In the summer of 1999, I had found that I could not longer go touring on my Centurion Pro Tour upright touring bike. I tried commuting for two weeks on that bike, 20 km's ride one direction, but in the middle of the second week my right hand was aching so badly that I had to resort to my car.
In 2000 I started considering what to do. I had heard of recumbent bikes and trikes now and then in the past. Actually, the first time i learnt about recumbents and HPVs was through an article in Scientific American, where the Vector trike was presented. Since then, I had had the occasional dream of effortlessly riding such a machine!
An additional starting impulse for me was the Leitra I had seen a couple of times in Lund, the town where I live. I had spoken to the owner once, and been overwhelmed by the price tag for that machine. I didn't want it all that badly...
Now, in the late spring of 2000, things had turned different. I wanted to go touring, but I couldn't longer use my bike. So I checked the Internet for information on recumbents, and found lots of interesting makes of different bikes and trikes, including the Leitra. I no longer wanted a fairing, though, since in my view the beauty of cycle touring is being in the landscape, seeing, feeling and hearing whatever there is to experience.
After having examined all trikes presented on the web, I had found two machines that looked like touring trikes: the Greenspeed GTE and the ICE Trice Explorer. I finally chose the Trice, mostly because Cornwall is a lot closer to Sweden than Australia is. Another reason was that the Trice is more adjustable, which I felt was important, since I had no experience of trikes and would not be able to specify the Gereenspeed measures.
However, I still was reluctant. I wanted to try a trike, to see what it was about, before spending the considerable amount of money for a Trice Explorer. Especially, I was a little suspicious to whether it would be too uncomfortable to ride rough roads on an unsuspended recumbent trike. Although I try to keep on hard-surface roads, once in a while there will be no good option. Either go the gravel road, or bet your life on the E-something, cars and trucks whistling by your ears at discomfortingly high speeds.
To get the chance to try a trike, I sent a message on the mailing list hpvs, the Swedish list for HPVs. Thus, I got in contact with a guy who lived literally next door from my place, 1 minute's walk. His trike was built in 1997 by Per Borgström, after Peter Ross' drawings. It was painted with red lead and looked quite unfinished. Nevertheless, I was allowed to try the trike for a couple of hours, during which I found a really bad gravel road, full of potholes. From that ride, I concluded that it would not be more uncomfortable to ride bad roads on a trike, than on an upright.
Thus encouraged, I went to my bank and got the money loose, and then I e-mailed ICE my order for a Trice Explorer.