YOUR OTHER LEFT!

[rodekyll]

It is father's day today, and also the summer solstice.  Odd that they'd both fall on the longest day this year.  Coincidence?  I think not.

To celebrate, I put mufflers and the headlight on the trike and took it around the block a few times.  I should mention that this is no ordinary block.  The 'streets' are 1.5-lane potholed dirt and closed to street traffic due to storm drain construction.  I might collide with a parked backhoe, but no motor traffic.  This is not the official naugaryde and no naugs were molested.

The bike pulls ok at parking lot speeds and mogul cresting, which is about as fast as I could go on the surfaces.  Steering head feels heavy and shakes.  I have not aired up the airbags to see if that helps, but a steering damper is in my future.  Also, the rear wheels are still visibly out of line.  I need to get it somewhere that I can stand back 25 feet and eyeball them better.

Circles are amazingly tight.  Y-turns are slow because (lacking a clutch) I need to shut the engine down to shift gears.  But I can easily and comfortably do one in a couple feet more than the trike's length.

The five things that are different between trike and bike and need to be remembered are:

1)  Don't put your feet down on stops and low speed turns.  It looks silly and then the rear wheels run over your Achilles tendons.

2)  YOUR OTHER LEFT!!!  You don't lean this like a bike or use the inside edge of the tire to do the turns.  You steer it like a car with a tiller.  My first thought going into a real-time turn was "any parent who gives his kid a tricycle and then a bicycle should rightfully be run over by said kid on the checkout ride."  It's going to take some remapping of reactions -- and it will be an interesting problem as I jump from bike to trike.  My second thought was "This bar isn't right."  Needs to be lower and wider with a bit more reach. 

3)  You gotta DRIVE this thing.  I didn't know how much I simply 'think' my bikes down the road -- no appreciable physical effort required to zip through turns.  The trike needs to be aimed at where you want it to go with arms and shoulders and then held there.  Especially with the narrow bar, sloppy wheel alignment and shaky head this is a semi-athletic activity.

4)  Don't push it.  It rolls very easily, but there's a perfectly good engine right there to move it for me.  That's why I included it in the design.  Also, see 1).

5)  there are no points awarded for body English.  Neither the road nor the trike care.

[rodekyll]

"Hay foot, straw foot
Belly full of bean soup
March, march, march old soldier march . . ."

Officers had the men put a piece of hay in their left boot and straw in their right because the illiterate soldiers didn't know left from right, but everyone knew the difference between hay and straw.  Today you'd have to back up a step and 'splain them hay and straw first.

You'd also have to 'splain that 'old soldier' is period slang for what we call a 'slacker' now.

So maybe nevermind.

[Yukonica]

:) ... You've just sealed my fate post swinging a leg over the seat. Sidecars or Morgan-Wannabe.
(Spyders, aka/snow-machines for asphalt, are not on the list.)
Giving up the advantage physics provides via gyroscope?  I'll be damned if I'll steer by tiller out of water.
BTW:  If/when you are coming over the border let me know where/when: dinner and a place to stay can be arranged. (I'll alert the authorities).

[rodekyll]

I suspect the sidecar has the same issues as a trike, but more one way than the other.

Morgans are cool.

[HardAspie]

If someone is giving away Mogs, I'll have one!

[canuck750]

Reminds ne of the first time I rode a Honda Big Red, some 35+ years ago, put my foot down rounding a corner on a trail, got sucked off immediately!

[sib]

It is father's day today, and also the summer solstice.  Odd that they'd both fall on the longest day this year.  Coincidence?  I think not.

I also think it's strange that the solstice always falls on the longest day.  Weird how these things happen.

[rodekyll]

I did a rough alignment of the rear wheels -- neutral/neutral/neutral (+-).  Steering and road feel are much improved.  I'm headed down to the dmv for new registration.  . .

[rodekyll]

I took the rodekyll down to the dmv to get the tags for the trike.  I'd fixed the atf pump a week back and hadn't really tested it.  So I took the long way from the dmv to the insurance office.  By the time I got to the insurance office they were closed.  I don't understand it.  I had an hour and a half when I left the dmv . . .

 . . . The rodekyll is doing about the best it's done for t/c lockup and grunt.  It's tuned, throttle bodies set, valves, tires, etc.  In high range pulling 60 on a reasonably flat stretch of road the tach shows ~3k.  That's about 500rpm less than before the tune and atf work.

. . . and I almost got an award for my lighting on the way home from the insurance office.  It seems my L turn isn't blinking.  I promised to improve that and the cop let me go.

Off to mount the plate on the trike.  I'll drive it to the insurance lady tomorrow.  She has a HD and lusts for a 3-wheeler.

[Kentktk]

Remember to use countersteer to initiate a turn especially in reverse.

[steven c]

 Back in the early eighties a friend had one of the first Honda 3 wheeler's after I ran into a few trees I put my foot down and ran the rear tire up left my leg and was kind of stuck for a while. Was happy to get back on my XT250.