Commuter Challenge

His list includes: cycling, walking, electric car, heelys (trainers with wheels), segway (a kind of electric scooter) and powerizers (stilts with springs)!

You can follow James's progress each weekday on BBC Radio Derby - listen to Andy Whittaker's Breakfast Show for regular updates (use the link on the right) and see more on BBC East Midlands Today each evening from 6.30 pm.

Day Nine - Recumbent Tricycle

Journey Time - 17 minutes (+ 10 minutes sorting it out beforehand!)

Journey Cost – This ‘trike’ cost £600. Running costs are negligible

Today’s journey got off to a slow start! When you sit on this trike, you are still not as high as most peoples car windows, so, in true Sinclair C5 fashion, you feel at risk of not being seen!

I also had problems pumping the tyre up, but this was more to do with a dodgy pump than the bike itself!

The trike has pedals at the front, and you sit, or recline on a very large, comfortable seat. The handle bars are at your side, with a gear-shifter on the handles. The turning circle was poor, (and I’m sure made worse, the wider you are) as I had to move aside to get ‘full lock’.

This caused a few difficulties throughout the journey. It was very stable and being close to the ground was nice.

Once I got going, it was great. It was very cold, and even early on I could feel the strain on my legs was heavier than a normal bike. On Haslams Lane, I really got some speed up, and then in a moment of panic I was fast approaching a ridge in the road, I put the brakes on hard, and it seemed to go sideways a bit.

Looking back. this probably wasn’t as bad as it felt, it was just that I wasn’t used to the brakes – I think it would be quite hard to fall off this 3 wheeler! The ridge was a little uncomfortable.

The speed ramps a little further up, were surprisingly surmountable, but weren’t comfortable at all.

The entry to the bridge was quite difficult. I was too low down to see traffic, and too low down to be seen!

Also at about a metre wide, I couldn’t pass cars on the bridge, and at that height, had no desire to. Without a reverse gear, this could have been problematic, but fortunately I was able to follow a car across. It’s an obstacle I would want to tackle every day on this vehicle!

The hill was very difficult, and quite taxing on the legs, I got to the top, not at all out of breath, but with very tired legs. I’m not sure if this is characteristic of the trike, or if I hadn’t adjusted the pedals correctly!

At the top of the hill a child on his bike, wearing a cycle helmet that looked more like Darth Vader than crash protection, rode past fascinated by the trike and a second later ‘bang’ as he hit the Walter Evans school gate and fell off his bike! He seemed fine, just embarrassed, so I continued onwards.

Once across the A38 I turned into a residential area, and did a bit of on board ‘filming’ for East Midlands, which was fun. I then came to the cut-through at the top of Slack Lane, and found that the trike simply did not fit through the gap! I had to lift it over!

At this point somebody who I had never met before greeted me by my name – a very strange experience for me – obviously a follower of the commuter challenge!

I then carried on to the end of the journey, enjoying the downhills, having an altogether excellent time!

As much as I enjoyed the Trike, and thought it was a great mode of transport, from a riding point of view, I think there are a few issues to put me off using it to commute, firstly – the height of it, doesn’t feel nice alongside cars and lorries, secondly, I didn’t enjoy having to get off to lift it over bollards and thirdly I couldn’t easily carry my rucksack.

 I would, however, really like one of these from a recreational point of view, and I must say that it was superbly engineered, and a truly nice item!