Bicycle, Schmicycle! I Got Me a Tricycle.

And I couldn't be happier -- though it appears I could be skinnier.  Oh, well.  Maybe the trike will help me with that. 

(Feel free to insert a doubtful look here, o ye of little faith, but before you do, I have to tell you, sadly, that we are no longer frequenting the charming French café up the street, it of the delectable butter pastry and the best freakin' cup of coffee in Concord, Massachusetts.  Hélas, but the (corpulent, mercurial, male) owner was arrested after allegedly physically assaulting the (kindly, slender, female) store manager during an otherwise apparently ordinary work day about two months ago.  Then within the next week, my true love personally witnessed the owner physically and seemingly permanently ejecting another small female employee out a side door, slamming it in her face even though she obviously had more to say to him.  So that particular butter has been irreparably tainted for us -- and for me obviously not a pound too soon.  It's very sad, though, and terribly shocking, no joke. 

But it's also a terrible digression.  Sorry.  Back to my intended subject matter.)

Before I say another word, let me just say a few things about amputee cycling in general.

If you are an amputee, barring other complications, you can probably ride a bike.  You can ride if you are missing an arm -- or two!  You can ride if you are missing a leg -- or two!  (Randy Garcia Tolson, once again, I'm looking at you.)

I read in a magazine that Sarah Reinertsen uses two different transfemoral prosthetic legs for her triathlons, one for the running, a different one for the bicycling, and none at all for the swimming part.  She can afford them because she is a serious athlete, so she has sponsors, a set-up which I am sure she worked very, very hard over a period of years to arrange and which she now works hard to help other similarly driven people obtain for themselves.

And then there's this nice Mexican lady, Ana Chavira, one of Össur's product models, another transfemoral amputee sponsored by and working closely with its team who recently, with the team's help, got on a bike and rode for the first time since she was sixteen.

Check out this guy, Daniel Sheret, a trans-tibial cross-country cyclist.  He's one of my prosthetist Bob Emerson's new business associates.

Then there's this guy, "One Leg Tim," a retired police officer and transfemoral amputee who cycles for fun wearing his prosthetic, and has lots of brilliant advice for ordinary schlubs like me -- and maybe you.

And then there's a guy whose name I don't know, a right transfemoral amputee who lives somewhere near me and rides what looks to me like a racing bike all over the hilly roads around here without his prosthetic on, as fast as and often faster than similar riders who appear to be wearing all their original body parts, as fast as the auto traffic around him.  A tiny lady rider with whom we chatted one day at Starbuck's (she had gorgeous floral tattoos and wonderful muscles) told us she sees him all the time at local races, riding right along with everybody else.  The first time I saw him while driving to work, I nearly ran off the road staring at him, trying to figure out how he was doing it.  (Other drivers were not amused.  That was a day I added my own contribution to the stupidity of my commute.)

So, seriously, the amputation thing?  Not an excuse in and of itself.

If, like me, you are a transfemoral amputee only on one side, and that is the only thing functionally "wrong" with you, then the only things standing between you and bicycling -- assuming bicycling is a pastime you'd like to either take up or continue, of course -- are probably money, will and opportunity.  The equipment adaptations necessary to succeed range from minor to major, depending on your individual physique and your goals for the sport. 

If you are persistent, don't mind falling down a lot and/or have lots of people to help you stay up while you get your rhythm together, if you have plenty of time, and especially if you have lots of money to throw at this particular pursuit, your own or some supporting organization's, there is no limit to what you can achieve on a bicycle.

Sadly, that ain't me.

I'm fat, middle-aged, legendarily klutzy, definitely don't have plenty of time, and am not exactly wealthy.  Though I have nevertheless highly developed princessy traits, residuals of a reasonably spoiled childhood, I am not in fact a tended or coddled person.  I do not have teams of people at my disposal to help me achieve my mind-numbingly ordinary goals, nor do I desire them.  Oh, and that falling down thing?  It's okay; I can deal with it -- as long as I'm not rocketing along at 20 mph over asphalt when it happens, assuming I can ever even get to that speed with no one to hold the bike while I get started.

In light of this, but also in light of my lifelong love of cycling and my sadness every time my true love would take out his bike and I couldn't go with him, a compromise has been reached.  I have obtained a tricycle!  A shiny, shiny tricycle!  Bright blue!  Brand new!  With a big white basket beneath my butt!  And once again, my friends, a bell under my thumb peals merrily and wind flows through my hair.  It's like I never stopped.  Sort of.  Close enough.

So, why is this really better?  It all boils down to the pedaling.  Pedaling with one foot -- with one functional knee, really -- is a whole other ball game, er, bike ride.  Though I'm sure that, like so much else to do with our altered bodies, it becomes nothing at all to think about over time, at first it is very, very strange and awkward.  How strange?  Well, here's the thing.  The missing (or replaced) limb is completely dysfunctional for this process.  So once you've pushed one pedal forward and down with the living limb you still have, how do you make that same pedal come back up again when there's nothing to pick up the pushing motion using the pedal on the other side of the apparatus?  Ideally, each leg sets in motion or completes one half of the pedal apparatus' rotation.  When you have just one leg that does what you tell it, what do you do instead?

You pull.  You pull up with the same foot with which you pushed down.  And this means you have to have your living foot attached somehow to the one pedal you can still work.  It has to be attached so that it won't come off the pedal while you're pulling, but not so attached that you can't slip it off the pedal easily when you are ready to dismount.

For this purpose, I use a particular type of toe clip.  This is like a little basket that embraces my left foot from the ball to the toe.  It is strong, strong enough to enable my left foot/leg to complete an entire pedal rotation cycle with me pulling up and over very hard, cleverly designed to accept force distributed over a large area even though it's composed of merely a few thin straps.  It is adjustable in size, so it can accommodate a wide variety of shoe types.  (Of course, it is really adjustable in size so it can accommodate a wide variety of foot sizes, but I write from the perspective of the consumer, not the vendor.  Still, if your feet are bigger or smaller than mine, you might be able to use the very same product with equal or greater success.  My true love, for example, not an amputee, wears a men's shoe size 10½, or 11, and he uses the exact same kind of clips on both his feet just to increase the efficiency of his pedaling -- the original purpose for which they were designed.)

Another adaptation I have made is that I do not use my prosthetic leg at all, even though I wear it while cycling.  Cycling is a form of transportation for me.  I cycle to places where I expect to walk around.  I could always throw my prosthetic leg in the basket in the back and just strap it on when I get to my destination, but that would mean I'd have to behave immodestly in public.  Even wearing a skirt, there's just no public-appropriate way for me to don my prosthetic.  Better it should never come off in the first place.

(As you can see in that last photo, I eventually removed the right foot toe clip.  It was just dragging on the ground.)

As Tim points out, if a rider fastens his prosthetic foot onto the pedal on its side, the lip of the socket holding the transfemoral prosthetic onto his thigh tends to get caught on the underside of the bicycle seat with every rotation.  One solution is his, to have your prosthetist cut down the socket on an extra leg. 

What if, like me, you don't have an extra leg?  What if, like me, you will always be riding to a destination that will also involve walking around?

Well, one really obvious solution is to do as I do, and just wear your leg, but don't use it.  Don't attach it to the pedal on its side of the cycle.  Lock the knee so that the leg is rigidly sticking forward.  Because it isn't going to move up and down, the socket lip will not constantly be catching on the seat lip.  The prosthetic leg and foot will not get in the way of the wheel or the freely rotating pedal, and using proper steering plus whatever's left of your thigh, you will still be well able to guide the extended apparatus away from any oncoming obstacles that may arise.  It's really simple, and it really works -- at least for me, with this trike.

Nevertheless, this is still not easy.  When I pedal, I am really working.  My heart has not worked this hard in about ten years.  And I have only been doing this about a week, so my movements are not exactly smooth and fluid.  Since I am not innately graceful, it will probably take me a very long time to get them to a state of smooth fluidity.  Running a bicycle requires enough smooth, fluid motion to achieve consistent momentum.  If I were on a bicycle, I'd have whole-body road rash by now.

But the tricycle -- the tricycle!  The tricycle does not fall over.  It has no kickstand, yet it does not fall over.  It supports itself on three stable points, all the time.  I can be as jerky and clumsy and slow as I need to be, and still get around, pretty fast, too, ringing my bell, messing up my hair.  It is so delightful.

Although I do not have a squad of attendants, it is important to point out that I did not reach this place alone.  I discovered that I really did not want a bicycle over the course of the summer of 2005, when the very kind gentlemen at Ray & Sons Cycle and Ski of nearby Maynard, Massachusetts, lent me, free of charge and with no time limit attached, a cruiser bicycle on which to practice and even a car rack with which to carry it home.  They lent me two or three different kinds of seats and a couple of sets of foot pedals with which to experiment, some of which I tried out with various Velcro® arrangements per Tim's suggestions, some of which came with built-on leather straps that proved to leave too small an opening to be useful and also showed me that I was going to need something around my toe against which to push forward.  When I grew hideously frustrated, they even lent me -- again, free of charge -- a special, very expensive, practice stand.  My true love took off one of the wheels of the loaner bike and attached this apparatus so I could see if, free of pesky gravity and kickstands and other similar complications, I even had what it took to make the pedals move in the first place, and this is how I discovered that I could indeed get them going even with just one leg working.  And this is what gave us the idea to start researching tricycles.  'Cause when you take away the falling down while learning to go forward part, it's all just going forward all the time.

Research revealed that the following manufacturers sell adult tricycles:

Torker  (which is what I chose for weight-bearing potential, cuteness, price, stability, range of available functional and safety options, comfort, simplicity, and size, pretty much in that order of priority)

Haverich (a European company which specializes in adaptive mobility, including not just trikes but also hand-powered bikes and adaptive mountain bikes)

Sun (whose brand names include "Atlas" and "Miami Sun" and which also makes a nice, sporty-looking recumbent model with a super-comfortable seat good for beach and other fairly straightaway cruising and particularly easy on whatever knees you still have)

Trailmate DeSoto (which also makes adaptive cycles of various kinds, including special needs and recumbent)

Workman (which also makes tandem and fold-up trikes)

As mentioned above, I chose this particular model for the following reasons:

• I usually weigh 200 lbs., but might weigh more on any given day, especially if I'm premenstrual and carrying gear.  This trike can take that weight and quite a bit more.
• This trike is really cute.  I know myself.  If it wasn't cute, I'm wasn't going to want to play with it.  I know that's shallow, and a measure of how freakin' spoiled I am.  Plus, though, to be fair, that big, gleaming, white basket really is the bomb.  I can haul around all kinds of stuff with ease, and not look any dorkier doing it than I already look pretty much all the time.

• Tricked out with lights and toe clips, this trike cost $455.  This proved to be an amount my true love and I could save up over the course of a year, even a year with some very tough expenses, without much effort.
• This trike is wide, but not too wide, and has a comfortable, fairly upright structure.  It is very, very stable, even cornering.  I can easily U-turn on a narrow road.
• This trike has both a left-hand hand brake and a pedal-activated coaster brake.  Since I wasn't sure I'd be able to operate the coaster brake, the hand brake was essential.  Also, the model I chose has three speeds, which have already come in handy for hill-climbing.
• I have an enormous, muscular, but pampered ass, and this trike comes with an unobtrusive but definitely wide and cushy seat.  Also, I really like to sit up straight, and the structure of this trike, with handlebars that can be brought closer or pushed out farther, accommodates this preference.
• This trike is very easy to mount and dismount two ways, even wearing a fake leg.  I can, while holding the handlebars, balance on my fake leg and "step through" with the other as advertised, or I can stand on my living leg and swing the fake leg around and over as though mounting a horse.

• The narrowness (24") of the entire contraption allows me to ride on streets with cars, even the narrow streets around here, even between parked cars and moving cars.  I can also get the thing through my garden gate easily.

None of the other options I saw offered me all of these considerations.  Your requirements and aesthetics may be different, though, so I encourage you to visit all the manufacturers' sites.  Please also let me know if you find another good one I have left off.  And don't forget:  Sometimes you can save a lot of money buying used.

I have a couple of minor complaints/adjustments to make.  First of all, it is really a freakin' pain in the backside to get my left foot into the toe clip and also have that pedal properly positioned, near the top of the rotation but just slightly forward, to start off from a stopped position while facing uphill at a stoplight or stop sign.  This is especially frustrating when people in cars are waiting for me, with both politeness and fear evident on their puzzled faces.  It would help if the weight of the toe clip did not force the pedal to hang vertically forward by default, meaning I have to get very tricky with my toes to slip them into the basket and not flip the pedal over at the same time.

It would also help if the tricycle did not come with a coaster brake that cannot be disabled unless the entire pedal cannister is replaced with one made by a different brand.  (Such cannisters are apparently standard parts of a standard size, but Torker only makes them with coaster brakes inside.)  However, the coaster brake, which I did not think would be something I could even operate, has already proven a useful safety feature, so now I am loath to take that step.  The problem is, though, that because of the coaster brake, I can only move the pedals in one direction, forward.  The pedals engage when they move forward.  Therefore, I cannot position the pedal in the right place to start the trike unless I also move the trike forward at the same time.  I have already started to develop strategies to finesse this, but every intersection, and the population of drivers at every intersection at any given moment, is different, and it's going to take me a long time, I expect, to achieve smooth operation in this area as well as while pedaling.

A more recumbent trike such as Sun makes does not create such a challenge to start.  To make a trike like mine go with just one leg, the rider has to kind of slope back on her hips to push forward every time she pedals.  There's a constant rocking motion going on.  While this is really good for me in a lot of therapeutic ways, if you do not have my physical strength or the same amount of flexibility through the hips and lower spine, you might prefer an option like Sun's.  After sitting on one at Ray & Sons, I was tempted to go with this option myself, but didn't feel stable at my size on that particular trike, an EZ-3 SX, markedly narrower and longer than the one I ended up buying and borne on smaller wheels. 

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, our roads in Massachusetts kind of suck, and there are lots of curves and corners and hills to negotiate.  I felt I would wipe out the first day on a more recumbent model than what I ultimately chose.  Also, though it costs less than $1,000 and thus quite a bit less than other brands' versions of the same idea, the Sun EZ-3 SX still runs about twice what I paid for my trike -- which does not mean either that it's cheaply made or overpriced.  It's just neither what I wanted for myself nor anything I could afford this year.

I didn't even like the Sun trike aesthetically.  It's groovy looking; it's just not my taste.  The one I tested was a bright, orangey red, and the design in general is very attention-getting.  Frankly, I already feel I get more than enough attention, thank you very much.  However, if aesthetics had been the only objection I had, I would have bought one, because it's a very comfortable, easy to operate design.  In the end it really was about stability more than anything else.

The only other complaint I have about my trike is tiny, and it's that it is pictured at the manufacturer's website with rear fenders but did not come with them.  They are apparently extra.  I did not realize I had to mention them when I ordered it.  I live in a cold, wet, messy place.  Though summer was hardly dry, it is the real rainy season now, and I need those fenders, but I shall have to order them for an additional price, haul the trike over to Ray & Sons (and this trike is not lightweight and easy for one person, even a person with two living legs, to hoist onto the $135.00 car rack we also bought), pay for them to be installed, and haul it back before I can be assured of a nice, dry-bottomed ride.  It's not a huge deal; it's just an annoyance.

To sum up, amputation all by itself is not sufficient reason for you never to go cycling again.  There are lots and lots of options, and you don't have to be wealthy, anybody's poster child, or a serious athlete with sponsorship and a professional team of helpers to find something that will work for you.  You do have to have an open mind.

My post-amputation journey keeps bringing me round in funny circles, spirals really, because it's not like the circle ever closes.  It's a lot like how the wheels and pedals on bicycles and tricycles -- and even unicycles -- move a body forward.  Each circle is completed, but not in the same place it started, and there's more ground yet to travel past each point.

Little did I imagine when I was begging my parents for a "big girl bike" 37 years ago that I would someday find myself putatively all grown up, yet positively pining for and eventually over the top with glee at finally possessing a brand new tricycle.  Of all things!  But life happens, things change, and here we are.  (And we are glad.)

I'm still trying to decide whether or not to get streamers for the handlebars, or plastic daisies for the rear basket.

__________
(Note for my fellow NaBloPoMistas:  In the interest of fair disclosure, it should be obvious that between research, experimentation, saving money, figuring out how to use what I ended up buying, photographing said use in pertinent detail, and digitally processing these photos for maximally effective illustrative power, it took me over a year to write this post.  I began actually barfing out the words around October 20, 2006, and I have spent several hours today just selecting and editing photographs, inserting them into the article, and editing the article.  This is hardly the sort of post I would expect anyone to be able to create from scratch to screen in one day, and I assure you, I didn't.  NaBloPoMo merely made me knuckle down and finish it at last.)

Comments

[patry]

Congrats on the new trike and happy trails to you and your true love! You'll never have to be left home again.

[melissa b.]

Sara, you and your fine ass are gorgeous on that shiny bike! I think most of really could use a trike instead, at least those of us in the clumsy set of the population.

And I love the new Fussy seals!

[Sara]

Thank you, ladies!

Patry, what's funny about this is that now I can't get my true love on his bicycle come heck or high water. So now I ride alone. (Is that a blues song?)

Melissa, to be fair, the only seal I created was the bear seal, and I used the online seal generator. The gun, Yoda, devil wearing high-tops, kitten with an axe -- that's all Mrs. Kennedy (who doesn't want to be called that anymore). I'm only good for bears.

[Penny]

Hi! Excellent tricycle--love the cobalt blue.

I linked to this post at DS,TU today (not sure how to do the trackback thing, so here's the link):
http://disstud.blogspot.com/2006/11/bikes-motorbikes-and-reggie-showers.html

[Sara]

The blue is lovely, isn't it? Torker also offers a very nice, true red, too, and I almost went with that, but the lusciousness of this blue changed my mind at the last moment.

Thanks for the heads-up re the link. (I don't know how to do trackbacks, either.)

[Cathy]

That's just a very dandy looking trike. I'm a chicken when it comes to two-wheelers. But I 'll bet I could mangage something like that. Have you named it yet? Gotta have a name.

[Amorette]

Can't believe I actually found another trike-rider! I, too, have a shiny blue trike with a back basket. It's been my main method of independent transportation for years.

Mine is a Workman folding model. Not that I really fold it anymore, although I used to when it was parked at work. I'd fold it, take the seat and loop chain all around it because it was very vulnerable/desirable to joyriding teenagers.

When I ride, people stare at the short, fat woman on the tricycle. It used to bother me, but I've gotten used to it. When I rigged up a pet crate, mounted on the back basket, to carry my cats back and forth to Mom's, the stares began in earnest. I no longer care...if they're going to stare at a woman on a tricycle, they might as well stare at a woman on a tricycle hauling cats.

(For what it's worth, the cats LOVE it).

[Amorette]

I forgot to add...we also made the investment of a removable wicker basket, mounted on the front. It has a carry-handle, like a normal basket, and two metal prongs to fit onto the mount on the handlebars.

It makes the trike look very quaint and European, like there should be a baguette and some celery sticking out of there.

I usually just use it to carry my backpack-purse, since the pet crate makes it ride up in back.

[Sara]

Ha ha ha! I don't think our new (used) cat would like it. He protests containment of any kind, and the roads here are amazingly potholed.

I love my tricycle. Love it, love it, love it. Love is not a strong enough word.

I don't know if you came here from there, but I do have a one-year progress report (sort of), that you can read here. Also, here's a shot of what I typically haul.

[David Kiley]

I'm waiting on my workman trike to carry around my toddler and groceries . I haven't received it yet and am already a tricycle fan :).

Good to see there are others.

[Sara]

Go, David!

It's so big and heavy and carries so much stuff that I sometimes call mine my "SUV." :)

[maka]

what a great post! due to a traumatic brain injury from a car accident, i cannot balance a bike. when i bought my first trike, i was in heaven! after it was stolen and i saved up enough to buy another - even better - trike, i was even more in heaven! i don't ride as much as i used to, because i got married and moved to an area of town that isn't very bike-friendly and would require a minimum of three miles one way to ride to anyplace i'd usually go...which would mean a lot more riding than i can do on a regular basis with my creaky knees and hips. still, i ride to the old neighborhood every now and then, and that wind in my hair and the bell ringing as i wave to friends in the street CANNOT be beat!

[Jess]

Hi! I found your post about riding the trike with a prosthesis as I was googling that exact topic - I have JUST paid for a trike today, and I also have one above knee amputated leg.

I had a quick test ride at the bike shop and I think it's going to work ok, god I hope so as with the added gears and the lights it cost about $850 and i haven't even bought a helmet or bike lock yet (it was a gomier, hope it's worth that obscene amount of money!). I get to pick it up in about a week yay :D

I'm going to try using my fake leg to push as well, but if that doesn't work I'll try what you do and just use the good leg...

[Trikester]

Thanks you SO much! I've been looking everywhere for trike stuff.

Hello fellow Trikesters!

I bought a big blue electric assist trike because I have asthma and assorted small problems that now make riding a bike or e-scooter impossible. I wanted the exercise too. So I only use the battery on hills I can't climb or to "boost" the start.

Asthmatics are at risk on two-wheelers because if an attack starts, they have to pull over. Try being run into a sewer grate by a car while unable to breathe. I don't know how many I've known that have crashed this way.

Everything I could find was on recumbants and I can't be that physically close to the exhaust.

Finally, after a year of searching, a dealer right in my neighbourhood had ordered the exact trike I was searching for! There it was, in the box. So he put it together.

I'm trying to learn the steering since it is so much different than a bike.

But I can go SLOW. YAY!

Hello fellow Trikesters.