Impressions page 3.
On the run to home we went through some residential areas sharing the roads with traffic. It was immediately clear that we'd have to be a lot more careful than when on normal bikes. The visibility forwards and sideways was a lot more restricted, and we realised that two rear view mirrors would have been a good idea.
We realised quite quickly that we were almost invisible to motorised traffic and had to stick our legs out into roads when turning left or right to be able to see past parked vehicles. We also noticed that as with Bromptons the small diameter wheels made for a lot of trilling on the brick pave roads that are common here. As with the Bromptons the rear suspension did not eliminate the higher frequency buzzing when travelling at speed.
What did we discover?
During the weekend we made some surprising discoveries. To start off with we had to be careful at low speed as they were quite unstable, when making slow speed but sharp turns. After getting an inside wheel off the ground turning right after crossing the road on the first day, I managed to tip the Scorpion on its side on the second. I treated the trike with much more caution after the second event. It was thus rather surprising that high speed stability seemed very much better, especially, say, if you accelerated through a corner. The trikes felt much more poised and stable in these situations, even off-road and we found that we could jink left and right by making small movements of the steering even when travelling above forty kilometres an hour. Downhill they seemed very stable as well although seeing as these were not our own trikes we were not about to try and push them to the ultimate limit.
Turning the trikes round if you take the wrong turning turned out to be a hassle. The Scorpion combined with Stan's hips could just manage this on roads that were two cars wide. On the same roads, the Trice and Damae combination, had to be shuffled back and forth to get it round. On narrow roads we ended up getting off the trikes, grabbing the rear rack, lifting the rear wheel and walking the trikes round. The chance of navigation errors occurring is higher because we did not have a map in front of us (as we do when on our own bikes).
To be fair to ICE their website mentions that people of larger sizes (especially round the hips where the handlebars are) should take standard track machines. The only problem with this is that you can't use models wider than the NT Trice or Scorpion easily in the Netherlands (possibly other countries with a well developed network of cycle paths) unless you wish to spend all of your time on roads instead of cycle tracks (that is if you are actually allowed to cycle on the road at that point). We only just managed to get through all the narrow sections on these trikes. Going to a trike ten centimetres wider would have meant man-handling the trikes over cattle grids and narrow bridges. On top of this potential problem, there is the very real one of where the track is so narrow that two wheels end up 'off-road'. This slows you down a lot and puts extra strain on the trike.
We both had problems with pins and needles in our feet the whole weekend, something we had not considered at all. Your feet end up above the heart and this seems to cause problems. Usually if you use a recumbent enough your body adapts, but apparently some people, particularly women, can't get rid of this problem. At least once an hour we had to stop, get off the trikes and stamp our feet on the ground for a few minutes.
The great advantage of these trikes, namely the low wind-cheating seating position, turned out to be a downside for touring. On our standard bikes we sit something over one and a half metres from the ground, and the view is often better than from a car. The jokey title of this travelogue "Just how interesting can grass verges get" was a response to the reality of a dog's eye view of the world. This problem is probably worse in flat areas like the Netherlands but even so you miss so much of the scenery.
We also felt that it was harder to get on and off the trikes than normal bikes. The only safe way to get on to these trikes is to stand in the direction of travel with your calves touching the front of the outriggers. Then you lower yourself into the seat taking care NOT to lean on the handlebars as these are not designed to take your weight. The only option is to grab the outriggers instead. Another unexpected downside was getting wet on the underside of our thighs and legs when the front wheels hit a puddle. The mesh seat on the Trice was worse in this respect as it provided no protection from spray at all (and Damae had a wet bottom to prove it). However as the Scorpion seat tended to fill up with water when parked, I got a wet bottom at different times.
Interestingly enough the low seating position did not seem to deliver any performance benefits to us during the weekend. Our averages for the three days were around two or three kilometres an hour slower than we expect to get on our touring bikes. This was surprisingly slower as we expected to travel at least as fast. Part of the problem is undoubtedly that you use your legs differently on a recumbent than a normal bike but I'd be surprised if this caused such a dramatic effect. Perhaps a good reason to give recumbents another chance.