Not that I have taken it lying down – even if that proved in the end to be the real solution! I have trodden a path from the doctor’s surgery to second opinion, to consultant, to specialist and to the fringes of alternative medicine and back again. I have been x-rayed and ultrasonic scanned, prodded and tut – tutted over and even, on one occasion, sent off for a couple of hours on the bike before a further examination. As I climbed out of Cheltenham toward Painswick I was pestered by the driver of a black Audi who insisted on hanging in behind me all the way to summit of the Cotswolds despite my waving him past and cursing him roundly for being a b…… nuisance. When I returned to the specialist’s consulting rooms he said, “Well Scotford, I don’t know about your hands, but you can certainly still climb!”

Medicine hasn’t done much for me. I have had my wrists in splints, I have been massaged, magnetised, acupunctured, had gruesome drugs injected directly into the nerves of my hands and been prescribed an alarming range of multi-coloured tablets. Meanwhile things have gone steadily from bad to worse. I can see the structure of the bones in my wrists eroding and my thumb joints becoming worn and concave with the passing years.

I have turned my attention to all the forms of mechanical help. My beloved Stallard, a “soft” low angled frame designed originally to soak up the battering administered by the pavé of the Warsaw-Berlin-Prague road race was first equipped with neoprene Grab-on grips and, more recently, with a pair of almost flat bars so that I ride in the position of an 1890’s track rider. I have even had my stiff, short wheelbased Trevor Jarvis Flying Gate completely rebuilt to accommodate RST 802 suspension forks like something for Paris-Roubaix. But these are not real solutions, only slight alleviation of the problem which isn’t going to go away.

One Sunday morning last autumn I was invited to Ross-on-Wye to try a totally different approach. There, assembled on a car park, was a flock of recumbent cycles. I tried a two wheeler and can proudly boast that I did not fall off or even hit anything, but decided very quickly this was not for me. Next in line was an extraordinary three wheeled contraption which looked like a pair of mountain bikes which had run over by a bus while mating. I tried it, I stayed on it for the morning and climbed a 1 in 4 hill on it behind Symond’s Yat. I took it back again down into the Wye valley and saw the speed on the computer go up to levels I hadn’t done downhill since the 1950’s in southern France – and then I was getting paid to do it! It was love at first ride and I really knew what I wanted for Christmas.

A rise in the stock market and a final dividend later, I placed an order on the makers, Inspired Cycle Engineering (sic)of Falmouth, for a Trice recumbent tricycle with a multiplicity of gears, fat road slick tyres and a ferocious red paint job. It was, owing to a bit of logistic luck, actually delivered to my front door personally by the makers, two very helpful young men called Neil and Chris, one Sunday morning a few weeks ago (Chris was coming to stay with his mother in Shropshire). They set it up for me, adjusting the frame length and fitting the chain and I was on the road again. It is, quite simply, a totally different cycling experience.

The whole machine was no higher than the top most point of the single rear wheel and you recline in its hammock seat in such a position that you have to look forward round the side of your feet as you pedal. But the underseat steering means that there is absolutely no load at all on your hands or wrists even under the most extreme conditions. The leg action is shorter than on a conventional machine as you want to be able to pedal “over the top” of the crank rotation. All the effort comes from the hips and your upper body contributes little to the motive power. Pulling on the bars achieves nothing and you quickly learn that you can leave your hands resting on the padded grips with only those three brakes and 24 gears to play with.

And geared it is with an 11-32 block and a triple chain ring giving gears from 20 up to 113 inches. Surprisingly I find myself using all of them around the west of the Malvern hills. You change down instead of pushing - you can’t stand on the pedals on a recumbent. Coming down the other side you gear up and up in the knowledge that the machine is totally stable since the centre of gravity is lower than the axles and you have drum brakes which will stop a truck.

Above all it is fun to ride. People boggle as you pedal past and motorists far from being a danger, shy away from you and take to the opposite verge. As yet I haven’t gone far or ridden more than an hour and a half at one time but I know that I can do that and not end up with my hands aching for days afterwards as if from a severe fall. It’s a wonderful machine, comfortable, easy to ride and, while heavier than a bicycle, equally efficient because of the low drag. And for me it is a solution and will keep me on the road. I’ve seen the future and it’s long, low and red – and it’s got three wheels.

March 1999