, you can't fall off a trike except under the most extreme circumstance, and even then you'll not have very far to fall.
A trike "grips the road" because of it's much lower centre of gravity compared to an upright bike. That means that going downhill is doubly exciting - you go faster and your cornering and turning is razor sharp, like a go-kart!
If a bike blows a tyre at speed it can lead to severe injury as the bike suddenly becomes unstable. A trike that loses a tyre still wobbles a fair bit but it's far easier to navigate safely off to the side, and you aren't going to get thrown off.
Finally, if you need to brake hard, it's likely the very worst you'll do is dig the front cogs into the pavement. Of course that's not good, but your body will still be in one piece and not thrown off over the handlebars as you would on a regular bike.
It's not a totally free rein, though. You can tip a trike if you turn too sharply at speed. However, if you don't turn suddenly, but rather "ease your way" into a turn then almost any corner is doable at just about any speed. You can also help by leaning into corners too, just like you do on an upright bike. And if a wheel starts to lift, then either straighten up a little,or lean over it to help weigh it down again.
A new trike will have a running-in period during which the new cables will be settling into place. This means that the rear derailleur (which is most sensitive to cable adjustment) will need some ongoing calibration until the cables have "stretched" as much as they're going to. Typically this requires a simple adjustment once after about 250km, and again after about 500km. After that the gear cables should be checked once a year with the expectation of no change at all.
After their running-in trikes require no more or less maintenance than a regular bike. Most of the maintenance involved is for the powertrain, which, like any bike, needs a bit of lubrication every couple of months for best operation. We use ProLink chain lube, which has proved excellent at keeping the chainline clean and quiet in operation, and has worked well on the derailleurs as well.
Drum brakes require no more than an occasional tension adjust with the thumbscrew (difficulty: easy ; time: a few minutes ; frequency; annually or less). Disk brakes need pads replaced when they're worn down, but they should serve at least 3,000km and likely more.
Tyres and tubes need little maintenance beyond checking that they're inflated to pressure. Tyres operating at lower than recommended pressures will cause problems either with torn valve stems or proneness to pinch flats. They're harder to pedal, too. With any trike or bike it's helpful to carry some spares in case of punctures.
Seats can be cleaned, if necessary, with warm, soapy water.
Beyond that, we recommend a once-a-year bike service by Fuse, especially for "working trikes".
All Greenspeed trikes can be fitted with a pannier rack that will accept most brands of pannier (a pannier is a bag with hooks intended for carrying your gear around on a bike or trike). If you already have panniers, just check that the depth of the panniers from hook to base is no more than 35cm if you're considering a 16" wheel trike or 40cm if you're considering a 20" wheel trike. We have a range of high quality panniers available if you're in the market.
Unless you're looking at a tandem trike you won't be able to carry a passenger beyond about 5 years old, and ony then in a child seat. Greenspeed themselves don't recommend child seats on the rear racks, but people have suceessfully fitted and used them. The kids especially like them because of the uninterrupted view ahead.
Greenspeed recommend using a trailer for regular child transport. Trailers alos make hauling larger loads, suchas grocery shopping, or pets much easier too. See our shop for a range of quality child, cargo and pet trailers.
You can't successfully fit a trailer bike to a trike. Trailer bikes almost always have their attachment on the seat post of an upright bike - a location that trikes don't have.
