Have you ever had fun with your younger brother or sisters' tricycle? Yes, everyone had memories riding on tricycles. Tricycles are meant for children to have good support while riding. These three-wheel help them to reach the destination with excellent balancing. But nowadays, tricycles are trendy and fashionable for all ages. Tricycles add great joy and fun to your outdoor activities. These are some of the best games to meet your boredom. Besides, fun tricycles have good balancing and stability to track your path than bikes. Having fun with your personalized tricycle will give you even more joy to ride. Building a tricycle is not that difficult; it only invests a few hours. If you wonder how to build a tricycle, then here are the ways to build your own tricycle.
How to turn a bicycle into a trike
Tricycles are easy to build from your bicycles. It doesn't need any sort of skill in welding and cuttings. It just needs a good workspace and knowledge in the mechanism.
Before getting started: Things you need
The most important things that you need to have to turn your bike to trike is a good set of wrenches, a power drill, bike tools, and rotary drill. As you might use recycled bikes to make tricycles, the simplest way to start is purchasing three used bicycles or if you own, no problem. Here are the steps to follow next:
Step 1
Rear Wheel Removal:
Mount the bicycle and support the bike using wood blocks
Mount the bicycle on a stand or support the bike upright using wood blocks under the frame. Using wrenches, remove the chain and rear wheel, keep them aside.
Step 2:
Take off the disc brake caliper and remove the rear brake lever and brake cable. Remove the rear derailleur and rest it on the bottom bracket. You can skin the step if you are working on single speed bikes with coaster brakes.
Step 3:
Organize all components according to the conversion kit procedures and fix them with appropriate bolts and nuts. Read the instructions to make sure you are using the exact required tools at this stage.
Step 4:
Build the sprocket, and rear axle assembly as per description. Mount the axle on dropouts at the place of the removed rear wheel. Now include lock washers, brackets, and spacers to each dropout. Using the provided nuts, secure the attachments with the help of appropriate metric tools.
Step 5:
At the tricycle axle, mount the rear wheels and tighten up axle nuts safely. Remove the woodblocks and take the stand-off of the bike and chock the front wheel.
Step 6:
Now It's time to assemble the rear derailleur, and depending on a conversion kit; you might need to change the bottom swing or top swing derailleur.
Step 7:
Using wrenches, detach the master link away from the bike chain and lodge the chain to the rear and front sprockets and connect it with the master link. Now set up the chain guard to the whole design.
Front-Wheel Conversion
Step 1
Support the bicycle with the help of woodblocks and frame it upright. Detach the front wheel and front side disc brake caliper. Just like the rear wheel conversion, take away the front brake hand lever.
Step 2:
Check the conversion kit instructions and organize the components quickly with the help of tools.
Step 3:
Remove the forks and save the spacers, washers from the steering headsets. Now install the forks to the tricycle headset and complete the full attachments using the saved washers, spacers, and cap nut.
Step 4:
Now, as described in the instructions, attach the dual axle to forks. Connect the steering arms between the rack and pinion fittings and forks on each side of the spindle. Now install the typical connections based on the installation process.
Step 5:
Slide in one of the inner wheel bearings and put the front wheels. Install the bearing retainers and outer bearing on each wheel hub. Thread the axle nut on each spindle by tightening the nuts. Have a quick check-up when all the procedure is down and make sure everything is fixed properly in inappropriate places.
If you are thinking of changing your bicycle into a tricycle, now its time to do it. Keep this guide on how to build a tricycle to make sure you are doing it in the right way. Tricycles are more advantageous than bicycles because it adds great support and protection at every point of your ride. Bicycles are meant to run with the two wheels, one at the front and other at the back.
Hence, it requires balancing both the wheels. Simultaneously, tricycles come with the extra wheel at the back to offer extra support to your ride. So, how innovative you fix the back wheels of your tricycles determines your innovation and skill.
