Kayak Jack said:
Went to an outdoor show today. Boats and bikes were here. Some of your trikes were there. A couple of old fat women were trying them out. They liked the trikes.
So did you try a few of the trikes ????? How about folding ones , quite a few companies make folding trikes and they are nice. Just like a regular trike when assembled but fold into a smaller package for storage when traveling. TerraTrike makes one and Trident Trikes make a whole line of them , competitive priced.
I have to tell a good one on myself.
The wife and I went for a ride , she was on her trike and I was on mine. About half way threw the ride I heard this thumping sound and thought it was from the rear tire on her trike , I would peddle up and along side the the rear of her's and listen then back off and finally realized it was from my left front side and not the rear wheel of her trike.
According to the speed I was peddling I could control the speed of the rubbing sound . Slow down and it slowed down , speed up and it would speed up. When I squeezed the lever for the left side disk brake it would stop. Release the brake and it stopped till I would make a turn ......
Now for the confusing part , turn right and it would go away , turn to the left and here it goes making that sound again.
I checked the disk brake and they were OK , Lifting the left side up and spinning the wheel , here is that sound again. "O" Crap better not ride it for now , park it and take it over to the guy's on Monday This is on a Friday afternoon when all this is going on. No trike to ride over the weekend so it is on the 21 speed two wheeler for those days.
When we got home I called the bike shop and told Mike what was going on and that I figured the left side brake needed a slight adjustment like he did to the right side a few weeks earlier when it was making a whisking sound except the left side was a lot louder . Yep , been down the road with this very thing earlier. There is always a few bugs to work out on a new bike and I guess this is just a part of it. It took him about 2 minutes to correct the problem last time , just a slight brake adjustment.
Put the trike rack on the back of the Jeep and loaded the trike on it and off to the shop on Monday , a hour later I am at the shop. Unload the trike and walk it in the shop. Jason took a look and spun the tire , no sound of any kind...... He went to get a tool to check everything for tightness on the brake assembly when I lifted the left side and turned the tire as if making a left hand turn and spun the tire........
THUNK - THUNK - THUNK as the tire spun around. Big grin on my face ...That's the sound it was making.
Mike was back of the counter and Jason was just starting to walk over with the tool to check everything when Mike smiled and told me.......... It's the brake cable hitting the spokes of the wheel when you turn to the left. When you make a sharp turn at times the cable will get pulled thru the holder on the lower handle bar more then it should and rub against the outside spokes of the wheel.
Before I thought I let out a SOB , then stood there with egg on my face.
They just laughed and told me I was not the 1st person to make that mistake.
Yesterday when the wife and I were out for a ride her trike was making the same sound and I asked her to check the left front brake on hers........ she tried the brake and it still made that sound. All she could say was Chit , it will have to go to the shop. I told her to check the break cable and see if it was hitting the spokes and it was , she pulled it back a little and no more sound.
A sharp turn can pull the cable a little thru it's fastener ( zip tie ) so when you turn that little extra amount of cable will hit the inside spokes as they move from the center line in to the trikes side.