3 Wheelin'

The back of a trike is perfect for armchair travellers. Just don’t expect to look glam in the photos, says Gemma Elwin Harris. Photography by Brendan MacNeill

We’re cruising down Calton Hill, the wind in our faces. On our left, clouds are breaking over the Firth of Forth and a stream of sunlight silhouettes the rocky isle of Inchkeith. Ahead, the rugged crag of Arthur’s Seat rises in the distance. It might be just another peaceful spring evening in Edinburgh – if not for the thrum of a 1600cc engine in our ears as 700kg of chrome and steel whisk us down the slope.

Touring town on a canary-yellow trike is not a subtle way to “do Edinburgh”. Everyone stares. Some people wave. Taxi drivers nod, bus drivers salute. Small children look up from their Nintendo DSs and teenagers pull out their camera phones. Even a Scottish version of Mr Whippy – who goes by the dubious name of Tasttee Maid – halts his ice cream round to admire our polished chrome curves. Or perhap he’s admiring the “tasty” hunk on the front of the bike – and who could blame him. Our driver and guide Gordon Shon is a good-looking fellow. He has the requisite biker beard, a broad, disarming smile and a great tan from speeding through the glens. Leather jerkin, tartan troos (trousers) and a T-shirt bearing the legend “Find Your Freedom” all add to the general effect.

Gordon launched Trike Tours Scotland three years ago with his partner Tracy Ferguson. Inspired by a small trike tour operation they’d seen in Sydney, the couple invested in three sturdy, German-built, Boom family trikes and put them to use touring various parts of Scotland from Dumfries to Inverness, occasionally making it out west to the Isle of Skye – their farthest-flung tour.

The beard, he admits, was grown to fit the look. “It just goes with the bike. At the start there was quite a discussion among the drivers about styles, who’d have the goatee and so on,” he says. The beards, and the trikes, have been quite a hit, and this year Gordon and Tracy added a Rabbie Burns trike tour for Scotland’s big Homecoming Year, which celebrates the 250th anniversary of the poet Robert Burns’ birth.

Who likes to trike? “We get all sorts,” says Gordon. “Couples book us as a romantic gift because they can chat to each other on the intercom and choose what music to play during the tour – Elvis, whatever they want. We even had an 87-year-old woman whose daughter signed her up for it for her birthday. I couldn’t believe it! She was doing a skydive next.”

There’s no shortage of bikers wanting to lead the tours, either. “We get at least two CVs a week from bikers who want to work for us. But to be honest, their interpersonal skills are zero,” he says. Instead, Gordon and his small crew, all men in their mid-30s, are chosen for safe driving and a roadside manner that’s more Monarch of the Glen than Hells Angels. Chatting about all sorts – from the economy to Scottish politics – imparting snippets of history, and offering the occasional tot of whisky are all part of the laid-back service.

As the only official tour vehicles allowed onto Arthur’s Seat, the company’s Edinburgh trips give you a feel for the city but also include a wild, four-minute blast up the Galloping Glen to this beloved patch of inner-city wilderness that Gordon describes to US visitors as “Edinburgh’s equivalent of Central Park”.

Today’s trip is officially the Robert Burns tour of Edinburgh, though it soon becomes clear that it’s more about the fun of the bike than fact cramming. “If you want facts and figures – I tell people, there are books for that,” Gordon shrugs. “Reeling out a load of dates, that’s not me.”

So after a quick stop at The White Hart Inn on the Grassmarket – where Burns spent his last night in Edinburgh – we don’t worry too much about dead poets, and just enjoy bumping along cobbled streets, past spiky gothic spires and the soot-blackened monument to Sir Walter Scott, while a wee bit of Burns’ poetry is piped into our helmets like some 18th-century Muzak.

Lolling on the back of a chauffeur-driven trike is like riding a leather couch on wheels. Reclining at this angle, you have a chance to notice so much more of the city than you do on foot. You may spot the hundreds of tiny pink wildflowers sprouting from Edinburgh Castle’s granite outcrop. There are bizarre street turrets, domes and bell-shaped cornices; intricate slate roofs and chimney stacks, crenellations and Dutch-style gables. Look out for the mysterious robed lady perched atop Castle Terrace – who knew she was there? And because you’re in the open air, the smells of the city known as “Auld Reekie” come gusting round corners. The burnt-toast smell of a brewery here, someone’s roast dinner there.

Towards the end of our circuit, we park up on Calton Hill to take in 360º views. Gordon sets out a bottle of Glenlivet on a silver salver, and we toast Burns’ birthday the only way possible. He then pulls a crib sheet from his pocket and recites a few guttural verses of the famous Burns poem Tam o’Shanter, one foot astride the running board. Hard to know what it all means, but it sounds wonderful as the whisky slips down.

Nearby, some Japanese students are rooted to the spot, watching the recital. As we put our helmets on to leave, one of them finally plucks up the courage to ask for a photo – the third group of tourists who’ve gathered round during our hour-and-a-half trip. For Gordon, photo ops are something of an occupational hazard. He merely smiles, adjusts his helmet and says: “Oh no, have I got hamster cheeks?”

There’s no escaping it, a canary-yellow trike is an object of curiosity. It just begs to be waved at, stared at, filmed and snapped. So if you don’t want to be on YouTube with hamster cheeks, take a bus tour. I just can’t guarantee you’ll have as much fun.

The Robert Burns tour costs £65 (€76) per person, www.triketoursscotland.com