Brian Baylis wrote:
> It is true that when the trike is ridden on the side of the road that it
> was designed for it rides much better. I actually ride down the middle of
the road
> whenever I can get away with it and that works best I think.
I think that it should also be mentioned that when making a left turn into
dense traffic with a British single-drive wheel trike, it can be very hairy,
as you do not have immediate drive. I had a friend that would often prefer
to do a 450° to the right instead of making a 90° turn to the left with
traffic!
> My friends tell me it's scary to ride behind the trike when I'm going
> down steep hills with sharp curves.
I have tried numerous rims out and decided that the cheapest clunker rim was
just as good as the expensive lightweight best. I therefore used the ones
that I could find in the bin outside of the shop. A rim that has a jump that
isn't acceptable on a single can still be perfect for a trike, especially if
you use 35 mm tires on the back. My favorites were the black Barums. The
added advantage of using the Barums was being able to put liquid bleach on
them in the winter when riding on ice. The bleach makes the tires super
sticky by decomposing the rubber compound ;-)
> Riding no hands on the trike; I forgot to mention that one. You can't
imagine how violent
> and instantanious the shaking was. I was shocked, never having done that
> before. Trust me, when a bike practically dumps you on the ground when
> you're going about 5mph on a perfectly flat and straight road you don't
> forget that. And still, trikes are fun and a breed of their own.
That is precisely why I used whatever rim I could find. You are always holding on and anything will make it vibrate. I liked the wide Weinmann concaves.
Paul wrote:
> > Some trikes do have rear brakes in addition to the front brakes.
> > Iffy braking? It isn't that bad; certainly better than a tandem without
> > a rear drum or disc brake. I have never had even a close call while
> > stopping the trike.
I had a Sturmey-Archer front hub drum brake and a regular rim brake and never had any real problems. I had hoped that the hub brake would overcome the inefficiency of the rim brake when riding in slush, but found that the SA brake was useless. On the other hand, sending the whole rear end into a sideways skid worked wonders at slowing you down. But perhaps you can put my not having problems due to my previous experience with tandems (The two Mafac cantis on my tandem seem to work better at stopping me than the brakes on most of my vintage bikes.)
One of the companies offereing front trike conversions is Roman Road Cycles
in Wales. Their website is: http://www.ddol-las.fsnet.co.uk/
Steven Maasland Moorestown, NJ
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