The equipment

• Trice Explorer - with a 9 speed 11-34 rear cassette, and 26/39/52 front chainrings, Sturmey Archer Front Brake hubs (model SBF), full set of mudguards, alloy rear carrier, rear mirror, and shimano SPD pedals. Other than the front chainrings, it's pretty much what you'd expect to buy with a new bike/trike. The plastic clamps that held the seat in place kept loosening, so they've been replaced by hose-clamps. Much tighter now, and no annoying squeaking from the seat.
• Tires: Conti Top Touring 2000. The rims are 47-406 rims (20 x 1.75), and of course the Conti web page doesn't describe those tires, but hey, that's what the tires say they are too. Tire Sizing is confusing, so I usually end up looking things up more than once to make sure. Anyway, they're supposed to be inflated to no more than 4.0 bar (56psi). I'm running the front ones at about 50psi, and the rear closer to 70 psi today. But I'm playing with tire pressure almost every time I ride, and still haven't settled on the ride blend of comfort and low rolling resistance. I'm pretty happy with the tires, though. They go through a lot of crap, and I've had no puncture problems. Traction's okay, but I can spin out the rear tire in gravel on uphills and have slid all three going through a corner. There's probably something higher performance in my future, but then I'll end up with more flats.
• I've added a set of Arkel T-42 panniers so I can carry a bunch of stuff. Tests suggest I can carry 36 - 12oz cans of beverage and still have room for some small amount of food.
• A Kryptonite Evolution 2000 Mini locks the rear wheel to the frame when I'm parked.
• Kryptonite Super Hardwire cable locks a front wheel and the frame to something solid.
• Specialized speedzone elite bike computer. It's far from perfect (the sensors need to be within 2mm of the magnets) on my trike, but I'm getting used to it. The most annoying thing at this point has to be the fact that something at home sometimes sends it a signal that makes it think the wheel is going around, so I'll end up averaging 0.01 mph while I'm sleeping.
• For lighting, I've got a C-Crane Expedition strapped to the front of the trike. I'm thinking about upgrading to the CCExpedition 1400/1900, but they're not cheap, so I'm going to ponder it a bit before dropping the extra money.
• My tool kit currently pretty simple, but I may find a few more things to add. It's carried in a Topeak Handy Phone Pack Plus, which is mounted to the upright behind the seat. It's narrow enough that it leaves room for racks behind the seat. The small pocket (designed to hold the Alien) holds a spare 406 tube. In the large (cell-phone) pocket, I've got a Topeak Alien, a few spare links of chain, tire irons, and a nutdriver that fits the couple nuts on the trike that aren't covered by the Alien. The Alien in particular has proven pretty useful, as I initially had some problems with the chain, and the Alien was light enough to carry with me, and its chain-tool useful enough that I could loosen a couple tight links and change out the quick-release link that was misbehaving. The Alien is a bit dense if you don't have a good bag to carry it in, though.
• Tire repair: a Topeak Road Morph W/G as well as a generic patch kit. The Road Morph is a bit long for the frame of the Trice, but fits in the main compartment of the panniers just fine. Actually, after a little more thinking, I figured out how to mount the Road Morph on the frame. See my Trike Photos if you're curious about how it's mounted. The only complaint I have is that the Road Morph came set up for Shrader valves initially, and converting it to Presta valves wasn't an entirely obvious process. Basically it's a matter of printing the picture of the conversion a little bigger on the box. Finally, the guage is only okay. If you're standing to use the pump, it's nearly impossible to read, but you can bend down to read it. Probably anything easier to read would be bigger, which isn't what a guy wants in a bike pump. But dammit, it oughta be either set up for Presta valves, or at least have a bigger picture showing how to convert it.

Copyright 2008, Dave Polaschek. Last updated on Sat, 08 Dec 2001 16:27:55.