The Simple Glide Fat Tire Recumbent E-Trike: An Honest Test Ride at 64

A 64-Year-Old Rider Sizes Up the Simple Glide

I want to introduce you to Diane. She is 64, she has been coming out to our shop to test-ride bikes one after another, and she has a simple goal: find the electric trike that fits her life. Not the flashiest one. Not the one with the biggest number on the spec sheet. The one that feels right the moment she settles into it. On this visit she pointed at the Simple Glide fat tire recumbent e-trike and said she wanted to give it a go, and I am glad she did, because it turned into one of the more useful test rides I have watched in a while.

What I love about riding along with a rider like Diane is that she says exactly what she is thinking. She is not performing for anyone. When something feels stable, she tells you. When she is nervous about a hill, she tells you that too. So treat what follows as less of a sales pitch and more of a walk-through of what a thoughtful, honest rider noticed on a windy afternoon, with a few notes from me, since I have spent a lot of years matching people to the right three-wheeler.

Her first reaction was about getting on. That sounds small until you have watched people struggle with it. A lot of would-be riders in their sixties and beyond quietly give up on cycling because swinging a leg over a tall frame has become a gamble. The Simple Glide answers that with a low, simple step-through, and Diane said it out loud the second she approached it: how could it be easier to get onto a bike? You do not climb onto this trike so much as walk into it and sit down. If mounting and dismounting is the thing standing between you and riding again, spend some time with our low step-through electric tricycles, because that single design choice is often what brings people back to riding.

Before she even pulled away, Diane found the feature that makes this trike different from almost everything else on three wheels. She flipped the armrest down, settled back, and pointed out the little fold-out footrest and platform up front. If you just want to hang for a while, she said, you can. Park it, put your feet up, and sit there like you are in a lounge chair, watching the water or waiting on a friend. She has short arms, so rather than reaching down she used her foot to flip the footrest into position, which got a laugh but also made a point: nothing about this trike demands that you be flexible or strong to use it. It bends to you.

That lounging detail is easy to underrate. Most bikes are built for one thing, which is going. This one is comfortable enough to just be, whether you are mid-ride and want a rest or you have pulled off the path to enjoy where you are. Diane framed it as riding with friends or simply enjoying nature, and honestly, that is a lot of what riding is supposed to be about once you are doing it for pleasure rather than to get somewhere in a hurry.

Then there is the safety detail that comes before the wheels ever turn: the kill switch. On this trike the throttle will not do anything until you engage that switch. Diane likes to start off with a little throttle to get rolling from a standstill, and she pointed out that the throttle stays inert until she deliberately brings it to life. Later in the ride she called out the automatic kill as one of her favorite features, and I understand why. It is a simple interlock, but it means you are not going to lurch forward by accident because your hand brushed the grip. On a machine with real power, that kind of quiet, boring safety is exactly what you want. She engaged the switch, gave the throttle a gentle turn, and rolled off to see what the Simple Glide could do.

The heart of this trike is the way you sit on it. The Simple Glide is a recumbent, which means you are reclined into a supportive seat with the pedals out in front of you rather than perched on a saddle with your weight pressing down through your hips. Diane kept coming back to how comfortable that seat is. Comfy, she said, more than once, and not as a throwaway. About twenty minutes into riding she noted there was absolutely zero fatigue in her arms, because her elbows had been resting on the armrests the entire time.

Think about that for a second, because it is the whole argument for a recumbent in one sentence. On a traditional bike your arms are load-bearing. You lean on the handlebars, your wrists take the vibration, your shoulders creep up toward your ears, and after a while your hands go numb and your neck aches. None of that was happening here. Diane's arms were relaxed on the armrests, her fingers loose on the grips, and she made a point of showing how little tension she was carrying. For anyone with wrist trouble, shoulder issues, or a back that complains about being hunched forward, that reclined, fully supported position is not a luxury. It is the difference between a ride you enjoy and a ride you cut short. If comfort is the thing you are chasing, it is worth seeing why this style keeps showing up among our most comfortable electric trikes.

The seat is adjustable, which matters more than people expect. A comfortable seat that is in the wrong position is just a nice-looking problem. On the Simple Glide the seat slides to match your leg length, so you get proper extension when you pedal instead of cramping up or reaching. Diane mentioned that the trike is designed to accommodate a wide range of riders, roughly from five feet up to about six foot four. I would treat that as the general design range rather than a promise for every body, and I always tell people to confirm the exact fit for their own height before they buy, but the point stands: this is a seat you dial in, not one you simply tolerate.

Here is a detail I loved that Diane caught, because it shows she was thinking like a rider and not just a passenger. Because it is a recumbent, she can press her back against the seat to push harder through the pedals when she wants to. On an upright bike you have gravity and body weight to help you mash the pedals. Reclined, you lose some of that, but you gain a backrest to push against, which lets you put real strength into your legs when you feel like working. As she put it, it cannot all just be fun and games, unless you want it to be. That line is the whole philosophy of a good e-trike. You decide, moment to moment, how much of the effort is yours and how much belongs to the motor.

That flexibility is why I point so many older riders toward this category. The reclined seat takes pressure off the spine, hips, and knees; the armrests take the load off the upper body; and the forward pedal position keeps your joints in a relaxed, natural line. When Diane said that once you get over sixty, e-bikes and e-trikes are the way to go, she was not repeating a slogan. She was reporting what her body was telling her after a real ride. If that describes where you are, our collection of electric trikes built for seniors is where I would start, because every trike in it is chosen with exactly these comfort and stability questions in mind.

The last thing I will say about comfort is that it compounds. A little wrist strain is nothing on a ten-minute ride and everything on a two-hour one. The reason comfort features matter is that they are what let you ride longer, more often, and further from home than you otherwise would. Diane spent her whole ride noticing how good she felt, which is precisely the point. Comfort is not the reward at the end of the ride. It is the thing that makes the next ride happen.

The most obvious thing about the Simple Glide is the tires. They are fat, and Diane understood immediately what they are for. The advantage, she explained, is that they are better on rocky or bumpier terrain. If you are trail riding or on rougher ground, the wide tire is simply more stable. She could tell right away, before she had gone any real distance, that this was a planted, sure-footed machine.

Let me put some detail behind why that is. A fat tire has a bigger contact patch and runs at lower pressure, so it spreads your weight over more ground and molds around the bumps instead of bouncing off them. On a trike, where you already have three wheels holding you up, adding fat tires stacks stability on top of stability. The result is a ride that shrugs off the small stuff. Diane rolled over bumps and divots and reported that the fat tires made them really easy to take. You feel the surface change, but it does not throw you, and it does not rattle up through your body the way a skinny tire would.

The real test that day was not the pavement, though. It was the wind. It was blowing hard, and Diane said what every cyclist knows in their bones: on a regular bike, wind is miserable and it is hard to ride in. But the Simple Glide made it not hard. As the gusts picked up she simply bumped up the pedal assist to hold her pace, and the low, wide stance of the trike kept her steady through it. A tall, narrow bike gets shoved around in a crosswind. This one just kept tracking straight. That is the quiet benefit of a fat tire recumbent that does not show up in a spec list: it makes bad conditions boring, and boring is exactly what you want when the weather turns.

Stability showed up again on a slanted stretch of path. She was climbing, the surface was tilted under her, and she made a point of it: with these thick fat tires, she did not feel nervous at all. That is worth pausing on. A lot of riders lose confidence on off-camber ground, that sideways-sloping surface that makes you feel like you might slide. On two thin wheels it is a genuine worry. On the Simple Glide, with three fat contact patches gripping the ground, that fear just was not part of her experience. Confidence is not a soft benefit. It is the thing that lets you take the ride you actually want instead of the safe, boring one.

Cornering told the same story. Coming through turns, Diane called out the steady turn radius and the complete stability, with her fingers relaxed the whole way through. A three-wheeler with a low center of gravity and wide tires does not ask you to fight it around a bend. You point it, it goes, and it stays flat and calm. She was not bracing or gripping. She was just steering, which is how it should feel.

Now, the fat tire is not the only option, and Diane was honest that it comes with a decision. She could feel a clear difference between what she called the traditional wheel and the fat wheel, and by the end of the ride she was genuinely turning the question over: does she want the extra stability of the fat tire, or is she more comfortable on a slimmer, more traditional tire? I will dig into how to think about that choice later on, because it is the right question to ask. For now, the takeaway is simple. If your riding includes trails, the beach, gravel, grass, or just rougher pavement, or if stability is the thing that will keep you riding with confidence, the fat tire earns its keep. You can see the range of styles side by side across our full lineup of electric tricycles to get a feel for how different those two worlds ride.

Underneath the comfort, the Simple Glide has real power. It runs a 750-watt rear motor, and Diane corrected herself mid-sentence in a way I appreciated: a motor, not an engine. That is not pedantry. An e-trike is a bicycle with an electric motor that boosts your own pedaling; it is not a scooter or a moped. You are still in charge, and the motor is there to make your effort go further. If the 750-watt figure is what you are shopping around, it is worth browsing our 750-watt electric tricycles to see the kind of climbing and headwind performance that motor size makes possible.

One thing Diane flagged that I want to underline: the motor sits in the back. On this trike you get pushed from behind rather than pulled from the front the way you are on some front-hub designs. She described it exactly that way, a push in the back rather than a push from the front, and she liked it. A rear motor tends to feel more natural and more planted, because the power is coming from where your weight is, which helps traction, especially when you are climbing or starting on a slope.

The Simple Glide gives you three ways to move, and the art of riding it well is blending them. First, there are seven gears, just like the ones you already know from a traditional bike, there to match your pedaling to the terrain. Diane pointed out she barely had to touch them on the flats, but they are there when the ground changes. Second, there is pedal assist, adjustable through several levels, which multiplies your own pedaling. Third, there is the throttle, which moves you with no pedaling at all. Learning when to reach for each one is the whole game, and watching Diane do it instinctively was a good lesson.

On flat ground into that stiff wind, she settled into pedal assist three and rolled along at about nine miles an hour. When she wanted a little more, she clicked up to pedal assist four and found herself doing around eleven, which she decided was a touch fast for her taste, so she eased it back down. I want to be clear about those numbers: they are the comfortable cruising speeds Diane chose on a windy day, not the top speed of the trike. The point is not how fast it will go. The point is that she could tune her pace to the exact level that felt good and safe to her, and change it in a heartbeat. That control is the reason I steer a lot of riders toward speed-control electric tricycles, where being able to dial your pace precisely is the whole idea.

The throttle is where Diane was smart and disciplined. She loves it for one specific job: getting going from a dead stop, especially when she needs to move quickly and safely across a street. A little twist and she is across the intersection without the wobble of trying to pedal up to speed from nothing. But she deliberately does not lean on the throttle all the time, because, as she put it, it wears on the battery, and she wants to ride as long as she can. That is exactly right. Throttle-only riding draws the most power, so using it for launches and quick crossings and letting pedal assist carry the cruising is how you stretch your range over a long outing.

The hills were where the motor proved itself. Diane is upfront that she is not a fast hill rider and never has been. She came to a pretty substantial climb, one she guessed might be around a five percent grade, and admitted it was steeper than she is used to and not a hill she could ride up without assistance at all. So she kicked into pedal assist four, a level she had not needed until then, gave the throttle a little help off the line, and the trike carried her up. It really helped me get up that hill, she said afterward, and you could hear the relief and the surprise in it. That is the promise of an e-trike delivering in real time: a hill that would have ended the ride, or never been attempted, becomes just another part of the loop.

One important, boring, grown-up note before we move on. Diane was riding in California, and rules about motor wattage, throttles, and where you are allowed to ride at a given power level vary from state to state. A 750-watt trike with a throttle is classified and regulated differently depending on where you live. It is genuinely worth a few minutes to check your own state's e-bike and e-trike laws so you know what you are legally riding and where. It is not the exciting part of buying a trike, but it is the part that keeps the fun trouble-free.

Power is only half of confidence. The other half is stopping, and Diane paid close attention to the brakes because, in her words, being able to brake going down a hill is important to her. She is a cautious descender, which makes her a great person to judge brakes. On the downhills she was not even really pedaling, just letting the trike coast and managing her speed with the brakes, and she described the braking as nice and smooth. Coming up to a stop sign she clicked down through the assist and eased to a controlled halt; making turns she checked the brakes again and pronounced them good.

I want to separate two things she said, because they are easy to blur together. When Diane remarked that the trike goes fast, she was coasting down a hill under gravity, which is a different thing from motor speed on flat ground. Every bike goes fast downhill. What matters is whether you can control that speed, and her answer was yes, comfortably, with smooth and predictable braking the whole way down. For a rider who is honest about not loving fast descents, that controllability is worth more than any horsepower figure.

The other feature she praised again and again was the display, and its placement. On the Simple Glide it sits front and center, dead in the middle where she could read it at a glance without taking her attention off the path. At all times she could see her energy bar, her speed, which pedal assist level she was in, and how far she had gone. That readout is doing more than showing numbers. The energy bar tells you how you are doing on battery, which loops right back to her throttle discipline; the assist level tells you how hard you and the motor are each working; and the speed lets you hold a pace that feels right. Being able to take that in without hunting for it is a real safety feature.

She walked through the rest of the cockpit the way you would show a friend. The throttle is right there, easy to turn whenever she wants a boost. The gears go up to seven to handle any terrain, exactly like the shifting on the traditional bikes she already knows. The pedal assist controls sit within easy reach. And she circled back one more time to the automatic kill, the feature that keeps the throttle from doing anything until she engages it. Nothing about the layout asked her to learn a new language. It is a bicycle's familiar controls, plus a motor, arranged so that everything she needed was under her fingers.

That is the theme of the whole cockpit: nothing hidden, nothing fussy. A clear display she does not have to hunt for, brakes that stop her smoothly whether she is easing to a stop sign or holding her speed down a hill, and controls placed where her hands already are. For a rider who is deciding whether she can trust a machine, having every important thing visible and reachable is what turns a test ride into confidence.

So who is the Simple Glide for? Based on Diane's ride, I would put it squarely in front of anyone who wants to keep cycling but has started to feel the reasons not to. If getting on and off a bike has become a hurdle, the low step-through removes it. If your hands, wrists, shoulders, neck, or back protest an upright riding position, the recumbent seat and armrests answer that directly. If you have lost some confidence in your balance, three wheels and fat tires give it back. And if hills or headwinds have quietly shrunk your world, the 750-watt rear motor opens it back up. Diane summed the whole category up better than I could: once you get past sixty, e-trikes are the way to go.

Now, the honest question she kept returning to, the one I promised to come back to: fat tire, or the more traditional wheel? There is no universal right answer, only the right answer for how you ride. Ask yourself where your wheels will actually spend their time. If you picture trails, the beach, gravel, grass, rougher pavement, or riding in wind, or if maximum stability and a cushioned ride are what will keep you out there, the fat tire is the pick, and the Simple Glide is a strong example of it. If you mostly cruise smooth neighborhood streets and bike paths and you prefer a lighter, nimbler feel, a more traditional tire may suit you better. As Diane said, you have to decide where you want to do your riding and how much stability you want to build under you. That is the decision, and it is a good one to sit with. Test-riding both, the way she is doing, is genuinely the best way to settle it.

If you are still narrowing things down, it helps to see the range. Our broad collection of adult tricycles lays out the three-wheel options side by side. If you know stability and mobility are your priorities, the electric trikes for seniors collection is curated exactly for that. If carrying things matters, take a look at our cargo electric trikes and the models built around a big electric tricycle with a large basket, so a grocery run or a trip to the market is no obstacle. And if storage or fitting the trike in a vehicle is on your mind, our folding electric trikes are worth a look. Between those pages you will find a three-wheeler shaped around almost any version of the riding you want to do.

A few honest notes to close, because I would rather you go in clear-eyed than dazzled. The speeds Diane hit, around nine and eleven miles an hour, were her comfortable cruising choices on a windy day in a couple of assist levels, not the trike's ceiling; do not read them as a top-speed rating. The fit range she mentioned, roughly five feet to six foot four, is a general guideline, so confirm the seat adjustment works for your height before you commit. And do check your state's rules on motor wattage and throttles, since a 750-watt throttle trike is regulated differently from place to place. None of that is a knock on the Simple Glide. It is just the difference between a good decision and a lucky one.

The best thing about this whole ride is that it was real. Diane came in, sat down, put her feet up, took the Simple Glide over flats and hills and slanted paths and into a stiff wind, and came away with a genuine sense of what it is like to live with. That is what a test ride is for, and it is an invitation I will always extend: come out and try one for yourself. Sit in the seat, flip down the armrests, engage that kill switch, and feel how the low step-through, the fat tires, and the motor come together. If you have questions after a spin, ask them; that is exactly the kind of conversation we are here for. Thanks for coming along with Diane and me, and I hope it helps you find your trike.