farzad

hi, i'm farzad from Iran and very interested to build my own trike. my question is ,how do i learn about trike's building. off course i have many ideas and plans in my mind and i just have not materials and techniques. thank you for your answering me.

Andrew R Stewart 

The fabricating skills for a trike are not unlike those for 2 wheeled bike building. You will find far more on line references to 2 wheeled bike making then that is listed as trike focused. Perhaps the greatest differences is the additional of a third wheel and the need to maintain position and angular alignment across the pair of wheels. Otherwise the welding/brazing, mitering, cutting, facing and chasing are all about the same.


I'll suggest what I usually do in that starting with simple projects of fabrication which need the skill set listed above is a good way to learn fabrication methods and reduce the mistakes made with the real thing.


Are there any fab shops, tech schools, old guys in your bike club who have done this sort of stuff, art sculpture studios, car shops around you that can help with the basics of joining metals? Andy

CliffordK

What tools and fabrication history do you have?

As Andy mentioned, some of the fabrication is similar between trikes and other bikes, but the design is quite different. Another issue you will run into is that building a bike frame, you can purchase many of the pieces ready to assemble. The trike will have a bunch more custom design/fabrication.

I have seen a few homebuilt trikes mainly built with bolting and riveting. I can't say they were the best, but were functional, but building a professional quality one will require brazing or welding.

Reply back here if you wish to discuss design issues. Plus, take a look at some of those that are being commercially produced.

Some of the issues you'll have to deal with include braking. Two vs three wheels? Tying front brakes together? Adding some kingpin inclination should also help with straight braking.

I picked up a trike built at our local bike-coop recently. I tend to be fairly self-supporting, and rapidly discovered that the trike has absolutely no storage. No place to carry a pump or spare tubes. And, no way to carry a backpack. So, adding a rear rack or basket would be handy.