Transporting a Tadpole Trike... How?

uzzled:

Are there any options to transport a Tadpole with a midsize sedan without any disassembling, without a trailer hitch?

Any suggestions, pictures, brackets etc that you can suggest?

 

Folding trike

Consider a folding trike (GT3). They are nice and fold in 10-30
seconds and fit in a VW and still permit the normal use of the
back seat. See demonstration on BicycleMan.

 

Would love to see pics of her rack

Thank you A.D. for the reply. I think I understand what you are describing with her P.T. Cruiser. Would love to see pics of the setup if you are able to get it. In the meantime I will take a look online for a heavy duty trunk mount that might serve that purpose.

 

Thanks.

I looked into folding trikes. I would like a trike with a 700 rear wheel or at least a 26" It seems choices are pretty limited for those that also fold. Would love to find a great deal on a ICE Sprint 26 or ICE 2011 Vortex. Unfortunately they get pretty expensive.

 

Yeah, the ICE Sprint 26 is pricey, but folds up quite nicely. Mine will fit in the back of our Ford Mondeo with the back seats up with room to spare for a few other things tucked around it. The trike's seat is a little more tricky, but that's only because of the bar strapped to it that holds my husky's running tether.

My previous trike, the Trice also by ICE, didn't do nearly as well though there was a video of it fitting into a Smart car. I just couldn't deal with wrestling the rear wheel on and off every time it folded not to mention what to do with the chain with the wheel removed. Would have just left a mess in the car. I only folded that one maybe 4 times in 6+ years.

Terii

Terii

 

I would really reconsider NOT putting a trailer hitch on your car. I have one put on all my cars now.

When I had my trike, I bought a standard bike rack. 2 inch square metal came off the receiver, then went up and attached to the bicycle brackets. (This was left over from when I was riding a road bike.) So I took it to a welding shop, they cut the vertical piece from the receiver to the bike backets and added 15 inches. That made it tall enough to mount the top of the trikes front wheels over the bicycle rack arms and the third wheel was bungle corded to the bottom of the vertical poll.

Trike was easy to put on and take off and rode very securely. The top two legs were held by the rubber straps made to hold the bicycle frame and the bottom wheel with the bungie cord. Took 1 minute to put on or take off and did move an inch while I drove it from Knoxville to Florida on spring break vacations.

But you need that trailer hitch.

 

I agree with what you are saying. After looking around, nothing without a hitch looks stable enough to me. You being able to transport it that far sounds really great and obviously sturdy. You wouldnt happen to have any pics of the setup would you?

Starting from scratch, if I have a hitch put on to my car, any suggestion on which bicycle rack to start with. Will any of them be more secure than others? Looks like I am purchasing a used Catrike 700 to start with which is pretty long.

 

Sorry, no pictures of that set up. I think I had a 2 inch square Thule bike rack set up for 4 bikes. The welding shop did a great job and you had to look hard to see the insert.

The hitch looked something like this.



The vertical piece gets cut and you add an additional 12 - 18 inches depending on you size of your car and trike.

 

Found another picture of my trike set up.

 

my .02$ As a fabricator in another life I really like the idea of lengthening the existing rack but I would add that you are stressing the design of the original. Not a show stopper but I would recommend adding a gussett to the 90 degree angle just to be safe. You should also frequently inspect the welds for stress cracks. Anything that looks like a crack in the paint is probably suspicious for a crack in the weld.

Jerry

 

Great ideas

I am going to ask around to find a shop that can do this.

Thanks