Company History

Mission Statement
History
Consultation Services
Workmanship and Testing
Staff and Supporters

From humble beginnings...

Ben Goodall, Tri-Sled’s Director, gives a personal account of the birth (and life) of Trisled

I originally started building recumbents in the early 90s after a rather limited career in amateur mountain bike racing. The increasingly superficial, image-based nature of the sport, along with a growing interest in environmentally sustainable transport led me to the world of human powered vehicles.

After many late nights of research, I became dissatisfied with the complexity and impracticality of many trikes. All manner of levers, push rods and pivots were used to do something that should be relatively simple - steer two front wheels and drive a rear one. I began prototyping and sharing ideas with other homebuilders. My initial goal was to build a 'real' recumbent sports trike with the minimum non-standard components.

It seemed that there must be a way to tie all the steering and braking functions into the same structural framework. One day a friend dropped by to show me his direct steered trike which was suffering from some small glitches. While looking over it I noticed how the handlebars were in close proximity to the front wheels. Several days later it hit me. If the geometry was just right, a single structural part could serve as an arm to attach a rim brake, handlebar, and a locating point for a drag link to a mirror image part on the other side of the trike. The result is that the steering, braking, and support of the front wheels can be taken care of with just three major moving parts.

While the idea was simple, refining it was not. Due to the fact that every part was doing many jobs (the secret to lightweight construction), many prototypes were discarded due to very small glitches.

Around a year of weekends later, my design was final and the Cool Cruza was born. General positive remarks from my peers and other community members combined with the completion of my engineering studies prompted me to go commercial. The name registered was "Trisled", and the rest, as they say in the classics, is history.

From then till now...

I originally decided to call the business Trisled HPV's, rather than just Trisled, because I hoped that it would grow into something bigger than recreational recumbents, and it has. While the specialisation into compact sports trikes has been the source of many more years of refinement, Trisled has also evolved in several other directions.

HPV racing has taken centre stage, not necessarily at the top end of the field, although our racing models have raked up a series of impressive achievements and records, but rather as a result of the extensive consultation we've done with schools to develop practical and reliable vehicles for a range of skill levels. My interest in HPV racing really stems from a desire to develop and test road-going HPV's, or velomobiles, and Trisled's work in this area has culminated in the Sorcerer and Avatar velomobile models.

I've also become interested in developing application-specific bikes for 'working' contexts, like our Mazi Bike for couriers and shoppers, our four-wheeled Work Bike for anyone needing to carry large loads, and our popular Rickshaw model.

The business seems to have taken on a life of its own in recent years, pushing and pulling me in different directions. It's evolved into something that's bigger than just me. The business now has staff members, who bring with them their own ideas and new skills.

I remain committed to fresh thinking, new approaches, constant testing and continued feedback to develop and improve our expanding range of models. If you have any experiences or reflections about our products to share with me, please send us an email or call us at the