My ICE TRIKE
1-1-2022
by The Pedalin' Prof
I'd moved HateBusters Headquarters from my faculty office at William Jewell College to my home in Liberty years before my phone rang the morning of April 12, 2019. Inspired Cycle Engineering was calling from Cornwall England to tell me they had an American distributor in Lee's Summit. I'd been intrigued by the online description of their ICE TRIKE and had Emailed them. I called Bike Stop in Lee's Summit with the number provided from England and learned that ICE TRIKES are kept at their Blue Springs Bike Stop. I was there within the hour and bought the high-dollar Sprint because it was red, color of the bike I always rode.
I didn't really want a three-wheel recumbent, but I could no longer balance two-wheels. With bike riding the only medicine I take to keep my MS at bay, I have to ride. I had already biked across America and many thousands of miles in more than a dozen other countries. A three-wheeler doesn't take me as far or as fast, but with 30 gears, the ICE trike masters any terrain. I've yet to find the hill it can't climb.
But after living 56-years in the same house in the town of Liberty, my wife and I are moving to John Knox Village, about 20 miles south, where all conceivable needs are provided. This place has attracted us for several reasons: It is in the town of Lee's Summit, where both of our sons live. Our dear neighbor of 43 years in Liberty will again be our neighbor at John Knox. John Knox has found a safe and secure in-door parking place for my ICE trike, and when I discovered that Bike Stop, American home of British ICE TRIKE, is just one block away, the deal was sealed.
John Knox Village is not in the town of Liberty, but is in the place I call Greater Liberty. I call it this because on my bike ride across the country, I biked 125 miles on my longest days. For this ride from Orlando northwest to Seattle and then south to Anaheim, Disney held a parade, gave me a trophy and named me "The Pedalin' Prof".
When I got home to Liberty after riding 5,126-miles in 105 days, I drew a 125-mile circle around our town and dubbed this place Greater Liberty, a placegoing north to Creston, Iowa and south to Carthage, Missouri; west to Manhattan, Kansas and east to Columbia, Missouri, a place that is also the principle I teach and try to live. The principle is that we each have greater liberty than we ever practice to live above and beyond all the adjectives others might attach to us or that we simply assume.
Now that I have moved from the town of Liberty to a place in Greater Liberty, my primary biking allegiance accompanies me. Biscari Brothers Bicycles has been my Liberty home since before this century began and has performed exemplary service. Now with Bike Stop so near and the home of my ICE TRIKE, I turn to them when I need mechanical help.
The folks in both remain ever gentle on my mind and in my heart. My regret is that circumstances force me to choose. read more