March 4
THE MONSTER - IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE!!!
I attached some images I took today of the Monster. As you can see, in order to support the position of the pivot, I needed quite a bit of steel. Since so much weight is on ONE pivot, I used a old bottom bracket and flipped both cranks so they faced the same direction. Then I welded a brace between the crank arms so stresses are split between both ends of the bottom bracket bearings. It all seems to hold together fine - although it would never make for a suitable solution for a final bike due to all the weight on one pivot (pretty bouncy, bouncy), but ridable. And heavy!
The ride is very interesting. Since the steering angle is close to a conventional bike and much more vertical than Bob's S'Trike www.rohorn.com , you don't quite 'lean' so much to steer it. It's more like, um... hard to explain - like you sort of 'turn' your body a bit rather than tip it... If that makes any sense!
Since all of the weight is suspended below the pivot like a pendulum, it tends to want to keep the steering straight (which is good), then to initiate a turn, you just need to pull a little (or push depending on which arm you want to use) on the support bar and swing your body to the right or left (like a 45 degree hammock).
The steering radius is really small due to the fact that the seat hits the side rails, but once you're moving, turning a 90 degree corner is no problem. Another problem is doing a quick turn at higher speeds (like all delta trikes), it wants to flip over.
