Note: The Meteor has been sold. It is now residing in Sisters, Oregon

I recently came across another rider who was interested in my Greenspeed SLR. He had a Trice Meteor that looked interesting to me so we traded trikes. I’m a big fan of the old custom Trices. The level of craftsmanship on these trikes is the highest of any recumbents I’ve ever seen.

John at ICE told me that this is the 4th Meteor of 7 made. This makes the Meteor even more rare than the Monster. The Meteor is kind of a cross between an XXL and a Monster. It has the same front end, seat and steering as the XXL and a rear frame member similar to the Monster’s. The main differences between the Meteor and the Monster are:

• The Meteor has larger front wheels (406 vs. 355)
• The Meteor has a 2″ wider track (27″ vs. 25″)
• The Meteor has a greater seat height (7″ vs. 4.5″)
• The Meteor’s seat cannot be reclined quite as much (20 deg vs. 25 deg) Note: I have the seats set at about 28 deg on both trikes so the difference doesn’t come into play for me.

As an experiment, I set up the Meteor with the same seat angle as I use on the Monster and mounted the Monster’s front wheels. With this setup, riding the Meteor is very similar to riding the Monster. The steering and handling did not suffer going with the smaller front wheels. The steering felt lighter due to the change in castor and wheel size, but it was still very stable at 35 mph. I may end up building a set of smaller front wheels for the Meteor for the fun of it. However, it is kind of nice having the 406 front wheels since there is such a wide selection of tires in that size.