I live and ride in Fort Wayne, Indiana where we have lots of paved trails to ride on. Our trails have lot of bumps and holes as do our streets. And they rarely ever get repaired or fixed … at least not properly. And even if they do fix them properly the repair doesn’t seem to last very long. Even when they do work on them they frequently change a hole into a bump instead of smooth flat pavement. Our streets have some horrible pot holes and they rarely get repaired either. It is impossible to ride one’s trike without hitting them.

Over the years the damage done to my trike has cost me a few thousand dollars in total repair cost. Just recently I hit a bad bump on the trail where they thought they had repaired it. Their repair was as bad afterwards as it was before. I rode over it and it not only blew out my rear tire causing it to go completely flat instantly, but it also did something to damage my rear wheel sprockets. It cost me around $500 in all to make the repair as I had to buy a new e-motor wheel. By the way, I just rode over that area on the trail yesterday and they finally did something to improve it. It took them a very long time after I reported it.

I ride a 2009 Catrike Trail tadpole trike which I love. It now has a 2013 frame as it was replaced under warranty. It has been a great trike although I much prefer the 2009 “space frame”.

I found out the Catrike wheels are not able to hold up to Fort Wayne’s holes and bumps. I have had several wheels damaged to where they needed to be replaced and I have had broken spokes galore. I bought a couple new wheels from Catrike to replace the damaged ones, but learned that they just don’t hold up so I stopped buying them and in their place I bought some heavier duty BMX rims and had them laced into my Catrike hubs. The cost was nearly the same as buying new Catrike wheels. These BMX wheels have been great!! No more damaged wheels and only one broken spoke over all these years since I changed wheels. Now with over 174,450 miles on this trike I can report that it is still going strong. What a testimony of the quality of Catrike!

So if you are dealing with the same problems I deal with you may want to look into switching to heavier duty BMX wheels. I sure wish Fort Wayne would do a lot better with all these bumps and holes. I would love to live somewhere else where this problem doesn’t exist. I don’t know where that would be … probably someplace that doesn’t have winter. I would love that!

P.S. – If you come to Fort Wayne to ride the trails you might want to bring a “kidney belt” like the ol’ Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycle riders used to wear.