Manky Monkey Motors

As a prospective motor-trike virgin I note with gratitude Mr Monkey's warning about the fact that trikes handle a little counter-intuitively until you get used to them, especially after riding a two-wheeler. My childhood memories of a red Gresham Flyer trike (with boot and folding handle for your parents to hold on to) are that it leant outwards in a turn, bringing the inside wheel off the ground. My trike build has a five-link rear with two, inwardly inclined spring dampers. I imagine that, with half the spring rate in roll as compared with bump, the thing will lean out further than a dinghy sailor on a trapeze. Should I be looking to add an anti-roll bar to reduce this tendency, or am I worryng about nothing?

Hiya. Not my department I'm afraid. Never built a trike with springy bits. Mine have all been hardtails.
Anyone care to offer an opinion?

i aint built s**t so no :)

Thank you  anyway, your bananaship. I based the suspension design on that of a Model T rear with what is, effectively, a short torque-tube and four bars. I would have used a high-arch half eliptic if I could have found someone to make one, since I like the look so much. Perhaps some of the many Mankey Monkey Motor men who are also rodders can recall like me being car-sick in the back of a Ford Pop that rolled like a 2CV and share my fears.

Oh how I did chuckle with that. That's a new one  ;D

I've got a softail trike that uses a narrowed axle and the bike's original swingarm (modded of cours) and twin shocks.

I do go round roundabouts fairly carefully!  Although now that I'm preparing to part with it, I'm just getting the hang of sliding the rear end!

I'm not very technical so I don't really understand what your trike has - but I've heard a lot of arguments for and against IRS for trikes. for handling reasons.

   we built a swing arm conversion for a big Yamaha once, I always thought that it had some odd quirks that my unsprung one didn't, the guy who owned it however knew exactly what he wanted and was happy but we always said if we did another we would look into an antiroll bar setup. It tended to lean the whole "bike" the wrong way and coupled with the standard height seat just felt unsettled, long sweeping bends were worst. So, no helpful information there at all then.

:)

oh i have 1 word of wisdom....avoid lorries they ruin the bike and the rider :)

I have no trouble with long bends  :o only fairly tight roundabouts.  But you get used to it and it's just quirky and fun to ride.  Bikers often think riding a trike would be boring - what they don't realise is that trikes can be quite hairy, and don't need to be fast to demonstrate that!
My new one will handle a lot better, which is good for the travelling I want to do but I shall miss the fun of riding Gertie.

Simple solution -hardtail it!
My last trike stuck to the road like glue & gave excellent feedback on just what was happening between the tyres & the tarmac. After a couple of years of riding, I learnt just how far I could push it. Riding it on the edge -sliding it round roundabouts n stuff, was a real buzz. It's like driving a classic car compared to a modern family saloon -the more effort you put in, the more fun you get out. ;D
-which doesn't help at all does it.

I should have done a lot of things: I should have said yes to the blind drunk checkout girl from Brighouse instead of delivering her safely home to a suspicious and ungrateful dad (So her underwear was on backwards - I'd never seen a G-string before) and I should have realised that keeping my first trike build simple was the clever thing.
I bought a ready-bodged chassis off e-bay from a scarey tattooed guy in the North East. As I walked through the house with him a large ugly dog, implausibly even scarier and more heavily tattoed than him, lay on a settee, dribbling attractively on the stained velour. 'Don't mind the wife' he said 'things got a bit wild at the Mecca last night'
What I paid for that frame was worth it just to escape with my virginity intact.
My race-bike-building, time-served intuitive engineer mates had a good laugh and persuaded me to build my own, after all, 'It couldn't be worse'
The hardtail would have been sensible but then the Kitten axle had those cheeky brackets that whispered 'four-link me, big boy' and it always looks so easy in 'Hot Rod' and then I bought a hydraulic pipe-kinker and things got weird.
Now the time-plan is long busted and some paying work involving foreign travel intervened to put me even further behind. The good thing about that is that delays give you more time to think, so the end result should be better, assuming I can get that image of riding Gertie out of my head...

Ha ha ha ha !!! ;D