First Impressions: Meeting the Simple Glide
I'm Diane, and lately I've been on a bit of a mission. I've spent years riding regular bikes, and now I'm sorting out what the next chapter looks like — which is how I ended up at the sixthreezero shop in San Clemente, spending an afternoon test riding a whole range of electric bikes, e-trikes, and even a few four-wheelers. The one I want to walk you through here is the Simple Glide, a recumbent electric trike. I'll be honest: I was excited about this one before I even sat down on it.
I should explain where my head is at, because it shapes how I judged this trike. I'm not new to riding, but I've reached the point where I care more about comfort and stability than I used to, and I want to keep riding for years without paying for it the next morning. That's the real reason I'm working my way through electric options instead of just buying another standard bike. A trike, with its three wheels and its planted, settled feel, is a big part of what I came to test.
A few things jumped out right away. This trike gives you seven gears, five levels of pedal assist, and a throttle. And it's a twist throttle, not a thumb lever, which I find genuinely easy to use — you roll it with your wrist the way you would on a scooter, and the power comes on smoothly. Between the gears, the assist levels, and that throttle, you have a lot of ways to tune the ride to exactly how much work you feel like doing on a given day.
Then there's the seat, and honestly the seat is half the story on a trike like this. It's wide, it's cushioned, and it comes with real back support — not a perch you balance on, but a proper seat you settle into. On either side there are armrests, and they flip up and down. That little detail matters more than it sounds. When I want to get on, I lift the armrest out of the way, step through, sit down, and fold the armrest back into place. No high leg swing, no clambering. You can see why the recumbent electric trike lineup gets so much attention from riders who want comfort first.
The handlebars and grips felt comfortable in my hands from the very first moment, which I didn't take for granted. Up front there's a basket, too, so if I want to bring snacks, a water bottle, or my phone along, I can toss them in there instead of stuffing my pockets or wearing a bag. It sounds minor, but on a longer outing it's the difference between fussing with your stuff and just enjoying the ride.
Here's the part I kept coming back to as I looked the trike over. Because it has pedal assist and a throttle, I get to decide how hard I work. If I'm in the mood for a workout, I can switch the assist off completely and pedal it like a regular bike — a manual ride, all me, until my legs start to complain. And the moment I get tired, or hit a hill I don't feel like fighting, the assist and the throttle are right there to bail me out. That flexibility is exactly what drew me toward the electric trike range in the first place. You're never locked into one level of effort.
The frame is a simple step-through, and it sits nice and low. I didn't have to worry about catching a foot on a top tube or losing my balance getting on — I could just walk into it. When you're thinking about riding for years to come, that low, easy entry stops being a nice-to-have and starts being the whole point. Some of the most thoughtful designs among the most comfortable electric trikes are built around exactly this idea: get the rider on and off without any drama, and everything else gets easier.
So before I even rolled a foot forward, the Simple Glide had already made its pitch. A comfortable seat, a supportive back, armrests that get out of your way, a low step-through, a handy basket, and three different ways to make it go. The real question was how all of that would feel once I was actually moving. So I put the armrests down, got settled, and went for a ride.
","id":"9647eca5-36fe-4179-9ea7-be582f2bed5f"},{"layoutId":"bike-listing","variants":{},"bikes":[{"id":"ea13d150-58f1-4a73-8a8d-84823503f91d","value":{"entry":{"entryId":"5VB9151m2zS7KTs8Do4hIW"}}},{"id":"566d9f1e-a423-4c60-aec4-20a3258333b5","value":{"entry":{"entryId":"6VWkXowyY8xQE2C3aXaZ1u"}}}],"id":"8296017c-dda6-4b0b-aa2b-5bad80697ca7"},{"layoutId":"paragraph-section","variants":{},"heading":"Three Ways to Ride: Throttle, Pedal Assist, and Your Own Legs","body":"The first thing I do on any of these is start off with the throttle, because it simply makes pulling away easier. A gentle twist and the trike eases into motion — no lurch, no wrestling to get the pedals around from a dead stop. Once I'm rolling, I decide what kind of ride I actually want, and that's where the five levels of pedal assist come in.
Pedal assist, if you haven't used it, works like this: you pedal, and the motor quietly multiplies your effort. Level one adds a little. Level five adds a lot. What surprised me on the Simple Glide is how much daylight there is between the levels — especially between one and two. I dropped down to assist one at one point, felt the difference immediately, and hopped right back up to two. That's not a complaint. It tells me the system has real range, from a soft nudge to a strong shove, and that you can find a setting for almost any mood or any stretch of road.
The assist on this particular trike is strong. Even on flat ground in level two, with no hills to speak of, I could feel it working with me, and it felt good. I wasn't straining, but I also wasn't just being carried along like cargo. There's a sweet spot in the middle of the range where you're contributing real effort and the motor is smoothing out everything that would normally make you tired, and I found that spot quickly.
Now, here's the flip side, and it's the reason I love these machines. If what you want is exercise — the same workout you'd get on a traditional bike — you can absolutely have it. You just reduce the assist. I rode a stretch in level one and it felt genuinely hilly, enough that I caught myself working harder than I expected, so I bumped it up to three. The point isn't that level one is hard for the sake of it. The point is that the effort is yours to set. Dial it down when you want your legs and lungs involved, dial it up when you'd rather cruise.
If you've never watched pedal assist engage, it's a neat thing to feel. At one point I was rolling along at about seven miles an hour, not going fast, not putting out much energy at all. I stopped pedaling for a beat, then started again — and you can feel the assist come back in under you as the cranks turn. It's smooth, it's quick, and it's one of those features that sounds gimmicky until you experience it and realize how much of the work it's quietly taking off your plate.
The assist really shows its muscle on climbs. Going uphill, you've got two levers to pull: raise the pedal assist, or change your gear, or both. On one hill I was in assist four and the trike absolutely took off — I actually had to ease back because I couldn't see whether a car was coming up behind me and I wanted to turn. What struck me was that I hadn't touched the throttle. I'd come almost to a stop, started pedaling again, and because I was in that higher assist level it launched right up the grade. It's a fast, capable climber, and I'd rather have that power in reserve than wish I had it halfway up a hill.
That said, I want to be fair about what those speeds are. The numbers I saw on the display — seven miles an hour here, eleven there — were my comfortable cruising speeds on the day, not some headline top speed. On a busy or residential street I deliberately keep it moderate. This trike has more in it than I was using, and how quick you go depends a lot on your assist level, your gear, and how hard you feel like pedaling. I treated it as a relaxed cruiser that can hustle when a hill demands it, and that framing served me well.
Speaking of gears, the Simple Glide has seven of them, and switching between them is easy. The shifter is intuitive, the changes are clean, and there's no mystery about where you are. On flat ground I'd pick up a little speed just by shifting and adding a touch of assist. On a climb I'd think about gearing the same way I would on any bike — an easier gear to spin up the hill — and then let the assist do the heavy lifting on top of that. Having both the mechanical gears and the electric assist means you're rarely caught in the wrong setup. Between the throttle, the five assist levels, and the gearing, the range of ways to ride here is wider than on a lot of the trikes across the wider electric bike lineup, and it's part of what makes this one feel so adaptable.
If you already know a throttle is a must-have for you — say you want to be able to get going or hold a pace without pedaling at all — it's worth knowing sixthreezero groups its throttle-equipped electric tricycles together, so you can see which models share that feature. On the Simple Glide, the twist throttle and the pedal assist aren't either-or. I used them together all afternoon: throttle to launch, assist to ride, and a little throttle boost whenever a rise came up and I felt like being carried over it.
","id":"3beccca2-80a7-46c4-a07d-fc2329f71e63"},{"layoutId":"full-width-image-with-out-bleed","variants":{},"image":{"assetId":"7mgZdkldr3sP2EXMqZb5cg","options":{"backgroundSize":"cover"},"mobileAssetId":"","mobileOptions":{"backgroundSize":"cover"}},"id":"8bd2cb3e-15cc-469f-9a4a-3e83e5da8f8b"},{"layoutId":"paragraph-section","variants":{},"heading":"Forward Drive: When the Motor Pulls Instead of Pushes","body":"Here's a detail that genuinely changes how the Simple Glide feels, and it's worth slowing down to explain. This trike has a forward drive — the motor is up front — as opposed to a rear drive. In plain terms, the motor pulls you along rather than pushing you from behind. It's a real, noticeable difference in character, and it's one of the first things I'd want a rider to understand before choosing this model.
When you first set off, the pull takes a minute to get used to. On a rear-drive setup, the sensation is of being shoved forward from behind, which most of us know from regular cars and bikes. With the motor pulling from the front, it feels like something is drawing you forward and you're following it. It isn't better or worse, exactly — it's just different, and after a few minutes my body adjusted and stopped noticing. But I'd be doing you a disservice if I pretended there was no adjustment period at all. There is, and it's brief.
The forward drive also shapes where this trike is happiest. On pavement it's terrific — smooth, sure-footed, and confident. Off pavement is where the trade-off shows up. On loose dirt, the front wheel can spin a little, because that's the wheel doing the driving and dirt doesn't give it as much to grab. You can still take the Simple Glide onto a trail and have a great ride; it just takes a bit of practice to read the surface and keep the front from slipping. My honest opinion is that this trike is at its best for the kind of riding I was doing that day — a road ride around town — rather than a dedicated trail machine.
That's not a knock. It's a matter of matching the tool to the job. If your riding is mostly streets, bike paths, and neighborhood loops, the forward-drive Simple Glide is squarely in its element, and the pulling sensation becomes second nature fast. If your riding leans toward dirt, gravel, and rougher ground, you'd want to think harder about it, or practice enough to get comfortable managing that front-wheel spin.
This is also the natural moment to mention that the Simple Glide isn't a single trike but a small family. There's a version with fat tires, and I knew about it going in. For the road rides I do, I genuinely prefer the trike I was on — nimble, easy, well-suited to pavement. But if you already know you'll be spending time on softer or rougher surfaces, a fat-tire build changes the equation. Those wider tires put more rubber on the ground, add grip and cushioning, and make loose terrain far less of a concern. It's worth browsing the fat-tire electric trike options alongside this one if trails are part of your plan, so you can weigh comfort on the road against capability off it.
The way I'd put it is this: the drive type and the tires are two of the biggest levers you can pull to match a trike to your life. The Simple Glide I rode, with its forward drive and road-friendly setup, is a road-first trike that can dabble on a trail. A fat-tire version is a more terrain-flexible trike that gives up a little of that light, quick road feel. Neither is the right answer for everyone. The right answer is the one that fits where you'll actually be riding most weeks.
What I'll say for the forward drive, beyond the terrain question, is that it never once felt unsafe or unstable to me. The pull is smooth and predictable. Once I'd learned its personality — which took a lap or two, no more — I stopped thinking about it and just rode. And because the power is coming through the front, the trike had a very natural, gliding quality on the road that I came to really enjoy. It's a different flavor of e-trike, and for the right rider on the right surface, it's a delightful one.
So if you take nothing else from this section, take this: front-drive means the motor pulls you, it takes a short while to get used to, it shines on pavement, and it can spin a touch on dirt. Know that going in, be honest with yourself about where you ride, and you'll know very quickly whether this is your trike or whether a different build suits you better.
","id":"2158dc7d-ab54-4518-8a6d-7c823d0774f1"},{"layoutId":"full-width-image-with-out-bleed","variants":{},"image":{"assetId":"23RnFOsxUuHdye9OnefZSQ","options":{"backgroundSize":"cover"},"mobileAssetId":"","mobileOptions":{"backgroundSize":"cover"}},"id":"b643fcb5-b2bb-431d-9864-8d6093527778"},{"layoutId":"paragraph-section","variants":{},"heading":"Built for Comfort and Confidence","body":"If there's one thing the Simple Glide is truly built around, it's comfort — and I mean comfort in a way that actually affects how your body feels the next day, not just how nice the seat looks in a photo. The back support is the piece I kept praising out loud while I rode. It's a genuine feature, not an afterthought, and it does more work than you'd think.
Here's why it matters so much to me. When I'm putting in more of my own energy — pedaling harder, taking a hill, riding a longer stretch — that back support lets me engage my whole core, not just my legs. On a lot of bikes, a ride like the one I took would leave my back sore the following morning. That's just part of getting older, and I've made my peace with it. But because I was able to brace against the seat back and bring my core muscles into the effort, spreading the load instead of dumping it all on my legs and lower back, I could tell I wasn't going to feel it the next day. That's not a small thing. That's the difference between riding again tomorrow and taking two days off to recover.
The comfort story keeps going from there. The armrests, which I mentioned flip up for easy mounting, also give your arms somewhere relaxed to rest while you ride, so you're not gripping and tensing the whole time. My grip on the handlebars stayed light the entire outing, and my hands never got fatigued — which, again, is one of those features that becomes more important the longer you've been riding and the more you value a ride that doesn't wear you out in a dozen small ways. And even with that relaxed, light grip, I never felt compromised reaching for the brakes. Comfort and control weren't at odds; they came together.
Then there's the stability, which on a trike is a category all its own. Cruising along at around eleven miles an hour, I felt completely planted. I wasn't afraid to hit a bump in the road, and I wasn't worried about tipping or having a tire slide out from under me the way you might fret about on two wheels. Three wheels change the entire emotional experience of riding. You can relax in a way that's hard to describe until you've felt it, and it's a big reason the electric trikes built for seniors lean so heavily on this format.
One thing that genuinely surprised me: I didn't have to lean into the turns. On a two-wheeler, cornering is a whole balancing act — you tip the bike, you shift your weight, you commit. On this trike I could just steer, sit upright and supported, and let the three wheels keep everything level underneath me. For anyone who's grown a little wary of the balancing and leaning that regular cycling demands, that alone might be the feature that brings them back to riding.
And I have to come back to that low step-through, because it ties the whole comfort picture together. It's nice and low, so I didn't have to worry about tripping over anything or losing my footing on my way on or off. That sounds so basic, but a surprising number of spills happen not while riding but while mounting and dismounting, and a low, open frame takes that risk way down. If easy on-and-off is high on your list, it's worth looking at how sixthreezero groups its easy-to-mount trikes with low step-through frames — the Simple Glide fits right into that philosophy.
Put all of this together and what you get is a ride that inspires confidence, which to me is the real prize. Confidence that you can get on without a struggle. Confidence that you'll stay upright over a bump. Confidence that your hands and back won't be aching before you're home. Confidence that you can take a corner without a balancing act. Those things add up to a machine you'll actually want to ride often, and the whole point of buying a bike or trike is to ride it. A comfortable ride you take four times a week beats an impressive one that intimidates you into leaving it in the garage.
I'll add one broader note here, because it applies whether you land on a trike or a two-wheeler. Comfort and confidence aren't luxuries as you get older — they're what keeps you riding at all. If a trike feels like more machine than you need, sixthreezero also builds a range of comfort-focused two-wheel electric bikes designed with older riders in mind, with the same emphasis on easy mounting and an upright, relaxed position. The format matters less than the feeling, and the feeling I want is exactly what the Simple Glide delivered: supported, steady, and at ease.
","id":"f012e263-1eab-427f-ace4-6149999893da"},{"layoutId":"full-width-image-with-out-bleed","variants":{},"image":{"assetId":"6xvsCamv1arUdbKBgGCDmL","options":{"backgroundSize":"cover"},"mobileAssetId":"","mobileOptions":{"backgroundSize":"cover"}},"id":"15df2e4f-91df-4526-914c-957c926adba1"},{"layoutId":"paragraph-section","variants":{},"heading":"The Details That Make It Easy — and Finding Your Fit","body":"Beyond the big-ticket comfort features, it's the small, well-considered details that make the Simple Glide easy to live with, and I noticed them one by one over the course of the ride. Start with the display. I love having a screen in front of me at all times, and this one keeps you informed without any fuss. It shows how much power is left in the battery, which level of pedal assist you're in, how fast you're going, and — over on the side where the gears are — what gear you're currently riding. No guessing, no surprises. You always know exactly where you stand.
The gears deserve another mention here because they're so painless to use. Switching is quick and obvious, and because I can see the gear on the display, I'm never fishing around wondering what I've selected. That clarity takes a task that intimidates some newer riders and turns it into a non-event. You shift, you glance, you ride on.
The brakes impressed me, and I don't say that lightly, because brakes are where confidence is either earned or lost. I'll call them very receptive. Going downhill I tend to ride the brakes a bit — feathering them to keep my speed in check — and the whole time I had the clear sense that if I needed to make a sudden, hard stop, I could. That feeling of a reliable, responsive brake under your fingers is worth an enormous amount when you're sharing the road with cars. If strong braking is a priority for you, it's worth seeing which models sixthreezero lists among its electric trikes with disc brakes so you can compare stopping setups directly.
Handling is another quiet strength. This trike has a great turn radius. At one point I made a really tight turn without coming to a complete stop, which on some three-wheelers would be an awkward, multi-point maneuver. Here it was one clean, smooth arc. Combined with how easily it turns in general, it makes tight spaces, driveways, and the little course-corrections of a real ride feel effortless rather than fiddly.
Now the basket, which is more useful than it looks. Having storage up front means I can bring what I need — a water bottle, my phone, a snack, a light jacket — without wearing a pack or cramming things into my pockets where they dig in and bounce around. For errands especially, that little bit of carrying capacity is the thing that turns a trike from a toy into genuine transportation. If hauling more is on your mind, it's worth a look at the electric tricycles with a large basket, but for my everyday needs the front basket on the Simple Glide was plenty.
Here's a detail I never would have thought to raise, except a friend asked me about it. She knew I was testing out different e-bikes and e-trikes as I make this transition, and she wanted to know: do you have to wear a special kind of shoe to ride an e-bike? The answer is no. Unlike a road bike, where you might clip into the pedals with a special cleated shoe, you don't do any of that here. You can wear whatever's on your feet. If you're riding to meet friends somewhere and you want to wear the shoes you're going out in later, you can. No gym shoes required, no clip-in shoes, no packing an extra pair. I thought that was a genuinely useful thing to point out, because it removes one more little barrier between you and just going for a ride.
All of these details came together out on real roads, which is where I spent most of the ride. I felt very safe on the road on this trike. You can take it out on busy streets, and you can ride it through quiet residential areas — I did both. In the neighborhoods I kept my speed sensible, dropping to a lower assist level, because you never know when someone's going to back out of a driveway and I'd rather have the margin. That's not the trike asking me to slow down; that's me choosing to, and the trike made it easy to ride at whatever pace the situation called for.
None of these details is flashy on its own. But a clear display, easy gears, responsive brakes, a tight turning circle, a handy basket, and the freedom to wear any shoes you like — stacked together, they're the difference between a machine you tolerate and one you reach for without a second thought. The Simple Glide got the small stuff right, and the small stuff is what you actually live with every ride.
Finding your fit and taking it for a spin
So where does all of this leave me? I loved this trike. There's so much about it that just works — the comfort, the back support, the stability, the ease of getting on and off, the way it glides down the road. If you want a machine for riding around town, running errands, and getting up and down hills without a fight, the Simple Glide makes a very strong case for itself. And with a little practice, you could even take it onto a light trail, though I'd keep it road-first.
If I'm honest about the one real decision, it comes down to a single question: do you want the motor, the power, the pull to come from the front or from the rear? That's the thing I found myself weighing as I compared my options, and it's the thing I'd want you to weigh too. Forward drive, like the trike I rode, pulls you and excels on pavement. A rear-drive or fat-tire build behaves differently and handles rougher ground more happily. There's no universally correct choice — only the one that matches where and how you ride. Everything else about the Simple Glide, from the comfort to the stability, I'd recommend without hesitation.
The good news is you don't have to make that call from a spec sheet or a stranger's review — not even mine. The best thing you can do is get on one. I was at the sixthreezero shop in San Clemente doing exactly that, test riding e-bikes, e-trikes, and quads to figure out the most logical next step for me as I keep my cycling journey going. You can do the same. If you're anywhere near the shop, come visit and test ride the bikes in person, ask all your questions, and feel the difference between front drive and rear drive with your own hands instead of taking anyone's word for it.
If you can't get to the shop, you've still got good options. sixthreezero offers a personal fitting consultation where you talk through your riding, your body, and your goals with a real person rather than a chatbot or an automated quiz — the kind of honest, human advice that actually helps you land on the right machine. And because buying a bike you've never ridden is a leap of faith, there's a 30-day test ride so you can live with your choice for a while and make sure it truly fits your life before you commit.
That, more than any single feature, is my real advice. Find the bike or trike that fits you — your body, your comfort, your lifestyle, the roads and paths you'll actually ride. For me, the Simple Glide checked an awful lot of boxes: comfortable, stable, forgiving, and a real pleasure to ride around town. It might be exactly right for you, or it might point you toward a cousin of it with fat tires or a different drive. Either way, get out there, try a few, and let your own ride tell you the answer. Thank you for coming along with me — I hope it helps you find yours.
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