Check it out! Wheels!

There's a red support post holding it up, because the wheels aren't attached yet. Attaching the wheels is going to be a delicate operation to keep everything lined up and balanced, but here is the trike (less the seat), it's first real appearance.

Clever Solutions to Stupid Mistakes

#1 Rear Wheel Misalignment
Okay, this is not so much of a clever solution. It's more a stupid solution to a stupid mistake.

The rear wheel must, of course, be mounted with the gears on the correct side of the bike, so it lines up with the gears on the crank set.

Once I did that, my problem went away.

#2 Chinese Crap
This solution is more clever. It turns out that the biggest problem with the bearing set was that the parts had been tightened too much. Once I loosened appropriate nuts, the sensation of riding on a cog railway went away.

Okay, a better solution would be to throw the Chinese crap away and buy real bike parts. This is a poor man's clever solution.

Stupid Mistakes #2

I did it! I bought the kid bikes from which I will harvest the front forks. Walmart kid bikes are much cheaper than buying the parts from even online bike shops, and who knows? I could even put the rear section together with the front wheel from the mountain bike and make a delta trike later.

I got what I paid for, which is Chinese crap. The steering and the axle turn like in place of ball bearings, they have twenty-sided dice. If you apply a little force, they go bump-bump-bump, about 3-4 bumps to go through an eighth of an arc. Swell.

Stupid Mistakes #1

Dang!

Anyone else trying this, learn from my supid mistakes. When attaching the rear fork into the bike frame, do it with the wheel in the fork. I just put the wheel into the fork, and it's all but impossible to keep it from rubbing up against either the bamboo, the brake, or both.

Now I have to cut off the rear fork and put it back on again.