It's probably a strange Mothers' Day present.
Both my sisters have said they wanted trikes, but these are tough times for luxuries (I should probably pay more attention to my own observations.) And then yesterday I came across a listing for a Mantis on Craigslist...and it was only a few miles away in Tacoma. Turns out it's essentially brand new and was available at a great price so now we're a 3 trike family. True Andie and Carole are going to have to figure out how to share, but I'm sure they'll work it out.
The Mantis has a Dual Drive which I may pirate for Msafiri. And it's a folder which is really exciting. When I first began looking for trikes I just liked how this one looked. It took a couple of years but now I have one...yea! I'm looking forward to tinkering with it. Actually the tinkering's already begun. There are two quick releases locking the seat onto the frame. The welded tubes the QR's go through are bigger enough than the QR bolts that it seems impossible to keep the seat solidly locked to the frame. Tomorrow, I'll try shimming the steel tubes with brass model makers' tubing.
I took it out for a short spin - I've never used a Dual Drive before and I can quickly see how much I'm gonna like it. It feels like a lot lower geared than my Expedition when I have the Dual Drive in its lowest gear. And I'm thinking I can make it even lower by going to a 24 or 26 tooth granny. Riding the trike, it feels a lot more spidery than my Catrike, and surprisingly even more spindly than Penni's GS GT3. I'm curious to see just how solid it actually is.
The neck rest is already in the trash...it's really just junk. The seat back is so high that I'll just make a new neck rest from some scrap memory foam and rest it on the top of the seat with velcro...no need for any hardware to raise it higher. And the trike needs at least a rear fender.
I've never used twist shifters on a trike before. I'm surprised that I kinda like them. What I don't like is that there's no real place to rest my hands. So I'm adding bar ends at the tops of the handlebars to use as hand rests and mirror mounts. Now if I can just get the seat firmly locked down. Stay tuned.
I took it out for a short spin - I've never used a Dual Drive before and I can quickly see how much I'm gonna like it. It feels like a lot lower geared than my Expedition when I have the Dual Drive in its lowest gear. And I'm thinking I can make it even lower by going to a 24 or 26 tooth granny. Riding the trike, it feels a lot more spidery than my Catrike, and surprisingly even more spindly than Penni's GS GT3. I'm curious to see just how solid it actually is.
The neck rest is already in the trash...it's really just junk. The seat back is so high that I'll just make a new neck rest from some scrap memory foam and rest it on the top of the seat with velcro...no need for any hardware to raise it higher. And the trike needs at least a rear fender.
I've never used twist shifters on a trike before. I'm surprised that I kinda like them. What I don't like is that there's no real place to rest my hands. So I'm adding bar ends at the tops of the handlebars to use as hand rests and mirror mounts. Now if I can just get the seat firmly locked down. Stay tuned.
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