This isn't the full, rambling ride report, but just a few impressions of the performance of the borrowed Trice XL recumbent trike on which I rode (unsupported) the 1200km of Paris-Brest-Paris, plus 300km to and from Paris with a touring load.

First, and perhaps most importantly on a ride of this length, I found the XL extremely comfortable even compared with my own Trice. The seat is mesh and slightly taller than the traditional Trice seat, but stops short of providing a Greenspeed-style headrest (I felt no need for any head support). The angle of the seat is adjustable. I rode fully reclined (about 35 degrees); no soreness anywhere, not even the transient discomforts I experience on my Trice.

With a seat 8 in off the ground, the XL is low compared with just about anything short of a Greenspeed race trike . This translates into extremely secure handling. A friend says he could pick out the XL in a bunch at night from the undeviating line it steered. Individual braking on the front wheels means you can brake-steer on descents if you want to, but in general braking downhill is optional, apart from the air-brake provided by the width of your grin. There are a lot of descents on PBP, heh heh heh.

There are, of course, also a lot of hills, though few of them are steep. I was extremely impressed with the performance of the XL uphill. Even on steady climbs in which momentum wasn't a factor, the XL's low bottom bracket and stiff frame meant I was doing as much overtaking as being overtaken. This is quite a contrast with my own Trice, fond as I am of it.

The XL is appreciably quicker than my Trice. Downhill it was marginally slower than Zach Kaplan's Festina low racer; on the flat and uphill there was nothing to choose, despite the greater weight of the trike. It is a lot more responsive to increased rider effort than the Trice of old. I rode the 1400km Edinburgh-London on my Trice. If I make adjustment for the different length of the rides, the XL would seem to be several hours quicker (even though Zach and I deliberately dallied over the later stages of PBP in order to get an atmospheric finish time in the middle of the day).

I'd wondered about the real-world practicality of a machine as low as the XL, but it had no problems negotiating ferry ramps or any of the vicious speed bumps along the route. Even without a flag, I had no problems in urban traffic, though, as on any recumbent trike, here I was riding with peril sensors turned up to maximum. It may be worth noting that I fitted Tioga Comp Pools to the front wheels for PBP instead of the standard Schwalbe City Jets, which had the effect of increasing ground clearance slightly and making the ride more compliant, at the expense of losing a small degree of tooth-rattling seat-of-the-pants involvement in what the front wheels were up to.

The XL is usefully lighter than my Trice. It was easy to carry it at chest height into and out of the bike dungeon at the Pavillon Bleu hotel. It's also extremely refined: No chain slap since the chain run is almost entirely encased in tubes (no 'blackleg' either).

The frame of the XL is neatly fillet-brazed, and build quality seems excellent. Lugs on the major joints are very substantial. All I had to do in over 1800km of riding was tighten the barrel adjuster on the rear mech.

Two Ortlieb 'front-roller' panniers on the rear rack plus an Ortlieb rack bag across the top (all full; didn't dare weigh them) had absolutely no effect on the handling.

The turning circle of the XL is less tight than that of my Trice, but I had no problems when I needed to U-turn on minor roads.

Maybe the most telling tribute to the XL was that, less than 24 hours after completing PBP, I was happy to set off to ride the 240km to Caen...

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