Bending the steering

speed hump
speed hump

Reading the blogs and making posts to various groups I learned that the clearance on the gt3 is not really a problem except on 4wd tracks. It also won’t go places a mountain bike would go. I also learned that it was not a problem with any type of speed hump except one. That explanation came from a person in the USA. I had an idea as to which one was meant, but little did I realise how bad they are. With all the speed humps I have come accross, there are no troubles. The trike handles them in much the same was as the bike and as I am not normally going really fast, I do not need to slow down for them. However, this one type of speed hump (Pictured) is evil. There is one in the car park behind my house. Last night I went over it. This morning the steering was not working properly. I had bent one of the metal plates in the steering and the rods were rubbing. It was not unrideable and I still rode about 10 km today. However, when I got it home I went into repair man mode. I quickly was able to work out the problem and the cause of the problem. I removed the seat, which was a bit difficult as the bolt had been tightened too much and was able, with my small hammer to bend the piece back into shape. I will now have a policy of getting off the trike and walking over this type of speed hump. At the Addison Road Markets there are humps of a simialr type, but made of concrete and they presented no problems.

5 comments

  1. You might be able to go diagonally over the speed hump or something like that. Maybe a bit of concrete to smooth over the hump or a ramp to launch off. That reminds me of my friend I built a trick with and he took it to the bmx track and managed to break the cross member when going off a jump.

  2. I have used the diagonal before, mostly in the car. But after what happened, I think I’ll take the safe way and dismount for now. I do not need to go this way to get home. I was just trying out the alternatives.

  3. Write a letter to the owner of the speedhump then send them a bill if it happens again. 🙂
    I’m upset with you and your trike, it has rekindled my interest in building one (I must first just get on my 2 wheeled bike for now).

  4. If I get you back on your 2 wheeled bike, that is worth the effort, if you build a trike, then come riding with me! I see there are people making them with suspensions and things.

  5. After bending your steering rods you will need to check your wheel alignment to ensure you have only a couple of mm of toe in. If you have too much the riding is harder and you will scrubb out your front tyres quicker. I scrubbed out my first set of tyres in 500km for this reason. Wheel alignment and new tyres led to the second set lasting over 3000 km and about 2km per hour average faster.
    You basically load the trike and measure the distance centre to centre of your tyres at the rear, roll forward so the tyres rotate 180 degrees and measure at the front of the tyre (same spot on tyres) and this should be only a couple of mm smaller than the first measurement. Search the web for details as it is a common thing to be done to trikes.

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