Originally Posted by VegasTriker

What exactly were you looking for in a trike when you first went to test ride them? Did you purchase the Catrike Villager e-version (eCAT) with the Bosch e-assist?

I'm not a user of e-assist on my Catrike 700 so what I say here comes from looking at the Catrike website. First, the Villager was designed as a high seating trike for those who can not get up out of a low seating trike. The big sacrifice I see with going to the eCAT is a great reduction in the gear range. The standard Villager with 20" drive wheel, 30/39/52 chainring, and 10 speed 11/36 cassette has a 15.9 to90.1 gear inch range. The eCAT has a single 44 tooth chainring and a wider range 11//42 tooth cassette. The specs do not list a gear range but you can calculate one at https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-calc.html. It is going to be different and with many fewer choices to get a comfortable cadence. I guess the electric motor makes up for that. The standard villager with shipping is $2825. The eCAT is $5,500 with shipping. It is definitely not an entry level trike. Unfortunately shipping a trike is not cheap, especially as an individual rather than as a business. That means you will probably be looking for a local buyer. The more expensive the trike, the harder it is to resell. Second owners don't get a warranty so getting back what you put in to it will not be likely. Test riding other models is a great idea. Don't feel bad about maybe not getting the right trike on the first try. I bought an expensive trike (at the time) from a well known manufacturer and realized after a few months that it was a big and costly mistake. The second trike, a used Greenspeed GTO, was exactly what I wanted and needed. I used it for 9 years and many thousands of miles. Live and learn.