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From humble beginnings...Ben Goodall, Tri-Sled’s Director, gives a personal account of the birth of Tri-Sled 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, pushrods 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 sport trike with a minimum of 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 other 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 "Tri-Sled", and the rest, as they say in the classics, is history. From then till now...Since its conception over 10 years ago, Cool Cruza has established itself as a robust and dependable touring recumbent. Gizmo is a direct bi-product of the testing, feedback and experience that has created and refined the Cruza. The continued and ongoing development of Gizmo has shaped a whole new revolutionary direction in recumbent design, one that places Tri-Sled as a leader in the global human powered vehicle market. We remain committed to fresh thinking, new approaches, constant testing and continued feedback to develop and improve our expanding range of products. If you have any experiences or reflections about our products to share with us, please send us an email or call us at the office. |
