E-assist Recumbent Trikes: Anyone have one?
 

Interested in hearing about anyone's experience with E-assist recumbent trikes.
Do any manufacturers make E-assist recumbents or are they always an "add-on"?
Do you like yours - positives, negatives?

Thanks,
Scubaquarius

Since you already own a Catrike, check out the Catrike website. They now have the e-Cat available but expect to pay $$$$ https://www.catrike.com/

Just about every major manufacturer of trikes makes an e-assist version but you can also take and existing trike and add e-assist to most models.
Lots of good information at the Bentrider Power Assist subforum Power Assist - BentRider Online Forums

I used to ride with a fellow that had a kit of some sort on his Catrike Expedition. I was riding a Road at the time and it certainly made it seem pretty effortless going up hills for him. We would regularly ride ~40-60 miles round trip and it would last the whole way along a rail to trail.

A recently deceased friend who was an avid cyclist converted to trikes after a stroke and then to add on e assist for his
ICE trike. He did a number of 50 mile + hilly rides on this with the ride group and regularly went up 0.3-0.4mile hills with
6-8% grades faster than anyone else in the groups which included some strong riders. His battery consumption on these
rides was typically 50-70% of charge. Bike was transported in a pickup and needed two people to put in or remove from
the truck.

Thanks to everyone for their experience and perspectives,

Scubaquarius

I converted my Sunseeker EcoTad myself with a 8Fun Bafang 750 watt mid drive with a lifepo4 battery.No regrets.

I converted several bikes and trikes to E cycles using Tongsheng TSDZ2 mid drives, including a Catrike Trail I used to own and an ICE Adventure I now own. I've put several thousand miles on Tongshengs and IME motors are reliable, easy to install and versatile. The Tongsheng uses a torque sensor that responds to how hard you push and gives a kind of Superman effect, pretty cool.




https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...21190f8db.jpeg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8498e76b9.jpeg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...999d1d65a.jpeg

Thank you everyone for you informative replies,

Scubaquarius

I'm thinking that the future is going to be electric assist, recumbent, cargo trikes. Looking to see a top notch manufacturer engineer and put something nice out.
franktheman

I have 2 delta style recumbent trikes, both homemade. One has 20" wheels and rear suspension, the other has 26" wheels which makes it a bit more tippy so it is used as a cruiser type of recumbent. I am thinking of taking the part's from the 20" version and building a tandem. The 20" wheels are very strong so will be fine for the extra weight. The rear's are each built as an axle/rim combo and the front is a 48 spoke BMX rim.

I haven't heard of a recumbent trike that is designed with E-assist built-in. It wouldn't be impossible, but the market for recumbent trikes is very very small compared to upright bikes.

Sylvia Halpern aka Myrtle the Turtle has had an E-Assist trike for a couple years now. She documents her experiences on Facebook: Travels By Trike | Facebook