One of the key questions when you purchase a new HPV is how to secure it. For standard bicycles, it isn’t much of an issue and you have lots of choices depending on how much you want to spend and how secure you need to make your vehicle.
What’s the best way to secure a bike?
Finding something to chain or lock it to can be an issue, especially here in Japan where the areas around the local train stations are jam packed with enough bikes that they often look like a field of wild grasshoppers engaged in frantic love-making. But, somehow, we always manage to find a pole, tree, or fence to anchor our favorite mountain bike.
Our footbike is a little more difficult, primarily because it is so unique and draws lots of attention. Also, wrapping the chain around parts of the footbike where it can’t easily be slipped off requires some thinking. We generally find a good chain path that includes routing the chain through the front wheel, around the handlebars, under the frame, and around whatever stationairy object has been lucky enough to serve as a land anchor. It runs the risk of some wheel spoke damage if the bike gets bumped or someone tries to move it, but so far it’s worked out ok.
How is a recumbent trike different to lock?
The current challenge facing us is how to secure the recumbent trike that should arrive in about two weeks. We intend to get a lot of use out of it, hopefully with rides at least three or four times a week, weather permitting, perhaps even more frequently. And, since most of our rides will be longer than just the few minutes it takes to get over to the local 7/11, we know that there will be times when the trike is parked out if sight while we take a human break, get some coffee or lunch, or perhaps take in a movie.
So we’ve been searching the web to see how others have solved the problem. This particular video showing the installation of an Axa Defender lock on at Terratrike Zoomer was very helpful and gave us some good ideas.
Share your bicycle know-how
If you have any experience with locking a recumbent trike to keep it out of harms way, please let us know by posting a comment. We want to enjoy our new trike for many years to come. Of course we will share any interesting solutions that are submitted, and will post about our own experience so that everyone can benefit.
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