Health Issues and Trike Riding
If you are completely healthy, trikes are a great way to travel!
But if like me you have health problems and are wondering about cycling on a trike, then this little section is for you:
Well, while in the hospital with a serious illness, doctors told me I would never walk again, never be able to talk again, never be able to read or write or understand speech again, never be able to be a research scientist again, never be able to properly control my hands and arms, play music, have a normal life, and would also probably be in pain for the rest of my life. And certainly never, ever be able to go cycling again.
So I got a trike. It took me a long time (years) to gain the strength and ability to go around the block. But now I have logged roughly 60,000 on the odometer
Here are a few things I have learned - hopefully they may help you if you have similar health difficulties:
Balance: I have a lot of balance problems since I became ill. But I am relatively fine sitting in a supportive (moulded) chair. So on a trike, balance is a non-issue. If health problems mean you tend to fall over when walking or bicycling - much to the amusement of passers-by, then fear not. You will be comfortable on a trike and feel secure. You sit into rather than on top of the seat of a well made trike. Like a good car seat, it holds you in place. Hands on the steering mechanism rest comfortably and for me at least, create a feedback loop which makes me feel balanced in a way I never do when walking or standing. out for a trike ride
Strength: Body strength can be a real problem with some illnesses. It is for me. Yet I have found that by putting sufficiently low gears on my trike most muscle weakness could be overcome. Furthermore, I have found after all the tens of thousands of miles I have travelled by trike that the simple act of gentle triking has tended to balance out the relative strengths of muscles, such that although one side of the body is still much weaker and less coordinated... it is not nearly as bad as it used to be. It seems to me that the trike has really helped in this regard perhaps in part because of the aerobic nature of riding, perhaps because of the joy it gives me to be out there exploring on my own.
Aphasia: If you are aphasic, asking for help when out riding is difficult. I solved this somewhat by carrying a laminated sheet with printed details of how a passer-by can help and a one sentence explanation of why I cannot properly understand what they are saying to me. With a couple of notable exceptions (angry people with no discernible compassion), I have had no problems when presenting my laminated sheet. I would recommend carrying something like this with you at all times even if you are not aphasic but have other health problems. Very useful if for some reason you are incapacitated. I also wear medical wrist band with similar explanations etched in metal.
Becoming lost: Illness for me has also meant that spacial mapping is problematic - i.e. I get lost, even going to the local grocery store. Hence I always carry a GPS on the trike. And spare batteries for it. For emergencies I also carry a small compass and map of the area in which I ride. If you have similar problems, make sure you get a GPS into which you can enter waypoints and routes before you leave home. A bright red line displays my route for me at all times, and waypoints show me distance left to go to the next rest stop or a place to get help. A real godsend. And oh yes, I use a GPS which is very simple. Leave the complex stuff at home. Because of my illness when I tire (as when triking long distances) I loose some functionality. Hence a simple to use GPS with a couple of buttons and no menus or fancy features works best. They are less expensive too. Finally - make sure your GPS is waterproof, has a very bright display, and long battery life.
Body Sense: You do not need to know how to ride a bicycle in order to be able to ride a tricycle. So if like me your kinaesthetic (body) sense has been damaged by illness, a trike may be the perfect solution. There is nothing to remember - just sit down in the easy chair, put your feet in the pedals, and off you go. I met a person with cerebral palsy who rides her trike everywhere. Part of her difficulty was that she forgets how to shift gears (some brain damage), so her trike was modified with just two gears - high and low - which she could switch between with movement of her thumb. A simple and elegant solution with nothing to remember.
Joint Strength: Other damage means my joints hurt. So I have switched to shorter cranks. Mine are 130mm long - very short. I also have ultra-low gears. There are also elliptical pedal shorteners made by Hase which can be of help to people with knee injuries. See my page on
trike upgradesfor details, particularly where I talk about the physics of short cranks
here. I also use bar-end shifters - much easier for my hands to work than twist-grip shifters (less force required; less hand movement required). I wear gloves with gel at the palm-finger area - this helps create friction on the shifters making it even easier on for the hands. If your hands are weak like mine, the extra tork generated with just a bit of gel at the palms may make a real difference - it certainly does for me. For me glucosamine does not help, but a potassium/magnesium mix does. My hands shake, sometimes a quite a lot depending upon physical fatigue level, but by taking high amounts of magnesium the shaking is very manageable and of no concern at all when riding. For me too, small micro-movements help control the muscle tremors. Bottom line - experiment for yourself until you find what helps.
Fixing things: I ride in deserted areas where help can be very far away. Before I became too ill to do so, I was pretty good at maintaining my bicycles. I had all the tools. Despite what your local bicycle dealer may say to keep herself in business, there is not much to understand in order to fix a trike yourself. It is not rocket science, as they say. Just practice at home. Get a book from the library with good pictures and do what I did - follow the pictures taking things apart and reassembling them until you are confident. Take your time, do this over a period of several weeks or months depending on your energy levels. Set up in a quiet place and slowly build up your confidence before you go more than a block or two from home. That is what I did and it helped. The nervousness I had of being out alone for long trips if the trike broke down dissipated as I practiced taking things apart and putting them back together. The other thing I did was to modify the tools I already had to work within my particular difficulties. My experience has been that with practice (and a lot of patience) I can handle most things that are likely to go wrong when riding.
Getting Help: I do not carry a cell phone whilst riding. There are several reasons for this, but the main ones are that I am aphasic and secondly in the mountains where I ride the signal is too weak to be of any practical use. YMMV of course, but I do feel it is a good idea to be as independent as possible so that should your cell phone not work for some reason, you can still take care of most emergencies yourself. I do however have a GPS mounted on the trike at all times, which tells me where the nearest villiages or forest watchtowers might be. And I let others know my probable route before I leave, carry a list of emergency contacts in my panniers, and as mentioned above, wear a medic alert bracelet with appropriate information. I also always carry food, drink, and a small medical kit with painkillers, self-setting splints, lots of sunblock, and bear spray (works for dogs too, but not for
mountain lions around here which are too fast). So if I am really stuck, I can last at least a day or two with what I carry in the paniers until someone finds me. Oh yes, I also carry a large homemade bit of cardboard with the word HELP in florescent letters, which I can lean against the trike.
You cannot ride and be somewhat independent if you believe the people who tell you are too ill to do so. Please give yourself a chance - ignore the nay-sayers. There are usually solutions. Never give up.
Let me give you an example of how there are usually solutions: For me changing a tyre on the trike was and is very difficult, almost impossible, due to my health issues. So rather than stay with the nice fast thin-walled tyres that were on the trike, I opted for three Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres. Very heavy and slow... but I have had only one flat since switching to them! In other words, I have almost never needed to change a tyre.
What’s that you say? What did I do when I had that one flat? Well, I sat in heavy rain, shaking (as a legacy of illness, involuntary muscle spasms occur whenever I am fatiqued), in a ditch by the side of the road and sloooooly changed the tyre. It took me three and a half hours! Remember those modified tools I mentioned? I used a modified tyre iron and a special brace I had made to eventually change the tyre. Sure, it was uncomfortable and I was very tired by the time I was done. Perhaps this may sound silly, but I was very pleased I could do this myself even if it did take three and a half hours in the rain!
The bottom line here is that riding a recumbent tricycle can make cycling possible for many who never thought they would be able to ride a bike again. Do not listen to
medical doctors. Ignore everyone who tries to limit you. Or tells you that you look normal and never bothers to have enough compassion to realize there is much greater damage than appears on the surface. Ignore them all! Never give up! Even though I have serious and debilitating health problems, I have learned that I can ride a trike better than I can walk. And that for every person who treats me badly or is cruel, there are many others who have compassion and understanding. As long as you can move your legs (or hands for a hand cycle), have some mobility, some mental abilities undamaged by your particular illness, and some ability to care for yourself until help arrives, get the best trike you can afford and get out and ride! It is worth the effort.
