Last week we spent a few days in Cornwall after Greenbelt. I took the opportunity to visit Inspired Cycle Engineering, HPV makers specialising in recumbent trikes and bikes.
ICE certainly live up to their name. We were able to see some of their new stuff (including some that is not yet announced and some in hush hush development).
I had a short ride around the site on their new Velomobile. It is absolutely stunning. I think the production models have the potential to open up much longer all weather commutes and rides for work to many people. Certainly for me the ability to wear more normal clothes even when there is a likelyhood (or certainty) of rain would make it easier to use for work purposes. For me the challenge is often overall distances of 30 miles a day visiting several different places where there is no opportunity to change. The velombile was a hoot to ride and looks great. Clearly not ideal for big hills (nor tight for space inner cities) but with flat or rolling terrain has huge potential. You can see the development of the velomobile at Steve's Velomobile Project (August 2007 onwards for the model for ICE machines).
We also saw the new bikes (B1) although I did not try a ride (just in case I liked it too much).
One of the many really cool features of all the products by ICE is the compatibility they are achieving not just between current models but also going back a long way. So for example the new folding rear rack uses the same mounting points as the quick release rack for the trikes. Also the seats are interchangeable even going back several model years. You can even swap the whole back end to switch between 20" with suspension or 26" with no suspension.
It was great to see the new (much) larger factory where they now build the trikes in batches (I guess nearly the equivalent of a months production from 2003 when I bought my XXL). Talking to Neil and Chris it was clear that the rapid pace of improvements that we have seen over the last 7 years are going to continue for a long time.
Note that in all this I am very biased. We have two trikes from ICE. An X2 tandem from 2001 and an XXL from 2003. They still look and work like new despite doing a fair few miles. In addition the X2 has been adjusted to a wide variety of lengths to cope with 4 different stokers, 3 of which have been growing fast over the last 7 years.
The X2 has coped with stokers from 130cm to 180cm+ (from just over 4 feet to 6 foot). Both have been used with Child seats, child trailers, Trets trailer bikes and luggage trailers. Both have been used for touring (carrying far more than the specification of the racks).
This summer we had Jane riding the XXL (she is faster on that then anything else she had ridden - well except maybe the X2 when she stokes for me). One side benefit is the huge improvement riding it has on her varicose veins. Our youngest (a fairly short 10 year old) was stoking the X2 with me and we did pretty well together.
Lovely!
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