This is just a novelty really, I dont need any more speed, i dont even care about the top speed, but I was just thinking...

My speedo is not working and until I get it sorted when I get my new fatter front end, I have just been using my Phone with teh speedo on the phone, and thats kind of rubbish.

But anyway, I went out the other day with my mate on hos Honda CBX750 and me on my XL1200C Trike, and when we were on the motorway and it was all open to us, I decided to give the thing a good hammering.

I was clobbering along and as I went thgouh the gears, I seemed to have found its top speed because when Ichanged up a gear, it made no difference and the engine just slowed and relaxed a bit more... Droping back down didnt help, the speed it just made it rev more... If you get my meaning!

Then Andy, my mate, shot past me and he reconed I was doing about 75mph

I could not get it any quicker then that.

Surely I should get more?

Again, I dont really care if I am honest. I didnt buy this to break any speed records, I bought it cos its delicious.

Any thoughts?

 

Any idea of weight on your bike?

 

In the good old days, when sidecars were more popular over here, it was routine to significantly lower the gearing, partly to improve accelerating a heavy outfit, also to give it a decent top speed. These days such things tend to be ignored, also changing overall gearing isn't always very simple. The fact your trike slowed when in a higher gear emphasises the fact that your gearing is very tall, relative to the frontal size of it.

You could consider changing your 1200 gearing to 883, which involves using a smaller front pulley and possibly a shorter belt and should give you some improvement in all-round performance. A further consideration is that if your bike is a genuine UK import, it may have taller than US gearing, in other words a 30T front pulley, instead of US spec 29T. An 883, depending on model year, can have a 28T.

What year is your bike, so we can delve a little further?

 

Thanks guys.

Weight?
Dont have a clue. Heavy, is about the best you will get from me at this time... LOL
I really dont have a clue where I could take it to get it weighed if I am honest.
Its clearly a tad heavier than stock, but as to what the extra is, I dont know?

Gearing.
It has a chain as opposed to a belt. Im sure that stock has a belt, I has asked the guy who sold it to me, wether it was belt or chain, but the trike conversion is now chain.

The axle is based on a Reliant 3-wheeler.
I can see this quite clearly, but the diff has been hacked up to take the chain and sprockets.

My BMW Trike used a Reliant Regal. This was a useless idea because it made the BMW a slow ***** of a trike... Top end being about 65mph, however I used to pop wheelies on that really easily which wasboth scary and immense fun at the same time.

This, is clearly nowhere near as capable of that kind of sillyness.

Actually, it could just simply be perhaps, if it was belt, that he got the convertion wrong when he calculated the number of teeth?

I will have to look into it later.

As I said its not like its a big deal, the trike rides nicely enough, but in top gear, it simply dos not like it... 3rd is the optimum for the open roads / speed. 4th is just relaxed and 5th is where it struggles to keep it up/// to be fair, its more borderline... It can stay there, but it wont help get a bit more MPG out of it unless Im downhill and uphill it will slow it down.

 

For our foreign readers the Reliant Regal was a very lightweight 3-wheeled car/van, long deceased, but their 700/750cc alloy engines and lightweight rear axles continue to find their way into all manner of motorcycle-based vehicles!



Your trike is obviously a UK-based conversion, which makes things a little challenging regarding it's overall gearing, which is plainly way too high. I suspect whoever converted it is limited by the hardware available and it may not be possible to change your gearing readily, if at all. We would need some photos of the chain drive and diff, to see if we can fathom out a solution. Matt, on the other hand, is accustomed to custom work.

 

Yes, that picture IS indeed of a RELIANT REGAL.

However, my axel is based on the RELIANT RIALTO.

There is also a ROBIN and even a KITTEN, all of which are very much used for trikes.

Now, I have been told, that the REGAL is the one to avoid as its gearing ratio is poor.
I had the REGAL on my BMW K100 and that is why that trike revved so high and only had a top end of around the 65MPH mark, or at least it ws about 65MPH was when I backed off cos it was red-lining the Tacho in 5th gear.
Had a ny of the others been used, it would NOT have had such a poor gearing ratio and would have made for a much better trike overall.

I am ONLY going by what I have been told, and a few trike builders have verified this to me.

Anyway, I have tried to take some pics of my axle with the chain adaption. Appologies if they are no good.



Is that oil or **** on that sprocket?
Ill have to have a peek later on.