Adult Tricycle

[garazgos]

(11-17-2009, 09:08 AM)Bill Wrote:  Reason I like this is I can take my Black lab with me, sometimes she pulls the weight of it and myself.

I just purchased a used 3-speed adult trike a couple of weeks ago to use for taking 2 large-ish dogs (Alaskan Malamute/German Shepherd-X and a blck Lab) for their daily romps around the countryside.

I had been using a 2-wheeled MTB for the past 16 years with my previous dogs but these two are new to the game.

I was finding it a bit dicey when riding on the sloping gravel road shoulders when there was any ice and snow accumulation so I thought that a trike would make things a bit safer.

I just lashed their Y- leash ( two leads in one with a piece of 3/4" PVC conduit for a handle) to the handlebar stem using a short length of 12 mm braided nylon rope.

When we're on road where there's a lot of traffic, I hang on to the handle on the short lead so that the two dogs run alongside of me.

When we're on a quiet side road with little or no traffic, I let go of the short lead and let them out in front to pull me along and we fly!

I made some step-in harnesses for them from thick, 1" wide nylon automotive tow strap. I found that the webbing used by store-bought harnesses was too thin and tended to bunch-up and was concerned it might hurt the mutts.

It was so much fun flying along effortlessly that I felt like a little kid (I'm 60 yrs old) who was playing hooky on a school day and getting away with something that he wasn't supposed to be doing.

And boy was I pleasantly surprised when the officer in a police cruiser gave us a nod and friendly wave as he passed by going in the opposite direction (instead of chastising us for being on the wrong side of the road (ie on the shoulder facing oncoming traffic. )

And motorists seem to give us a wider berth than they did when I was on a 2-wheeled bike with the dogs -- also a surprise since the 2-wheeled arrangement was far more unwieldy and more prone to stray into traffic.

About the only downside is that , as one acquaintance mentioned "You're really easy to track. " (trike tire tracks in the snow -- not as anonymous as bike tracks)

Oh, I almost neglected to mention that the vendor only wanted five dollars for the trike. I had assumed that it was a typo but was willing to pay whatever the actual price was (ie $500). But no. All they wanted was $5.