Perfect 3 Point Landing ?

#1
Well I have been addicted to trikes for about 43 years and have done a lot of play and racing and on the street and off road and I love the speed and the handling of a great running trike.
My first trike race was out in the Mohave Desert and their were about 50 trikes there I was riding a little 5 HP Briggs engine trike that was built by the man who I bought my store from Bud Berry. This was about the time when Honda brought out the first trike. I tried it once and didn't like it at all and one that caught my eye was an 8 HP Dune Gote it was well built and had a bigger engine
that first race was fun but it just set the hooks into me to find something better and so I ended up being a Tri-Sport dealer and they had the goods. Al Sport the parent company of Tri Sport did some experimental project to build up their reputation and one project was to build a bit trike to race in the Baja 1000 down in Mexico. So the built up a heavy duty fully suspended trike with a huge 600CC Herth snow mobile engine and it would just fly at over 130 MPH so the hired a professional off road driver and went out to pre-run the course and this big trike went off the top of a hill and it came down out of control and a 2 point landing and did many flips, rolls and totally destroyed that trike and some how the driver was not hurt too bad but that was enough for them to go back to the drawing board and gave up that idea.
I raced three times in the Barstow To Vegas off Road race that was about 175 miles long and I never even came close to finishing but still had lots of fun in the efforts. Spent lots of time and money and I have had a Tri-Sport on top of me and so the nick name of Killer was earned. I have been right around 100 on the open power line roads on that trike and it is very thrilling but your butt is so tight you can't even fart. So remember this not all landing are perfect, But enjoy your rides.
I will say I love telling the stories of the fun and adventures of being a triker and I have a lot of them.
Steve :scooter:

 
#4
Just who's looking

That part is OH so true. On the second try of the Barstow race I had a Tri-Sport TS290 with the CCW engine and it was kind of stock and only had a poorly engineered ( By Me ) Chain guard. and I had a real nice older leather pouch that I filled with spare chain , throttle cables and nice Craftsman hand tools.
Well when we woke up the mourning of the race there was around 20,000 people there from all over the country. So we had some breakfast over out camp fire and hot coffee of course. I think the race was to start at about 10 AM and it came around to making a head call ( Navy Term ) and there was about 30 porta potty's and each one had a line of many people waiting their turn and so I tried to put it out of my mind and went on getting ready for the Bomb drop that would start the race.
With somewhere around 3,000 riders in a line up 10 deep and about a 1/2 mile long when the bomb went off it was like a freight train was about to run you over the sound was so unreal. I had learned that it was not good to start taking off with all the bikes so I waited with all the other trikes tell the big dust cloud had subsided and I was passing riders who were survivals of crashes and dead engines and they were every where I went past in girl kicking to start her 125 Honda back to life and on and on and I went faster and faster hitting big rocks with that dumb chain guard that then was grinding away on my chain until it broke. So off to the side of the road and I had to then pull off the useless chain guard and replace the chain and I left that battered sheet of steel to rust away in the elements. So back in the road again passing many others that were having problems and the trail came to the bottom of a huge sand dune with about a 45 degree slope so I gave it all the power and started up the hill and all of a sudden I was loosing power big time and then the engine just died. So there I was stuck on the hill and I wasn't alone and what killed my engine was the magnetic properties of desert sand my point were grounded out. And that nice big leather tool pouch had gave up the ghost and all my nice Craftsman tools all along the trail. So I was DONE DONE DONE so I popped off the chain and dragged the Trike around to get off the big dune and rolled down to the bottom of the hill. So once I had resolved myself to the facts all of the tensions of the mourning were gone and I had to deal with the mourning head call ( GOOD GOING DUMMY NOW WHAT ) well there was not a bush over a foot tall any where around so I was kind of hiding behind the Tri-Sport and just then who shows up but that same Girl on her Honda 125 and I think she was so out of it in her own problems she probably didn't even see me there. Yes it still was fun and adventurous and a big learning tool. So make sure you plan your trips into the open country and pack in some T-Paper with you it pays off. LOL
Steve :scooter:
 

bikebudy

Banned - Must pay $500
#8
No T.P. :eek: Oh what to do, LOL

Good times I'm sure

Should have a thread " Story time with S. Durham ", Post a story once a week..
 

wjustice

Well-Known Member
#9
Even with your troubles it sounds like fun to me. I wish they did things like that on the east coast. But I'm not sure about an unsuspended trike racing across the desert. Sounds like a rough ride.
 
#11
More Stories Please......

Thank you Steven, great, great story.

This is what I want most in this site: more STORIES! Takes me back, makes me wonder. Almost NOTHING makes me wonder anymore, and that story transported me back 40 years. It was a nice ride. Do it again:thumbsup:

If everyone on this site told just one story like this from their lifetime of minibikes, it would be the best book to read ever.
 
#12
Runnaway Trike

Well here is another story I have never shared. There was a small trike club called the American Tri-Wheel Racing Association and they set up event and some were all out races and some were family fun days. All the events were in the desert and they would have flags out on the highway to guide you off the road to where we were to camp and most were overnighters. Well this was a hare and hound and just made for a family type of event. So I took my Tri-Sport TS290 and my brother in law and partner in D&D who we were in the Navy together Danny Daniels he brought the shop demo Tri-Sport RTS-8 so when the start of the race began we all started off toward the first check point on the marked trail I had no problems but Danny broke a throttle cable and the only fix was to take off the throttle cables outer housing and then wrap the throttle wire around his hand and kind of pull the cable by leaning forward all went well for a while but in a turn the bare wire cable made contact with the top of the spark plug of that 8 HP Tecumseh and Danny's bare neck well he jumped out of that trike and said words that only a sailor says when angry and Danny being a Missouri Farm boy knew the language. Well Danny was still out in the desert and had to get back on the trike and try it again and as there was no rubber boot on that park plug it happened again he ended up taking off his t-Shirt and wrapping it around the cable but he found out that cotton wasn't a great insulation from the voltage a revved up engine could produce but after a bit he made it back to the camp area with stories to tell. We all sat around the campsite sharing things about the day and there was a young boy putting around in a Dune Cycle 5 HP and he hit a bump and it bumped him out of the seat and the rider less Dune Cycle just kept running till it was out of sight so a few riders started after the little machine but it would just bump along the canyons and rolling hills all by it's self with it's new found freedom. That little trike went about 5 miles and quit when it ran out of gas. That was great weekend out camping and Trikeing.
Danny is gone now but the memories of the time we shared will continue for me.
Steve :scooter:

This is a picture of Danny and my Mother and me clowning around and a picture of Danny and I on a Roustabout Trike



 
#13
brought a smile to my face steve............was his hair kinked after that? awesome stories youre telling.........I bet there are plenty more.......
 
#15
Hi Tippy: Danny had natural curls in his hair I know he went to a barber almost every week. I could always tell when he came to the shop after his day job if he was cleaned up that meant there would be no time doing mini bike repair orders that day just sales work in the office.
Both of us had day time jobs I worked then at a Century City high rise building as a maintenance engineer and Danny did the same at a big Bakery. WE were both stationed on the Air Craft Carrier the USS Kitty Hawk CVA 63 and were boiler men.
Steve
 

wjustice

Well-Known Member
#16
Its funny with that kid story. Ive noticed from stories AND past expierence that these trikes, when you get in too deep, will spit you off and continue on. It's happened to me and i've heard you mention it. I've had atc's dump me and then run over me.
 

wjustice

Well-Known Member
#17
And I really like that pic of you with the TS290. I have one just like it. Do that one have extra fuel tanks on the back? It's hard to tell whats below the air cleaner.
 
#18
AS I remember the trike only had the one stock fuel tank. And in the picture the leather bag that dispersed all my tools and parts it was mounted behind the engine for that race, and there was a gas can on top the rack.
Steve
 
#20
Memories of the past are like a tattoo in your brain cells some good some not so good. Well here is one that makes me smile and has it own reward deep within.
Well it was a Sunday and I took my Dodge van and a little three wheeler and a mini bike up to Saddle Back Park a 500 acre pay to play and my favorite place to go. Well there was a lot of people there and when I was entering the park I say a young boy being dropped off with his mini bike a gas can and a sack lunch. So I set up my area next to the van and went about riding around and there was a lot of attention down in the speedway track because the once TV star Billy Gray from the show Father Knows Best was down there in an old panel truck and he had long scraggley hair and looked like a Dirty Hippy and he was doing laps and a lot of people just watched.
Well the young boy mentioned before was doing the same and was just sitting on his mini bike when a older rider crashed into his mini bike and just rode off. Well you boy was a little hurt but not too bad, but his mini Bike was in sad shape.
So I told him I would look at his bike and see if I could make it better. Well this was a shoe stringed together bike at best. The chain was two or three pieces all linked by master links. The clutch was shot and rattled a lot because of the slop in the bushing.
So I went to work and changed out the clutch with a new Horstman metal shoe clutch and cut and installed a new chain. New plug and I reworked the throttle assembly so that it was much smoother. So I made a new friend out of a stranger and I was paid in full all day long when he would ride around on his mini bike and say Hi and it's times like this that will last forever on my side of the tally sheet of life.
Steve
 
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