[Whirl] Trike article in Saturday's Washington Post

[Kathy Bilton]

Hi -

Len made a post to the email list but it had an attachment too big for the 
list.  So I found his letter online and have provided a link to it as well 
as the text in case you can't get to the Post's website.

--Kathy

From: Lennert Thunberg <lennertthunberg at gmail.com>
Subject: Trike article in today's W. Post
Message-Id: <FA02C5F9-2471-48FF-A2A1-3759477EDDA3 at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2018 17:13:34 -0400
To: WHIRL

Some of you might be interested in the trike article I had published today 
in the W. Post (Free for All Page).

Len Thunberg


Getting it right on trikes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/readers-critique-the-post-hurricane-michael-trikes-and--yoda/2018/10/26/84e7994a-d93c-11e8-a10f-b51546b10756_story.html?utm_term=.5f43428a0c79

Text copied below in case you've run out of pageviews on the Post:

As someone, at 82, whose enjoyment of retirement has been greatly enhanced 
through the discovery of recumbent bicycles (20 years ago) and tricycles 
(10 years ago), I was surprised and gladdened to see the trike article in 
your Oct. 11 Local Living section [“Recumbent trikes: Why adults are 
loving these hot wheels”]. Although the article was generally informative, 
there were some misleading statements. To say that trikes “are easier to 
balance” is like saying that a go-kart or a sports car is easier to 
balance. There’s no balancing involved, except for leaning into high-speed 
turns to keep from rolling over (not likely to happen unless the rider is 
being very reckless). There is also zero loss of lateral or directional 
stability on a relatively low trike at high speed.

It is true that trikes are predominantly ridden by older or physically 
encumbered riders. I find this sad, because younger people don’t get 
exposed to the joys of riding a high-performance version of one of these 
marvelous machines. What’s not fun about riding a human-powered go-kart? 
It’s a shame that these rather complex vehicles are necessarily priced at 
a level that is beyond the resources of many bike riders.

Len Thunberg, Alexandria