About Fleet Trikes

     A few years ago(1999), I sustained an injury that prevented me from participating in the sports I played my whole life.  In 2002, a friend introduced me to the first recumbent trike I'd seen in person.  After riding it, I realized this was a sport and form of exercise that I could do without bothering my injury, and it would vastly improve my quickly deteriorating cardiovascular fitness level.  After doing some searching on the internet, I realized our family would not be able to afford a "commercially built" trike, so I decided to build them myself, starting with a trike for my friend's daughter.  Through a few prototypes and a few thousand kilometers of daily use and testing, we end up with the trike design I make now.

     I would love to see more recumbent bikes and trikes being used, but I think the scarcity is due mainly to their cost and to a lesser extent the fact that most recumbent makers are far smaller companies, building in vastly smaller quantities and have less money for advertising and a smaller exposure as a result.  Riding a recumbent around, especially a trike, garners plenty of attention but the interest is visibly cooled when the price is mentioned.  That's where Fleet Trikes comes in.

     I build trikes to be as economical as possible.  My trikes are not for the "weight weenies".  My trikes are not for the riders who are looking for top of the line components.  I use all new parts that fall near the bottom of the price scale, but are not bottom of the scale as far as "quality" or durability is concerned.  I weigh over 200 lbs, I ride hard, I ride fast and I ride a lot, so if the components haven't failed under my abuse for thousands of kilometers, I am confident they will last for riders who are not as aggressive as me.  All the parts I use are standard, easily located at any bike shop or hardware store and require no special machining.

     I do not look at the other trike manufacturers as competition because I don't build what they do.  I use square mild steel while they use cromoly and aluminum.  They use higher quality and costly components while I use more economical ones and my "$25 rule".  They use mainly TIG welding on their frames while I use MIG.  Their trikes are engineered to be as light, strong, comfortable and fast as their purpose permits, while mine are built without the benefit of engineering.  They have production runs, of varying sizes set up, while I build them entirely by hand, one at a time.  With all the resources and expertise that they have to pay for, their trikes can cost thousands of dollars.  While I stay on as small of a scale as possible, I can stay as close to $1,000 US as possible.  I would love to own a Catrike, Windcheetah, Greenspeed or Trice some day as I think some of those are almost works of art, but until I can afford one of those, I'll ride mine :)

     So, why "Fleet Trikes"?  Well, for two reasons.  First, regardless of how I build them and what I use to build them, they are still fast.  There's a certain satisfaction in passing and staying ahead of a rider on a bike or bent that cost thousands of dollars, while riding something you built with your own tow hands in your garage.  They are only as fast as the "engine" can power them and certainly fast enough for the average rider.  Secondly, in time, hopefully there will be so many of them out there, they can be called a "fleet".  As I have too many ideas and too little time, the designs will change a little or a lot, and I'll also try my hand at two wheelers and tandems.

Tim Hicks

P.S.     You might also be wondering what's up with the weird yellow thing sitting in the grass in the graphic on the main page.  Well, it's a slightly stylized version of "big fish, little pond"  :)