CONREP Starts Trike Training

NORTH HAVEN, CT – A sun-drenched riding range at Gateway Community College was the setting this week for the Connecticut Rider Education Program’s first-ever S/TEP (Sidecar and Trike Education Program) class. Five enrollees – all of them women – participated.

Cindy Beck-Moore of Bethel signed up because she has a bum shoulder that restricts her range of motion. “Trying to ride a Harley would be next to impossible – not safe for me or anyone on the road,” she said during a rehydration break.

Michele Kaplan of Fairfield likewise suffers from a disability. A gall bladder operation resulted in a MRSA infection and paralysis, followed by three more surgeries. “I can’t hold a two-wheeler up.” she said, explaining that she enrolled in the class because “I want to ride with my husband. I want to be able to do it.”

The new CONREP offering is a result of a law that went into effect on July 1. It essentially created a new driver’s license endorsement for riders of three-wheeled motorcycles.

No longer do prospective riders who want to get out on three wheels and feel the wind in their faces have to learn on two wheels. While state law requires that all new riders pass a CONREP course and get an endorsement to ride legally, up until now the only option was an existing motorcycle class and an “M” endorsement.

For CONREP, creating the S/TEP class took a year and a half. Nick Just, who oversees the CONREP program for the state Department of Transportation, said the process involved discussions with the Department of Motor Vehicles and getting language creating a trike/sidecar endorsement added into a bill that created an “autocycle” category of motor vehicles.

That bill was approved by the General Assembly and signed into law last month by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. Its primary function was to allow the sale of three-wheeled “autocycles” such as the Polaris Slingshot and the Elio.

For Just, the process of creating the S/TEP class has most recently included lining suitable vehicles for students to learn on and getting instructors certified to teach trike and sidecar operation. Currently two CONREP instructors, Deb Finlayson of Bozrah and Dave Buerk of Colchester, are trained to teach the class, and both were on the range for the inaugural effort.

“It was quite process,” said Just. Can-Am agreed to supply three of its revere-trike Spyder models and two trike conversion kits for Suzuki TU250 motorcycles already in use were acquired. CONREP is still looking for a vendor to supply a sidecar rig.

Two members of the inaugural S/TEP classes admitted to having previously taken and failed the Basic Rider Course for motorcycles.

Joan Muhlfeld of Bethel recalled that she crashed. “I tried and failed miserably,” she said. That didn’t dampen her desire to ride and honor her late husband’s memory; it just shifted her focus.

Rose Scinto of East Haven also didn’t pass the BRC, but still wanted to ride as well. “It’s cool. I just wanted to do it,” she said.

The fifth member of the class, Pat Harrington of Newington, enrolled because she wants to ride alongside her husband, who bought a Spyder five years. However, she said she’d never attempt it on two wheels.

Just said he was “not terribly surprised” by the fact the first class didn’t have any men; that he expected to see a lot of women who are tired of riding pillion but who don’t want to attempt riding on two wheels. “I think that’s something we’re going to see; a trend. But I also expect it to open up and be a little more mixed (gender-wise) in the future,” he said.

Three additional trikes classes are planned – one each in August, September and October – and all at Gateway Community College’s North Haven location. More info is available here.

“Although we only have five students in this class, I really do think that once the word gets out, once it’s been out for a little longer, it’ll become more popular in which case we do plan on training more instructors in the curriculum and moving it around the state (to other CONREP training sites),” Just said.