vanRaam Easy Rider Compact Tricycle

The vanRaam Easy Rider Compact Tricycle is comfortable, stable and surprisingly manoeuvrable. It’s built around an in-house electric pedal assistance system and you can opt to team that with a slow start throttle that will deliver reassuringly smooth starts. All of this comes at a cost of course.

ebiketips doesn’t cover electric trikes very often. Whilst that’s fair enough given the number of e-trike models out there pales in comparison to number of two-wheeled e-bikes out there, it’s also important to recognise there is real demand for them from those who feel more comfortable on three wheels or who are simply not able to ride two.

My sister Beth is a case in point. A knee replacement and osteoarthritis mean her mobility precluded a return to the e-bike she previously rode, so she was delighted to take a spin on one of the highest quality trikes out there: vanRaam’s Easy Rider Compact.

Before we dive into the detail of what the Easy Rider Compact consists of, it’s worth mentioning Dutch firm vanRaam’s remarkable success making bikes and trikes for those with mobility issues. Over the past four decades, the firm has morphed from being a manufacturer of conventional bikes to a true and highly innovative specialist. Just take a look at the designs available on their website to see what I mean. Tapping into significant latent demand has seen regular moves to ever larger production facilities to keep pace with sales.

With that specialisation has come lots of interesting technology and as an e-bike journalist I was also keen to take a look at that aspect.

Design, specification and quality

vanRaam uses what’s called a semi-recumbent, delta design. Semi-recumbent is fairly self-explanatory if you have seen recumbent bikes. The pedals are placed further forward of the rider than is usual, though not as fully forward as on a full recumbent, so the riding position is a little more upright.

The main advantage – certainly as far as Beth was concerned – was that a good semi-recumbent design, with its wide meshed seat and laid back ride position, reduces strain on just about every joint. Even if you don’t suffer from painful joints, you might well enjoy the great comfort it affords anyway.

As to the cons of this design – on paper at least – you have a lower vantage point and a longer, stretched out frame. These have been mitigated to a large degree on the Easy Rider Compact by its unique design. The seat sits relatively high up to accommodate the motor and complex transmission underneath and – as the Compact name suggests – it seeks to minimise its footprint.

It is designed for children and smaller adults. At 5ft 3in and 5ft 7in respectively, it was fine for both Beth and myself thanks to the sliding adjustment on the seat. vanRaam says the trike will suit those with an inner leg length of 63cm to 81cm which roughly corresponds to heights of 1.4m to 1.7m.

Delta three-wheelers have two wheels at the rear, as opposed to tadpoles which have two at the front. They have a sharper turning circle and so are more manoeuvrable, but against that they can have a tendency to be more ‘tippy’ when cornering at speed. Trike design lecture over, what do actually get on the Easy Rider Compact?

The aluminium alloy frame has a single ‘main frame’ that runs into an unusual kinked headtube arrangement that is used to bring the handlebars right back towards the rider, Harley Davidson ‘Easy Rider’ style. At the rear, the tubing arrangement provides mounting points for a luxuriously wide seat and our model came with the optional adjustable steel sprung suspension underneath.

The chain drive is housed in its own plastic housing to keep you nice and clean and to reduce maintenance. It links to the gearless motor, seven-speed Shimano hub gears and differential, which all serve to drive power to both rear wheels equally and smoothly.

It’s no lightweight at 51.2kg for the spec I was loaned. However, we generally didn’t find this to be a huge problem in terms of manoeuvring. It has that tight turning circle, a slow start throttle and a reverse gear, all of which was enough that we could get it in and out of a small security shed – and at 1.73m long, 1.1m high and 0.7m wide, it isn’t actually that much bigger than a regular bike with panniers.

Weight and size are of course more of an issue when you want to transport it. The trike doesn’t fold or disassemble easily, so wheeling it in and out of a small van or roll on/off design of trailer is the best solution – though this will limit its appeal if you are looking to take it on trips.

Own brand electrics and unique controls

vanRaam uses its own design, called the Silent motor system. It’s a large, gearless motor – that latter fact is important here as it allows for a reverse gear. It is a hub motor in effect, though it is not actually in a wheel but instead sits under the seat. The hub gears are also here and drive onto that rear axle which has a differential that allows the rear wheels to turn at different speeds when cornering. This helps deliver smooth and nimble handling.

Our loan bike had the ‘standard’ version of the motor system, but there is a high torque version available too.

Well-respected German brand BMZ provides the battery, which is low down for balance and can easily be removed at the push of a button from its location behind the seat. Our test bike came with the standard 522Wh unit but an 846Wh option is available.

The handlebar features a slightly bewildering array of controls and our test bike seemed to come with every optional extra in terms of power controls and lights – a slow start throttle and light and indicator buttons.

There is a very clear colour display showing the power level selected and speed, plus the percentage of battery remaining and also a gear grip shift.

Finally there are 20in x 1.75in Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres on the rear, which should cut the risk of punctures to the absolute minimum, and a Schwalbe large volume 16in Big Apple tyre on the front for maximum comfort.

It’s worth stressing how well thought-out the design is overall. The weight distribution of the guts of the heavy electric drive system is low down and central and so doesn’t affect handling, while nice touches include two sets of parking brakes, rear anti tip wheels at the back and an optional rear carrying basket and a pannier rack for a single pannier on the rear of the seat.

Generally speaking, it would be great if more trikes upped their carrying capacity as three wheels provide the advantage of a hugely stable loading base compared to two-wheeled e-cargo models. Still, the Easy Rider compact has enough space on the rear for a medium sized shop.

The ride

We had both tried upright designs of trike before and there is usually a bit of a learning/refamiliarisation curve as your muscle and coordination memory thinks it is on a bike and tries to balance – often to comical effect. This effect is however much less pronounced on this semi-recumbent design and we both just hopped on and pedalled off.

Comfort and ease of use are outstanding. As someone with osteoarthritis, Beth worries about jolts and sudden movements that can be painful, but everything on the Easy Rider Compact was smooth and ultra-predictable, from the support offered by that chair type seating arrangement to the slow start throttle, which gives the slowest and smoothest of take-offs.

I also found that on longer, faster road rides, the seat was pretty comfortable – though you certainly know about larger potholes, which are transmitted up through the frame and seat.

The Silent motor system’s performance was ideal for this kind of e-trike – gentle and smooth, but strong enough at the same time. The slow start throttle and the torque-sensing pedal action blend beautifully together.

It’s the opposite of high torque e-MTB style mid-drives tuned to provide maximum torque, though we never really felt it wasn’t up to moving the combined weight of bike rider and luggage, which could be up to 160kg. Having said that, vanRaam also offers a high-torque version which may suit you better if you live in a very hilly area and/or will need to carry a very heavy load.

Of course, stopping and cornering are equally important and the three disc brakes performed well – in particular, the two hydraulic brakes at the rear offer fantastic and beautifully progressive stopping power.

Whilst you can feel a little centrifugal force if you corner much above 10mph, it’s easy to reduce it by leaning inwards and I never felt in danger of tipping the inside wheel up, which can happen with some designs of trike (especially very upright delta designs with a narrow track).

If you haven’t ridden trikes before, you might be surprised how manoeuvrable some designs are and the Easy Rider Compact is one of the best in this regard. I found myself able to cut through traffic jams and negotiate some (but not all) access barriers. Beth was easily able to spin around within the width of her local traffic-free trail. The bike actually has a smaller turning circle than most two-wheelers.

Once off the trike, you don’t want it to roll away and the long levered parking brake control for the front wheel is within easy reach and very easy to use – you can even use it to stop on a hill to take a breather. On steeper hills you can also lock the rear hydraulic brakes for extra security.

Gearless motors don’t have a reputation as the best hill climbers, though I managed some pretty steep ones, including several hundred feet of climbing on a regular commuting route. I did need to put in some fairly determined pedal effort on the steeper climbs though and it would have been interesting to see how much easier the high torque motor would have made it.

I felt safer than I anticipated riding the Easy Rider Compact on the roads, even in busy traffic. Overtaking drivers generally gave me a wide berth, as they tend to with any unusual and probably confusing vehicle. I felt the rear indicators were a handy safety addition as they were more visible than many other designs, though still no substitute for hand signals.

A rear mirror would help as it’s harder to turn and look over your shoulder with this kind of chair seating arrangement.

Downsides? Inevitably, storage and even more so transportation are potential problems with such a heavy trike and, if you are a fan of traffic-free cycling, some access controls (horsebox type restrictions especially) may cause problems. Having said that, we rode it through several chicane type access controls on our local Dewsbury to Ossett greenway without issue as the sharp turning circle meant it was little different to taking a regular bike through.

Other options

The vanRaam website lists prices in euros, but we were told that the basic electric version of the Easy Rider Compact with 8-speed gearing is priced at £5,380, while the version tested – with a thumb throttle, 8-speed gearing, an arm rest and a tiltable basket – costs £6,430.

The firm has several other variants on the design: The Easy Rider Compact+ (€6,125) is a recently released and slightly upgraded design that comes with more of the ‘add ons’ for the Easy Rider Compact as standard – for example, underseat suspension. There are also larger, non-Compact versions of the Easy Rider with prices starting from €6,374.

Also worth a look are the options offered by UK firm Tomcat, including a similar semi-recumbent model, the Flame (from £5,356) with a splittable frame for easier transport.

If these sums seem too eye-watering, York-based Jorvik Tricycles offers a range of options, most of which are significantly more affordable, albeit they lack much of the smooth, high tech found on the vanRaam.

Overall

Inevitably, a specialist and technologically complex e-trike is not cheap, but it is effectively a lifetime purchase and if such a vehicle can give someone their mobility back, it will be worth every penny. What’s more, vanRaam is actively building a UK dealer network, so support should be at hand down the line.

While the vanRaam Easy Rider Compact is weighty, it is surprisingly manoeuvrable and smaller than you might think, and it boasts a smooth motor system that is beautifully calibrated for its intended use. The cost may be high, but the quality of the trike is also hugely apparent.