Hi CanaDuh
I'm a very experienced Recumbent Trike cycle tourist, having ridden many long distance rides in Australia, and a big trip overseas (from Adelaide, South Australia, to Sweden, via Africa...).
It sounds like a recumbent trike might be for you. Recumbent trike manufacturers often build up trikes for people with various physical disabilities...in fact from what I hear they are often their biggest customers!
Recumbent trikes are insanely comfortable, particularly if you have upper body issues.
They are slower overall than upright diamond frame bicycles. But that doesn't really bother most people. You will be MUCH faster downhill, a little slower on the flats, and much slower uphill.
There's a bit of a muscular learning curve vs upright bikes. The action uses more posterior chain (your hamstrings, glutes) than an upright. Romanian deadlifts are about the best strength exercise to train for that, apart from recumbent riding itself. Ease into it-don't go out and do 100km on your first day on the trike even if you can do way more than that on an upright (I know this from experience!). But it doesn't take long.
Same with handling. At first going down a hill at even 25kph is freaky, 40-50kph downright pants changing territory. But you get used to that fairly quickly. I hit 80kph+ on downhill stretches countless times. Once I went well over 90kph coming down the side of Mt Kenya... I can't tell you the exact number because my cycle computer couldn't keep up past the high 80s, but I felt it go at least a 5kph faster past that. Immense fun!
In terms of folding. There are various models on the market that do this. However I've yet to see one that folds like say a Brompton or Bike Friday Tikit does. The folding takes a couple of minutes or so (eg remove a bolt, etc). Its not the kind of folding you'd want to do a couple of times a day for commuting. But for travelling its fine, eg, folding to get on a plane. You want to be able to do that so you have less issues with airlines.
In terms of "touring". We used Greenspeed folding GT3 frames. I put over 30,000km on mine before I sold it off in Sweden. It will keep going. These are not specifically "touring" frames from Greenspeed, they build far more heavy duty trikes. But. I think for most people they are overkill. They are much heavier and far more expensive and not worth it unless you are deliberately aiming to do months of touring on terrible African dirt roads-which no one I've heard of has done yet. A much better approach is to work on reducing the weight of all your touring gear.
I would get a recumbent with 20inc (406 erto) wheels if possible. We had 16 inch (349), and while these are fine, they are slightly rarer (touring you need to be self suffiecient as you'll never find 406 in most bike shops even in western countries, but you can always use DHL), but more important you get much better ground clearance. Not an issue on good roads. Slight issue going off the road onto the kerb (but you learn to be careful). An issue if you hit unsealed roads. Also, 406 will roll much better, even on bitumen (unless its absolutely perfect tarmac).
When you get it geared up, don't stress about not having a trike with a top gear above about 85-90 gear inches. You are not racing. On hills, with 85 gear inches you'll spin out around 45kph, but usually with the trike you'll keep accelerating anyway and there's little point in being able to add extra power beyond that! If you were to be pedalling going downhill say past 60kph you would just start to induce steering issues, and, touring you'd save yourself like 5 seconds. Much better to have lower gearing and closer gaps between gears.
We didn't but I would recommend a trike that can be fitted with front mudgaurds, unless you do a lot of desert riding.
The main advantage you might consider of a Delta trike rather than a tadpole, is deltas can be easier for some people to get in and out of. Whether that's worth it will depend on your disability.
If you want your trike to last a really long time, and, not have to stress as much about drivetrain maintenance, I would recommend considering a Rohloff rear hub, or better, a Pinion front hub. The pinion has closer gear ratios. Not many manufacturers do Pinion yet but it woudn't be hard to get this as its just a different bottom bracket on the boom. This has the big benefit of removing rear derailleurs from the equation, which is the most vulnerable part of the trike by far. It will also reduce chain wear and tear and dirt accumulation as the chain will run higher off the ground and (literally) hit the ground less often. Pinion wasn't available when we toured to Sweden in 2010-2011. If it was that would have saved us lots of headaches and maintenance time. And though we used economical parts, because we shipped parts on our route, we would have easily come out in front on cost. If I was to buy another recumbent trike it would definitely have a Pinion drivetrain.
The biggest pain with a recumbent for touring, is stealth camping. Depending on your style of touring this may/may not be an issue for you. If you are the kind of person who hotels regularly and camps in paid campsites its not really a problem. But if you stealth camp a lot (pretty common outside of North America or Europe to have to) then recumbent trikes can be a little painful. Why? Well, when you want to stealth camp, you are looking for a spot off the side of the road to camp in that is secluded so that people don't see you go in and don't know you are camping in there overnight. With a diamond frame touring bike, you can spot it, stop for a "rest" on the side of the road, and then when no one is looking (ie break in traffic, no african villagers watching) you can just quickly walk the bike, panniers still attached into your spot. No need to take the panniers off, carry the bike (it will roll through), do a second or third trip back to the road to get all your gear in there. On a trike its impossible to roll or ride it unless it happens to be through a perfect grassy field (out of about 10 months of touring, I reckon I've ridden it into a stealth camp about ten times, all in nice European forests eg in Germany). So you have to stop on side of road, disconnect panniers and gear, and do two-three runs carrying each bit into the spot. Your recumbent trike will probably weigh at least 16kg empty (some can be found or built up lighter, but not by much, and they won't be anywhere near suitable for touring if they are much lighter than about 15kg). With the way that weight is on it (when you are not on it) its very heavy at the back. Pretty awkward load to carry further than a couple of metres. Add in getting over ditches, around vegetation, boggy ground, maybe a stock fence. Not an insurmountable problem, but something to think about. And, actually if you are at all an outgoing person, its not hard to ask people to camp on their properties if you are having trouble, thus allowing you to just use their driveways, etc. Or often they will offer. Recumbent trikes in most places generate a huge amount of positive interest :-)
On Safety: I've been adamantly told/asked/insinuated countless times that recumbents and recumbent trikes are a safety issue on the road with other drivers. This is not the case. I'll deal with some of these points now.
1. Too wide. No. Measure across the width of a recumbent trike. Now measure across the maximum width of a mountain bike with flat handlebars. Include our elbows sticking out in various positions. Basically the same. Width is not an issue. People just percieve it as wider, probably becuase of the two wheels side by side thing.
2. Too low. This is also a fallacy. Yes, a trike is lower than an upright bike. But drivers always see you just fine. Why? Because you aren't stuck in teh bushes on a road! You aren't surrounded within inches by other cars. You are sitting there, on the road, with space around you. The only time they struggle to see you is in traffic jam traffic, when cars are at tailgate, and basically stopped. If you were to be just in between two cars (one frnt, one back), the car behind can totally see you, and they are the only one that matters. Perfectly safe. If you start trying to weave between traffic that is stationary, sure drivers can't see you below their doors, but its pretty easy to not do that!
3. The strangeness of a recumbent trike catches peoples eyes on the road. The "percieved width" (point 1) makes people give you a really wide berth. In every country I've triked in (22), included in some screwed up places for road traffic, I've never had a problem. Even in Nairobi people are patient and go around you nicely! Literally, everywhere, people normally pass you like you like you are a truck. That is, they want until oncoming traffic is clear, and then they go right into the next lane!
4. Mirrors and vision. On a recumbent trike your head is in the perfect position to always be looking around. There is no neck discomfort from looking up. As a result you make far better decisions on the road. Mirrors are very easy to install and use on recumbent trikes. You have a really good idea of what is going on behind you too.
5. As a result I actually think that recumbent trikes, ridden correctly, are far safer in most places than upright bikes! Upright bikes have open disdain against them in some countries (try Melbourne Aus, argggh), or they are so common that drivers only see them in their subconscious (bad) and don't drive around them in safe manner.
Best of luck :-)
Adam
