A Rickshaw Trike: Part 2

Hi

You might like to read part 1 of this story before reading this post

http://modularbikes.blogspot.com/2010/04/rickshaw-trike-part-1.html

Tony finished the trike and delivered it down to us on the back of a very large trailer. He is a pathological bike collector and had several old bikes he had gathered in Melbourne to bring back home to Castlemaine. He was interested in my Moulton 2-speed and we rode around the block a few times (me on the rickshaw, Tony on the Moulton) a few times before going in for dinner.

Several more modifications were done before Christine was happy with the trike.

* We put an extra cushion under the original rickshaw cushion and this helped greatly. Before we "got it right" we'd had a wooden bolster which got the seat to the right height but was too harsh on Christine.

* The footrest was cut down: originally it had slats between the 2 prongs but these were removed which allows Chris to come right up next to the chair before sitting down.

* Armrests were added.

(Thanks to David Downing who donated the sculptred armrests, they do the job very well. Dave was dropping off the armrests which the op shop gave him when a friend of mine, Don who is blind came around to the front fence. Don was having trouble with the exercise bike I had fixed for him. Without having met Don before, Dave went around to help Don with the bike. A few days later Dave had delivered a 2nd hand exercise bike to our house for Don)

Christine and I have now been on several successful excursions on the trike. Our "easy range" is about 2 or 3k on flat ground but we are usually able to find a few pubs, Garage Sales and Cafes within that distance.

There is still much work to be done on the trike. At the very least we can add decorations, artwork and some storage areas. Maybe I will make myself a fake rickshaw licence!

I think that "reverse pedalling" gears would work well on the trike and I've done some work on this already. (Of course derailleur gearing would be possible as well. But boring) A few years ago I saw Ross Harrup's bike http://members.westnet.com.au/rjharrop/recumbents/retro-direct/Retro-Direct2.htm which has this gearing. More reports later.