For much of the past two years or so, my car has largely functioned as a mobile trike garage. While I went through a fair amount of thought and effort to figure out how to store my trike by hanging it from the ceiling in the garage, the reality is that it spent relatively little time on it’s perch. The Pocket, being a relatively small machine, fit nicely behind the rear seats in my Honda Fit, and since I most frequently drive alone or, on rare occasion, with a single passenger, it was simpler to leave it in the car much of the time. Besides, you never know when an opportunity to ride might present itself, and you can only capitalize on that if the trike is present, so...
When I got the Catrike Expedition this summer I knew that it’s increased size was going to complicate things a bit. I love Honda Fits - they are extremely flexible, efficient and, with a stick shift at least, fun to drive. But the Expedition is both wider and, notably, longer than the Pocket. I expected it would strain the Fit’s capabilities as a trike transport.
Strain was correct. While the Pocket fit behind the front seats with the rear seats folded, I was not able to find any way to carry the Expedition without encroaching into the front passenger area. Ultimately, the best arrangement turned out to be sliding the passenger seat all the way forward and then leaning the seat back forward. With this done and the Expedition put in the back at an angle I could just barely get the rear hatch closed. (I also quickly discovered that I had to remove the passenger headrest because it now sat directly in my line of sight of the right-side rear view mirror).
As I mentioned, most of the time I’m in the car by myself, so this wasn’t necessarily the end of the world. However, it does decrease flexibility. Say your child needs you to swing by and pick them up on the way home, for example. Unless they are going to ride in the seat of the trike, there’s nowhere for them to sit. Oddly enough, passengers tend to object to this option.
Yes, it is possible to carry the trike on the roof - I’ve done this before - but that puts it out in the elements and in view of prying eyes and wandering hands, so I prefer to have it inside whenever possible. And besides, the roof rack has a negative impact on noise level and gas mileage, so I don’t put it on unless I’m planning to carry the trike up top in advance. It’s not there on the car to be used if I encounter an unexpected passenger need.
All that aside, it’s been workable, if occasionally inconvenient, for the past several months, and I’d been prepared to work with it for the longer term. However, events transpired such that the family was going to need to get a different vehicle. Given that, it made sense to pass down my trusty, but well used, Honda Fit to the aforementioned offspring and look for a vehicle more suitable to trike transport.
Of course, the ability to transport the trike was not the only criteria I needed to meet (believe it or not). We live in the hinterlands in northern Illinois, and I travel by car a fair amount for work. A vehicle for me needed to meet the following criteria:
- Have real all-wheel drive - we contend with a lot of snow
- Be comfortable for distance driving
- Sporty and relatively fun to drive
- Get relatively decent gas mileage
- Have room for the trike and at least one other passenger to ride in comfort; and
- NOT be a truck or SUV
It’s the last one, of course, that really narrows things down, given the rest of the list. While we’ve had a truck or three in the household over the years, I prefer the handling characteristics of a car. Plus, since I drive a lot, the greener side of my nature struggles with the mileage hit of, say, a Suburban or Tahoe (which would otherwise easily meet the other criteria). To boil it down: I can’t help myself - I’m a car guy.
This list frankly left me with, as best I could determine, two potential choices: Subaru Crosstrek or Subaru Outback.
I like them both, and I loved the fact that the Crosstrek could be had with a manual transmission (car guy, remember?). However, I’ve parked next to many a Crosstrek with my Fit over the past few years (well - mostly the same one many times- a friend in my martial arts class drove one, also in orange), and the Crosstrek appeared to be bigger than the Fit, but not by a lot. So I posted a question for the folks in the Catrike Owners Group on Facebook to see if anyone else had experience with Expeditions and Crosstreks and, well, they had (groups are really the best part of Facebook. Maybe even the only good part...). The upshot: it’s about the same situation as with the Honda Fit.
So that left me with the Outback.
I spent a few evenings searching online for something in our desired price range, and then MLW and I set a day aside to go have a look. Besides identifying a dealership and mapping a route, my primary act of preparation was shoehorning the Expedition into the back of our 2011 Honda CR-V. My logic here was that, given my primary criteria was being able to carry the trike and people, the best way to test that would be just to bring along the trike and try it out.
Brilliant, right?
What followed was a phenomenal testament of just how good My Lovely Wife is to me. When I say "shoehorned", what I mean is that it does not fit comfortably in the CRV, which is taller, but not really that much longer than the Fit. So, in order to fit it inside, I had to slide the passenger seat forward, set the seat back bolt upright (but not forward - yay!) and push down on the trike against the tire pressure in order to slide it back because the rear cargo rack was pressing against the ceiling.
After I had accomplished all this MLW looked at it and said: "so - that’s right against the back of my seat."
"Yeah" I said. "Is that ok?"
"So" she says "I can’t lean back or, you know, move or anything?"
"Umm... I could take it out. I could just bring along a tape measure and do measurements..." I said.
"How far is it?" She asked.
"About an hour and a half".
And then she sighed and said "it’ll be fine. Let’s go."
I’m quite certain I don’t deserve her.
I’m pleased to say that the salesman at the dealership appeared completely unphased by my request to cram my trike into the back of a car I did not yet own. I’m sure that part of it is just due to wanting to make a sale, but I suspect that it was also helpful that the car, though used, happened to be for sale at a Subaru dealership. Given the target market for these cars I suspect I’m not the first person they’ve encountered bringing along equipment of one sort or another to see how it fits.
And: it does. I’m pleased to say that, with the back seats down and the front seat moved slightly forward the Expedition fits and allows for two passengers in addition to the driver - one in the front passenger seat and one in the rear driver’s side seat (in the "40" side of the 60/40 rear seat split). I did have to loosen the neck rest on the trike and tilt it forward to fit it in, but that’s a pretty easy adjustment to work with.
That sorted, it was just a test drive and some negotiation time before we settled things up and I took it home:
I’ve had it out and about a few times now with the Expedition in the back, and it all works out well. I did briefly try running the rear wheel in-between the front seats, but that blocked the central rear view mirror more than I cared for, so I switched to setting it in at an angle. That adjustment made, everything seems to work quite nicely. We’ll see how it works out over the longer term, but at the moment I’m pretty optimistic.
I have no doubt there will be readers who will quibble with my conclusion here on various fronts. If that’s not you, feel free to stop here. But if you are thinking something like:
"You know, this [type or brand of minivan/crossover/panel van/Conestoga wagon] does most of what you want and you can haul two trikes in it at once."
Or
"There’s nothing like a Suburban [Excursion/Escalade/full-size pickup/etc] for cargo capacity and four wheel drive. You live in the country - it’s time to step up to a truck."
Or
"They make rear hitch racks/you could use a trailer/did you consider [type/brand] of carrying system?"
Please know that I think these (and related ideas) are reasonable ones to present. But I think there are a few things that are important to consider when looking at vehicle solutions surrounding carrying a trike. Probably first and foremost is considering whether your transport vehicle is going to be your primary vehicle or whether you will use a secondary vehicle for that purpose. If you are in a position to have a vehicle oriented just towards your recreational activities I am happy for you. I have periodically considered that - getting an older truck of some sort just for hauling the trike. But I’ve done that in the past and it really didn’t work out for me. While I do have just recreational riding times - my regular Sunday rides, for example - in order to increase my riding opportunities I try to integrate riding into the rest of my regular schedule. If I’m traveling somewhere for work and it offers trails, paths, etc, I’ll bring the trike along and ride over lunch and/or after the work day.
This approach has worked well in terms of enhancing my riding time, but when I say "traveling", it’s often distances of two to six hours in the car - this really isn’t the ideal sort of situation for a utility vehicle. Hence the focus on comfort and gas mileage in the criteria.
It’s also the case that this decision point was triggered by having a family vehicle taken out of service. We weren’t in a position to get a secondary vehicle - anything added would have to serve full-time duty.
Finally, while I don’t care for SUV’s or crossovers as a general rule, I don’t have anything against minivans - I think a good minivan is a beautiful thing from a utility perspective (though they are not sporty or fun to drive, as a rule), and I’ve eyed the little Ford Transit vans closely in the past for similar reasons. But nothing in the class does what I’d call real all-wheel drive. Most of these vehicles, when they have all-wheel drive, have systems designed to aid in stability and traction under slippery conditions, and this is what is needed for most people in most situations. As far as that goes, that same type of benefit can also be conferred on virtually any two-wheel drive vehicle by adding a set of snow tires. What neither solution does well, however, is crawl their way through, or out of, a snow drift. We are rural enough that this is a periodic need - and I can tell you that my knowledge in this area is more than academic...
While it doesn’t quite have the capabilities of a four-wheel-drive truck, Subarus occupy that middle ground between being much more capable than the typical slippery-road friendly vehicle and a truck, while still operating like a car the rest of the time. They are, in a way, kind of an odd compromise machine that other manufacturers just don’t make, but which happens to fall right into my current sweet spot.