I took off this morning on my Tour Easy instead of my Trike. I am planning a ride on Saturday on my Tour Easy and want to get some miles in before the ride.
I anticipated a faster ride by a couple mph than on my trike. The Tour Easy is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 lbs lighter. That should translate to a faster ride.
I was concerned about remembering to be careful about dirt and gravel on the road as a two-wheeler is susceptible to having a wheel wash out and falling over, whereas on the trike with its three wheels I don't have to worry about it.
Another concern was to remember to unclip from my pedal as I came to a stop. I would hate to stay clipped in and end up falling over.
I kept these things in mind and didn't have any issues related to the difference in stability.
On the plus side, I was able to go around corners faster as I was able to lean into them and not worry about going fast enough to tip over as I must pay attention to on the trike.
I was surprised by how much different the seating position is. When I first went to riding the trike, the recline of the seat was pretty similar to that of the Tour Easy. However, I have adjusted the seat on the trike back to a more reclined position. There is a significant difference in recline now between the USX trike and the Tour Easy. That means that my muscles are tuned to the more reclined position. There is not that much difference for the muscles but it is noticeable and may take a bit of training to adjust for a long ride.
I took the same route I took last week on the USX so I could have a good comparison. I also rode the Tour Easy without my fairing. This would have made even more of a difference. I did transfer the tailbox with all the same contents and I had three water bottles the same as when I rode it with the USX.
I felt faster. I felt like I was getting places sooner. I noticed a difference in the comfort of the ride. I didn't really feel more or less bumps, but the bumps I did feel were more pronounced. This is to be expected since the Tour Easy runs with 100 psi rear tire and 95 psi front tire whereas the USX runs with 32 psi all around. Also, the USX has a shock absorber running along the frame horizontal to the ground. This does not provide the normal shock absorption in the up and down direction, but it does add compliance to the frame (i.e., the bending of the top tube).
The Tour Easy is more responsive and that feels similar to comfort. That is, it is lighter and therefore more comfortable in that it requires less effort to change momentum.
I dug into the metrics of this ride compared to last weeks on the USX. On the Tour Easy I am 24% faster. That means my pace is improved by 19%. Funny how percentages work, isn't it? To state it differently, I increased my speed by 24% (i.e., from 13 mph to 16.1 mph) and I reduced my pace by 19% (i.e., from roughly a 5 minute mile to roughly a 4 minute mile - including stops, not just the moving pace, though the moving pace increased by the same percentage).
What significance is all this? Well, if I were to ride a century (i.e., 100 miles) the USX would take me 8 hrs 22 minutes while the Tour Easy would take me 6 hrs 45 minutes. Of course, riding a century, I would need to stop more than on this short one hour ride so it would actually take me longer on both. But the relative time is informative.