An ancient Greek philosopher by the name of Heraclitis claimed that "All things are fire". I never understood that when I was young. But after a few decades under my belt I began to understand that change is constant. You can either learn to adapt or curl up in the corner and sob. I am not saying all change is good nor do I believe that "you can't fight Progress".
One of the difficulties of being passionate about something, like I am with cycling, is that if you lose that thing it can be devastating. As I age and things don't work as well as they did when I was twenty I am looking for ways to adapt.
When I was twenty all I saw and lived were racing bikes. Narrow high pressure tires, 4 inches of seat to handlebar drop and a 53/42 front chainset. The recumbent trike would have looked pretty weird to me in those days. But these days it looks pretty darn good.
The benefits of the recumbent trike are many. First it almost eliminates pain from your arms and hands having to rest on the handlebars. You have a panoramic view of the world without bending your neck. No looking at a patch of asphalt 6ft in front of you all day. You can stop on a hill and start right back up again.
It is so different than riding a bike that it seems closer to kayaking to me. Kayaking is wonderful because you are low, right next to the water. You get to see the world and it's critters up close and quietly.
I am not ready to give up my bikes yet but I got the trike as an insurance policy for that day when I must give them up.
The Windcheetah was designed by Mike Burrows back in the early 1980's. He has always been into Human Power speed racing and needed a way to train in the winter safely. He designed the "speedy" as a recumbent racing machine and just added another wheel to the front to make it more stable in the ice and snow of winter. But the speedy became popular because it is a different kind of cycle that had interest to people beyond speed records.
Mike Burrows went on to design the record setting Lotus superbike for Chris Boardman and worked for Giant designing the very successful TCR road bike. He sold the company when he went to work for Giant.
Windcheetah is currently owned by Karl Spartenburg and he builds Windcheetahs to order for each customer in England. There are many recumbent trikes on the market now made all over the world but the Windcheetah design has survived the test of time.
It is narrow and fast. A real kick to ride. In fact I may not wait till I can't ride bikes anymore. It's too much fun to wait.
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