Well known tadpole rider, Sylvia Halpern, (whom I have written about a few times previously) shares about how to buy as well as how not to buy a recumbent trike.
Sylvia has other online offerings you may be interested in checking out:
Sylvia says that she loves seeing what is around the next corner. I like that. I do too. May we all Keep On Trikin’ and …
ENJOY THE RIDE!
A FREE GIFT awaits you!
Here is a well made video sharing lots of information and covering lots of facets about riding a tadpole trike.
A FREE GIFT awaits you!
A FREE GIFT awaits you!
Here is a video sharing some reasons why a person should consider riding a recumbent trike vs a conventional diamond frame (DF) bicycle. I agree with everything he says.
A FREE GIFT awaits you!
I came across this video of the building of a wooden recumbent tadpole trike. I myself have no interest in a trike made out of wood but I am sure there are those who do. Never the less I do have to admire the effort and skill of the accomplishment.
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A FREE GIFT awaits you!
As an avid trail user and one who does a lot to help maintain the trails I am dealing with trail conditions daily. I do what I can as an individual to help but when it comes to cleaning up after flooding has occurred the city street dept. and the parks dept. have the responsibility. And, of course, they have the equipment needed to do so. And I do appreciate it when they get the job done and the trails are opened back up for use. The problem is most of the time they do very poor quality work as they use minimal effort. They are quite lazy and if the job involves manual labor it just doesn’t get done. They will operate the equipment where they sit on their butts and drive it but some of the areas along the trails simply requires manual labor … using a shovel and/or scraper and/or broom.
Then there are the trees which have fallen or carried in the river and deposited along the trails. Rather than completely removing them off of the trail they shove them or cut them off with a chain saw leaving them stick out over the trail. I am frequently riding along on my trike discovering this and stopping to remove the trees off of the trail. It doesn’t take all that long or that much effort usually. But as I said, they are lazy and won’t put forth the effort.
Then there is the matter of snow removal. They plow the snow with a truck or tractor or some other vehicle but rather than removing the snow totally off of the trail they leave it piled up right in front of bollards or driveways or streets where it is quite difficult to get thru for those using the trails. Again, all it would take is stopping, getting off of the seat of the vehicle, grabbing a shovel and removing the snow off of the trail.
They are just lazy I tell ya. Minimal effort equates to a half ass job and that is exactly what results most of the time. It doesn’t do any good to complain to the city officials about it. It is just something that is ongoing and doesn’t look like it will ever change. Oh well, at least the trails do get back open eventually and I do my best to …
KEEP ON TRIKIN’
A FREE GIFT AWAITS YOU!
You are invited to come join the Tadpole Rider Facebook Group. Please note that in order to join you must first answer the two membership vetting questions and agree to comply with the group rules.
Utah Trikes continues to come up with some pretty amazing custom made offerings. Here is their RevolUTion eQuad FS XL …
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A FREE GIFT awaits you!
Here is a video documenting well known trike pilot Matt Galat’s first ride on a tadpole trike.
A FREE GIFT awaits you!
I seldom recommend products to others. My reasoning is I don’t want them to be upset with me if they don’t care for their purchase. Just because I like something and have been well satisfied does not mean someone else will. Anyway, today while I was out riding I looked down at my headlight and thought to myself that I was very pleased and impressed with it. So, guess what? I decided to recommend it to others.
Anybody looking for a good USB rechargeable headlight and taillight combo? I highly recommend this one. It is a 300 lumen BV made in China (what isn’t anymore?). I have been using it for several months now and really like it. It is plenty bright for daytime use … really gets attention. The charge usually lasts me at least two full riding days. Even when the red light comes on indicating low battery the light still lasts me all day and remains bright. It is fairly small yet extremely bright for daytime use (flash mode). It can be bought at various sources including Amazon, Ebay and Walmart. The price varies from one source to another. Right now the best price I have found online is $15.99 with free shipping at IberaUSA (BikePakMart). The taillight is also quite bright but it only lasts me about one day on a full charge. I seldom use the taillights but there is certainly nothing wrong with them.
As lumen rating goes 300 isn’t all that much nowadays but I tell ya … I don’t think one would want or need anything brighter than this light for daytime use. It really gets attention! They advertise the taillight as”a bonus included free” and that is the way I look at it. I was buying a headlight not a taillight. It seems oftentimes headlights are advertised as a headlight-taillight combo. As I stated, there is nothing wrong with it. It too is quite bright and attention getting. I simply seldom use these taillights as I have other taillights I prefer over them. Believe it or not, I have 8 taillights mounted on my trike. I normally only use one but when I am riding out on a busy/dangerous road/street I turn others on to make sure traffic sees me. If I turn them all on I look like an emergency vehicle. They are handy if I come upon an accident scene or a trail maintenance stop.
To the naysayers who say that ya gotta have a headlight of well over 1000 lumen I say to you that you don’t know what you are talking about. Keep in mind I am talking about riding in the daytime … not after dark. I would be the first to agree that 300 lumen is quite insufficient for night time riding. 3000 lumen would be more in order. BUT IN THE DAYTIME 300 LUMEN IS QUITE SUFFICIENT. Anything more is overkill and totally unnecessary. And brighter lights can be a menace to others. Even my 300 lumen headlight can be a problem for some people as they say it is way too bright and bothers them. It is rare for anyone to complain but it does happen. I just tell them “sorry, but I am trying to stay alive by being seen by motorists”.
So, if you are looking for a good headlight for daytime use (particularly in flash mode) I would think you would be well pleased with this light.
ENJOY THE RIDE!
A FREE GIFT awaits you!
Each day I find myself going thru the same emotions and anxiety … waiting for the time to pass so that I can go out for my daily ride on my tadpole trike. Like a horse chomping on its bit and rearing up, I want to get going. But I have to wait. It is still dark outside and still too cold. I need to wait until it is daylight and the temperature starts to warm up a bit. Of course, I am talking about winter time as in summer time just the opposite is true. In hot weather I try to leave early … at first light oftentimes … so I can get out and get my ride in before it gets uncomfortably hot. It is mid March as I compose this which means that it is still getting rather cool overnight and the coldest part of the day is around 7 and 8 AM. So “here I sit all broken hearted, chompin’ at the bit, I can’t get started”. Hey, that actually rhymes. Hopefully it won’t be long before warmer weather arrives and all this changes.
By the way, I tried my best to get my trike to rear up like Silver so I could show a picture of my trike above instead of a horse, but my steady steed refused to cooperate.
Yep, I am rearing to go (at least in my mind). How about you? I want to get out there and …
ENJOY THE RIDE!
A FREE GIFT awaits you!
Well, it is light enough and warm enough so I am OUT OF HERE!
It happened again. I was out for my daily ride and was riding across a bridge when I saw a guy crouched down with a camera pointed at me. He had snapped this picture shown above and as I was riding on past him he shouted out to me so I turned around and rode back to him. I had no idea who he was but as it turned out he works for the local newspaper and had been there at that location for 20 to 30 minutes waiting for someone to come across the bridge. He was wanting to take a picture for the newspaper to be published the following day. We talked together for awhile and I did my best to be a good ambassador for recumbent tadpole trikes which, of course, I always do.
And no, it was not 1 AM when he took this picture. I was sound asleep at that time. And it was very dark at that time. As you can see it is daylight when I was crossing this bridge. And it was Wed. March 4th. He does say that but I just wanted to be sure no one is confused. I guess he wanted people to know when he was posting this in the newspaper.
This is far from the first time the media has caught me on camera in both still pictures and video. In fact, I think it is about the 8th time. Some have been television news stories and some have been newspapers. And one was when I was caught on Google Maps Street View camera car as we passed each other.
The very first time was nearly a full page article on the front cover of the newspaper. It featured me on my trike with my dog in the basket. That really surprised me as I was expecting the article to be hidden well back into the newspaper and quite small. That picture made my dog well known as people would see us all over town and yell out at us. And when people were up close to us they would make a big fuss over my dog and he loved that. And when my dog was not with me people would ask where he is at. He put a lot of miles on the local trails walking and running as well as riding in the basket.
In my cold weather attire the scenario is somewhat like the Lone Ranger TV show where as the Lone Ranger rides away at the end of the show someone asks “who was that masked man?”
I am sure that there are several of you who have already or will be featured in the media as well. I guess it comes with riding a tadpole trike … something a bit different than is what most people are used to seeing. I told the newspaper person several different things about tadpole trikes but in his limited article all that he said was “Cycling in comfort”. I sure can’t argue that!
At this point in time I intend to …
KEEP ON TRIKIN’
and in doing so it is quite possible the Paparazzi will continue to pursue me. 
A FREE GIFT awaits you!
By the way, if this gets me into deep water so be it … I have been there before …
I was just looking ahead at the ten day weather forecast which bummed me out. Oh well, it is that time of year and rain is to be expected. And God has said in His written Word, the Bible, that He will give us rain in the seasons. In fact He says quite a lot about rain coming in the Spring so that we might have crops and food to eat. He says that rain falls on the just as well as the unjust. And we are instructed to rejoice for the rain we receive. Truly without it life would not exist. I need to remind myself of this the next time I find myself sitting under shelter on my trike with the rain pouring down. I tend to think when I am taking shelter like this …
I find myself thinking “why can’t this be the situation?” … it’s raining over there … which is fine, but please Lord stop the rain here.
Where I live and ride the trails I ride the most follow along 3 different rivers. They are great to ride but the rivers flood frequently and the trails flood over closing them for quite some time all too often. When they finally do open back up it may only be two or three days before the rivers flood again and the trails are closed again. Personally I wish they never would have built these trails alongside of rivers.
I made the mistake one time of attempting to ride thru floodwater on a local trail. I had no idea of how deep the water was but I found out when it was up above my seat. The worst of it was it was about this time of year so the river water was rather cold and the air temperature was as well. Needless to say I didn’t try that again. Besides, now I have a battery mounted down low which I dare not submerge in water. You have probably heard the saying before that water and electricity don’t mix and also the one about electronics and water don’t either.
If I were a rich man … yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum … I would travel to some place else to ride during this season of rain and flooding … but alas tis not so. I am stuck here and have to make the best of it. If it gets bad enough I ride in the streets and out in the country away from the maddening crowd. Fortunately our newer trails are not prone to flooding so I have those to ride on. The problem there is lack of “connectivity” at this point in time. I have, however, found some low traffic routes to take to simplify and make it safer getting to some of them.
As often as the weather forecasters are incorrect in their forecasting maybe things won’t turn out so bad. One can only hope. Hey, I am going to do my best to …
ENJOY THE RIDE
and I hope you do as well.
A FREE GIFT awaits you!
Here is a video of a 44 mile long ride on a bike trail out in the Los Angeles area. Starting about 11 minutes into the video you can see the numerous homeless encampments set up along both sides of the trail. I have been informed that since this video was recorded all of these homeless encampments are gone.
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A FREE GIFT awaits you!
Tadpole Rider 