Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a tricycle.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 16/3: Messrs. Starley set to work, hammered away right through the holidays, and at a quarter to ten, on the day appointed, the young lady in their employ – whose graceful riding of these machines some four years ago first induced the Queen to invest in a trike – rode the ‘Salvo’ up to the front door at Osborne.
1901		Pall Mall Gazette 15 May i 2: The commercial ‘trike’ is, perhaps, the least supportable of the various tyrannies on wheels which it is the perambulating Londoner’s lot to endure [F&H].
1976		(ref. to 1930s) R. Barnes Coronation Cups and Jam Jars 105: One extra hot summer’s day, Dad had left the trike out in the heat for so long that all the ice cream melted.
1983		S. King Christine 408: The trike’s red paint was flaked with scales of rust.