The advantage of a tricycle is obvious: it does not have to be balanced and is simply steered as one steers a car. This advantage becomes important whenever it becomes difficult to balance a bicycle: at low speed and especially when stopped! On a steep hill on a tricycle you can go as slow as you like without wobbling and take a rest anytime, simply by holding on the brakes. So anyone who has balance problems, who cannot go as quickly uphill as they used to, who has difficulty starting and stopping or mounting and dismounting a bicycle: may find a tricycle suits them better.
The disadvantage of a tricycle is that the extra wheel and supporting framework adds a little weight and drag compared to a bicycle of identical quality. And since tricycles are manufactured in far smaller quantities, they are far more expensive – although the price difference becomes less significant at the top end of the market, where bicycles are also a bespoke item.
A low centre of gravity, paradoxically, makes a bicycle harder to balance, so recumbent tricycles are relatively popular. A tricycle may have two (steered) wheels at the front and one behind, or one in front and two behind, and the recumbent world has given us a couple of useful terms for these formats: “tadpole” and “delta”. A tadpole has more complex arrangements for steering and a delta for driving. In general it’s easier to steer than to drive a pair of wheels and many traditional, upright, delta trikes dodge the issue by driving only the nearside wheel. That generally works okay in Britain, since the push from that wheel counteracts a tendency to turn down the camber toward the left (the steering geometry of tricycles is different to bicycles – less trail – so as to minimise this), but adds to the effort of steering in countries that drive on the right and is impracticable for climbing steep hills. Here there is so little weight on the front wheel that the strong one-sided driving force required to keep moving makes it hop and slide to the right. So if you want a trike so that you can take your time on steep hills, you want two-wheel drive or a tadpole.
Whilst it is almost impossible to tip over most recumbent trikes, the traditional upright (like a safety-bike) variety may be upset on an uneven surface or by going around a corner fast without leaning in. To minimise that risk, the centre of gravity should be closer to the pair of wheels than the single one. For that combined with a few other reasons, recumbent trikes are usually tadpoles and uprights deltas.
Although any kind of tricycle is simplicity itself to steer, traditional upright ones have a tricky reputation. That’s because they are so much like bicycles. From the saddle an experienced bicycle rider does not see any difference and cannot stop himself trying to balance this bike-like thing by “steering into the lean”. The road slopes toward the roadside ditch, so that’s the way the trike leans and where he promptly goes – to the amusement of all except himself and the owner of the machine! Anyone who’s never ridden a bicycle has no problem. And most people – even experienced cyclists - get along fine with recumbent trikes, since the sitting and steering arrangement feels nothing at all like a bicycle.
You can get lightweight racing and touring tricycles in upright and recumbent guise, but most trikes are hybrid/trekking. Tricycles require a good surface. You don’t want to be tilted this way and that and neither is it reasonable to find three parallel, smooth tracks through a network of potholes! So whilst there may be such things as mtb-styled tricycles, they’re not for the rough-stuff.
Britain, oddly for a non-cycling nation, is rather a tricycling country. We have the only known Tricycle Association and in the Staffordshire firm of Longstaff Cycles perhaps the foremost builder of fine, lightweight tricycles in the world, whilst down the road in Stratford-on-Avon Pashley turn out something more affordable. We also have a couple of firms making recumbent tricycles: ICE (Trice) and AVD (Windcheetah) and there are many dealers for imported models such as Greenspeed, Kettwiesel … see their adverts in CYCLE.
