Right, having seen both Craig's, and Muffin's trikes at the weekend, my mind has been made up, my next project is going to be a trike. The only problem with this is I don't know the first thing about them. Rather than ending up with a looooong list of threads with me asking individual questions, I'll try and lump them all into here, but be warned, there'll be a LOT of them!
Having scoured the forum today (during work time
) I've tried to answer some of them in my head but not many.
I've decided (I think) on what style I'd like. Started the day with wanting a reliant engined one, but not knowing a thing about them, the fact the engines etc are quite rare now for a good one so holding their price well, and mainly because building a frame for it scares the s**t out of me that's probably not going to happen. I want to end up with a low, mean looking hard tail style, so I reckon a bike donor will be a good place to start.
Anyhow, to the questions:
1) why do most opt for shaft drive, not chain?
2) why do most opt for reliant axles? If you start to mention ratios, you'll have to explain that also (
) Are there any other recommendations?
3) if it's based on a bike, what sort of tubing will be best for the hard tail?
4) hard tail will end in MSVA, yes?
5) how important is wheel size?
6) if it's bike based, would a suicide shift (with clutch lever on the change) be an option?
7) what's the easiest (and safest) way to add rake to the headstock?
There'll be lots more, I'm sure.
I've hopefully attached a couple of pics from the forum 'three wheel' section of examples of the style I like. One of which was built by our glorious leader!