For more than 140 years, the bicycle chain has barely changed. Inspired Cycle Engineering (ICE), a UK-based recumbent trike maker founded in 1999, thinks it's finally time. ICE has launched PERS Chainless, a fully electric drivetrain that eliminates the chain, the gear shifter, and essentially every component that can stretch, snap, or get caked in grease. It's a world first for the industry, the company says.
HBO's DTF St. Louis has spent its first season putting a tadpole recumbent trike – two wheels in front, one behind – at the center of its visual language. Jason Bateman's character Clark Forrest rides his through the suburbs like a man who has made peace with being misunderstood, and the show has made the vehicle oddly compelling. Suddenly, a niche vehicle with a 90-year-old design is back in the cultural conversation.
And it deserves to be. They are, in almost every technical sense, superior to regular two-wheel bikes. They are more comfortable, more stable, and far more accessible for riders with joint or mobility issues. The reclined riding position spreads body weight evenly, eliminating the back, neck, and wrist strain that plagues conventional cycling. And the ultra-low center of gravity makes recumbent trikes nearly impossible to tip in corners.
Their aerodynamic efficiency is so significant that the UCI, the cycling's international governing body, banned them from competition in 1934 because they were simply too fast. But it has one problem: its looks. And nothing ICE Trikes just announced will change that. What it does change is almost everything else.
The principle behind PERS (pedal Energy Recovery System) is almost counterintuitive. Your legs never directly drive a wheel. Instead, a generator at the pedal axle converts muscular effort into electrical current, which travels through cables to a 250-W rear-hub motor producing 75 Nm (55 lb.ft) of torque – roughly comparable to a small motorcycle engine. More pedaling generates more electricity, and more electricity means more speed. No gear changes needed. An onboard algorithm reads your pedaling cadence in real time and adjusts motor resistance automatically, whether you're climbing a hill or sprinting on flat ground.
The system offers five assist modes (Muscular, Active, Balanced, Punch, and Dynamite), delivering up to 400% additional boost over your own effort. In its most aggressive setting, the trike reaches 32 km/h (20 mph) in under three seconds. Power comes from a 700-Wh battery, while regenerative braking – activated simply by back-pedaling – can recover enough energy to extend range by up to 25%, according to ICE.
That same back-pedaling motion doubles as reverse, a function recumbent trike riders have wanted for years. The company says the drivetrain requires no maintenance for the first 50,000 km (31,069 miles), and even brake pads last longer because the regenerative system handles most of the slowing.
A companion app adds digital keys, GPS tracking, and PIN locking – a direct answer to one of the biggest barriers to adopting high-end personal mobility in cities: the very real fear of theft.
Pedal-by-wire – no mechanical link between your legs and the wheel, just electrical signals managed by software – has been standard in high-end motorcycles and electric cars for years. These systems already exist elsewhere in cycling, on cargo bikes, enclosed urban vehicles, and experimental platforms. Schaeffler and Heinzmann's Free Drive, for instance, uses a similar pedal-generator architecture, and the TM-B by Also applies the concept to a high-tech upright ebike.
What ICE is claiming, and what appears to hold up, is something narrower and more specific. PERS Chainless is the first fully integrated, factory-built chainless pedal-by-wire system designed for a production recumbent trike. And seeing it arrive in a handcrafted trike built by a small team in Falmouth says something real about how precision electric engineering is filtering down to niche manufacturers.
The PERS Chainless is available now on the ICE Adventure, Adventure HD, and Sprint X Tour, with pricing built to order.
Source: ICE Trikes
