We are planning to buy an older Sears single speed adult tryke for pleasure riding out here on the country roads with little traffic. My question is how hard is a tryke to pedal considering they are much heavier than a bike?. I know my old single speed 26in. bike will give you a workout on the slightest hill I dont want to find myself standing up or pushing the tryke half of the time. Most of where we will ride is fairly flat.

Bump

While they don't glide along with the ease of a two-wheeler, they aren't all that bad.

Still, if you are having hill trouble with the single speed bicycle, maybe some gears are in your future for the trike. I love my geared bicycles. I own only one single speed that doesn't get much use, but happens to be a great looking fat-tired cruiser, so it has its moments.

Do you have any friends with trikes who'd let you try them? You'll never know till you try one.

I ride a cargo trike, here in Mérida.

I realize this is probably nothing like yours, but no one else has come up with an answer. It being single speed, and short are the biggest drawbacks. Harder to pedal than a bike, for sure. Heavy. If yours is geared, it will make a big difference. I have plans to put gears on this one so I can use it more like a car, to haul the dogs around. We have nothing that even hints of a hill, and still I get off to push it across an intersection with a very slight rise (a crowned surface), because it is very difficult to start from a dead stop. If this helps, then great. If it doesn't then maybe it will give you some things to think about.

I have ridden and owned several bikes geared and not but never a tryke. I geared my Murray Eliminator muscle bike like i want it 44/18 and it does pretty good even on slight hills. Guess will know tomo how a tryke does because we are going to get it. The tryke is an olf Freespirit single speed.

I'm thinking Single Speed Trykes are more for boardwalk rides than anything with an incline. My concern would not be so much about being able to peddle the hill but how your knees are going to feel after hours of crunching up inclines. From a set back seated positon it would be hard to stand to peddle which is how you would get yourself over a hill or incline on a two wheeled single speed.

One option would be to put a peddle assist hub on it to "level out" any incline. I'm thingking like the Bionx hub that will augment your peddling, not one of the cheaper E-hubs that would make it a motorized tryke but just it a little boost......but then it woudl be cheaper and better to just buy a geared tryke from the get-go.

They sell three speed hubs for trikes.

Here is the tryke. This is a as found pic the seller rexted me. Will see it in person tomo.

Looks like fun! But I will second the warning about the knees. Mine definitely suffer when I use the trike for a very long period of time, with or without a load.

I ride an adult trike around Portland Or. It can be quite a work out. This one has a three speed hub, I couldn't imagine getting around on a single speed. I feel like it is three times the effort of my bicycle. But I love riding it.

Ease of pedalling isn't a fixed number. You can raise the efficiency of any cycle with clean, smooth rolling, well lubricated and correctly adjusted bearings, a clean and properly lubricated chain, and properly inflated, low-rolling resistance tires, and also by correctly fitting the cycle to the rider.