Both my wife and I investigated trikes from various manufacturers, looking at size, weight, "features", and most importantly (at first anyway), cost. We looked at Greenspeed, Sun Trikes, Action Bent, Catrike, and many others. As a side note here, these trikes come in two major configurations: A tadpole (two wheels in the front and one in the rear) and Delta (one wheel in the front and two in the back -- like a "traditional" tricycle).
I was looking at spending as little as possible (as we all are) yet still get a reasonable machine that I could use and enjoy. We first looked at Sun trikes, but their being somewhat heavy, we started seriously considering the newer trike (T1 Tadpole) from Action Bent. This was around $1300. What I liked about it was the larger (700c) rear wheel. It had "standard" 20 inch front wheels (similar to other manufacturers' trikes). This was around November of 2007. Serendipitously (is that a word?), Action Bent did not have any in stock and wouldn't until after the first of the year (their supplier is in Taiwan). This gave me more time to investigate other makes.
When I first had started looking at tadpole trikes, I was very impressed with those from Catrike. However, their prices, though certainly not on the high side, were still higher than Action Bent or Sun. However, as I kept looking at construction and features, I was again impressed with Catrike and especially their "newer" model the Expedition.
I learned that a bike shop in Tucson, Ajo Bikes, was a distributor for Catrike. So when I was there visiting with some of my children, we visited the bike shop and got to ride an Expedition they had there. I was told later that when someone rides a recumbent tadpole trike for the first time, they grin all the way. Well, I was grinning. And I was sold. After some more deliberation, I decided the higher cost (the Expedition was going for $2550 at that time) was well worth it and ordered one.
Impatiently I waited (Catrike is a smaller, US company based out of Florida -- and apparently very popular). Then around the end of January my trike came into Ajo Bikes, was assembled, and I was there in a flash to pick it up. This photo is me on the Expedition shortly after picking it up and just before riding it around the University of Arizona campus for its first multi-mile tryout.
