Racing trikes are rarely used for actual racing. Back in the early 80's, as part of the Ottawa winter carnival, the Ottawa Bicycle club did however run an ice tricycling race on Dow's lake. On the day of the race, the actual temperature hit -40° (that is the same whether you think in Celsius or Fahrenheit!) and the ice was as smooth as could be. We had some 20 race participants and all had a great time. We had even written to the UCI to see if they would homologate the results as the world championship ice tricycle race, but they didn't even answer our letter. As you can imagine, the temperature made traction the most important aaspect of the race. Many different approaches were made to traction. My personal attempt at improving the traction was to use liquid bleach on the Barum 700 c x 35 tires that I had on the back. The bleach dissolved the rubber somewhat making them quite sticky. Others tried with studded tires or no tires with roughed up rims. There were bikes with right-hand drive, left-hand drive, differentials and dual fron wheels. I have always explained that my poor 4th place finish was caused by the fact that my trikes right-hand drive was not compatible with the clockwise direction of the track. The drive wheel is important in that most roads are cambered to allow run-off of rain, so it is my opinion that it is actually better to have the drive to the curb side. For North America, you therefore want right-hand drive. The differentials that used to be available all added considerable weight without any significant advantag, so I wouldn't be overly inclined to worry about adding it. I would however be much happier with a right rather than a left-hand drive. The left-hand drive can leave you in a tough situation making left corners in busy intersections in traffic whihc can be dangerous. In Britain, the trikes are raced mostly in long distance point-to-point races and time trials. I do not think there are any true trike road races where they go up against one another head to head.
To ride a trike, you must partially forget what you learned when riding a single. This is necessary because the trike cannot lean into corners like a bike. To get around corners, you must act like the 'monkey' on racing motorcycle sidecars, hanging way inwards over the top-tube with the inside pedal down. This is needed to keep the trike wheels on the groud. I also find that mid-turn weight shifts can also often give you added handling control: all things that you could never even imagine on a single. Lastly, a trike does not inherently want to go straighter the faster you go, so you must always remain alert to what is happening and you learn to 'feel' the bike incredibly well. Any accomplished trike rider riding a bike can generally outhandle the accomplished bike rider riding a trike.
If I search hard enough, I might be able to find back the photo that appeared of me riding my trike with cast on my foot-tibia and crutches lashed onto the back in a snow storm. Ah, the folly of youth!!
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ