Hello all.

Just joined. Owning my first ever BMW and I dont know what I think yet?

On Dec 04th 2012, I had a serious accident and this has put paid to any chances of me riding a normal bike properly ( Although I did manage to ride my CBR about a year ago, but I only went down the road and it was killing me ).

Just last week, I saw this thing going for sale fairly locally, and so I tthought bugger it, I will get it.

Its a 1984 Model so fairly old, but it sounds ok and its not in bad condition, the trike job is not too bad, however its almost impossible to turn the thing and so I need to either increase the rake, or better still, upgrade it to leading links, and the bar is stock, so that needs replacing with higher, and farther back controls, and forward footpegs too!

Give it a more comfortable feel because its seriously painful on my legs as they are on it.

I have only ridden it twice so far... Once around my block clockwise and once anti-clockwise and it was murder trying to steer the thing, so, I am simply not going to ride it until I have done some of these things to it. This is killing me though!

Admittedly, I handed my licence in last year, and now I want it back... I see no reason why they would refuse me, but thats what the adaptations are for of course! I also have more operations in the pipeline, and again, the waiting list is 16 months and I have waited about 5 months, so its going to take a while to sort out, I would like the time I have, to get it organised, and the time I will have to be back off the road to get he work done, so that by the time I am ready to ride again... It will be finished!

Well, that is if things go to plan of course!

Ok, well thats some of me and my bike/trike. I wont waste my time typing too much, no one ever reads this stuff anyway.
If you want to know more, then I will be happy to talk.

But for now...

I saw that trike on ebay and thought about it, but the fact that it's a T-tail put me off. Truthfully, if you have the money I'd junk the backend and replace it with full IRS from somewhere like the Trike Shop down in Rymni.

FatRakoon wrote:Hello all.

Just joined. Owning my first ever BMW and I dont know what I think yet?


Ok, well thats some of me and my bike/trike. I wont waste my time typing too much, no one ever reads this stuff anyway.
If you want to know more, then I will be happy to talk.

Hi FatRakoon, and welcome. 

What little I know about trikes (and sidecars - there seems to be some in common) I read on this forum, so there is expertise available here. It just won't be from me. 

There are some with nothing better to do when not riding the Ks (eg me) than reading everything put up on this forum, so I wouldn't worry about no one reading your stuff. 
I already know enough from reading here to undertake many tasks I haven't yet needed to do.

Bill

Hi there FatRakoon welcome to the Knuthaus
I have never had a down on a bike worth mentioning but have been busted up twice in car crashes and spent 12months just looking at my Z1300 Kawasaki before I could ride it and I was and still am determined to never give up. It's what keeps me going being able to ride.

Dai wrote: I saw that trike on ebay and thought about it, but the fact that it's a T-tail put me off. Truthfully, if you have the money I'd junk the backend and replace it with full IRS from somewhere like the Trike Shop down in Rymni.

Yup ebay.

few notes...

Whats a T-Tail?
Whats a full IRS?

Forgive the egnorance?

A T-tail is a trike where the rear suspension uses the original bike shock mounting points (with a monolever someone has to make the 'other' side). Like an upside-down letter T with the wheels on the end of the crossbar. The handling is compromised fairly badly because whatever one side of the rear axle is doing, the other side wants to do it too. The result is the rider has to work very hard to keep the front end going the way its required to go. A hard-tail handles better than a T-tail, believe it or not. The front end still beats about on a rough-ish surface but it recovers faster than a T-tail.

IRS = independant rear suspension, where each wheel reacts independently to the road surface. Very comfortable and easy to control but definitely Not Cheap.

I've ridden all three types, but not for a huge amount of miles. I rode the hard-tail and the IRS back-to-back (I was doing some work on both of them) and the T-tail a few weeks later. I just remember thinking 'X's hardtail handles better than this b*st*rd'. Google revealed that this is a common complaint about T-tails.

IRS - Of course I am an idiot. I did know, I just assumed something else.

T-Tail though I did not.

This is using both the bikes own suzzy, plus another pair, so it has 2 shocks at the back actually.

I have NOT got any pics of this, however, I will definitely get some pics put up later on.

It has me intrigued.

So, you say THIS is the cause of my hard steering?
So, leading links wont help?

What about either increasing the rake, or even just having longer forks to lift the front end up, and thereore also force the wheel forward a little?

Would that help too?

Im up for anything to help to be honest

Define 'hard steering'? If you mean it needs a lot of input to get it to do anything then that's normal for a trike. Wider 'bars will help. Leading links are also a good idea and will also help a lot with steering.

I'm planning a trike and it will have leading links and IRS, but first I have two Moto Guzzis to finish

Yes, its really difficult to steer around corners... You have to really put effort into turning corners.

But Guzzis... My god, my most favourite bike that I have ever owned was my Guzzi.

Cali 3 LAPD CLassic.
I had doen a whole host of upgrades to that darling.

39mm carbs, 1100 upgrade, the entire electrical system was also replaced very early on as it was a swine when wet.

I bloody miss that bike... So much so, that I bought my GoldWing to get my wife more into bikes, but its just not the same at all... The Guzzi was a gorgeous V Twin that sounded sexy as hell and the Wing was a flat 4 and smooth, but boring as hell, even though it was clearly a hell of a lot faster acceleration.

I would swap my BMW for a guzzi ANY DAY!

In fact, I have a CBR 600 and an SZR 660 here that I would do a straight swap for a guzzi... This trike no, unless the Guzzi was a trike.