Mark's Greenspeed GTO

	My Greenspeed GTO
This one is fast, fun, and a great work trike too.	My son Eli trying out the seat.	People that would normally be telling me to get off the road lean out their windows asking where they can get one.

Here is a shot of my Greenspeed GTO as it is set up for doing it's general business around town and beyond. I really enjoy commuting on this trike and it gracefully handles all the needed accessories well. Those large pails on the back are Rubbermaid (R) small trash cans that I have been using as panniers for about ten or eleven years on various bikes. Click here to find out more. I also have an Air Zound horn fenders two Cat Eye micro headlights up front and a couple of blinkies in back. Not to mention fenders and of course a Mueller fairing. Also check out the puddle pan I made below.

Here is a close up of the left king pin showing the mirror extended out to the side more so I can see around my trailer when it is loaded. Also the Air Zound horn and control is mounted just below the mirror on the king pin extension. You can see the air reservoir on the main tube ahead of the axle.

January 5th, 2002, I went to a time trial. I wanted to ride my V2 with body sock but it has limited storage for sweater, pants, food, etc. I wanted to pedal there for a warm up rather than driving the car. So I loaded it onto the trailer and then hooked it up to the GTO. (That's my daughter Talia trying out the comfortable ride.)

There was a chance of rain so I figured I might as well put the fold up shelter on as insurance. So by doing all this I committed at least 3 road bike faux pas: 1. I road a recumbent in the time trial. 2. I road another recumbent to get there. 3. I carried a lot of stuff with my trike.

When I arrived I mentioned that I had committed several faux pas and what they were. Got a good chuckle from the others. I got second in the time trials, 32:45 versus 32:14. The course record is 29 minutes and some change set by Wes Thornton who is dramatically faster than I am on similar bikes (stretching similar a lot since I never ride a diamond frame, although Wes is considering doing some racing on a recumbent). If I had a sock for the Greenspeed and maybe if it were a GTX I would have ridden that. I am testing this V2 with sock so I wanted to get some miles on it. I did 28 MPH for several miles on the down wind section which is flat.

On the GTO with the trailer and stuff I averaged 9.5 mph against the wind for 6.3 miles to get to the races. My top speed was 28 mph down a hill. On the way back I averaged 9.8 mph with the wind but with a good climb. In spite of being a little spent I went over 14 mph on some of the flats, and about 10 to 12 most of the time, except for the climb which was a slow but not too strenuous granny ring affair. I was thankful I wasn't trying to keep balance at 2 mph up the steepest part in a bigger gear.

Rain		It rains a lot here in Eureka so I am always on a quest for a drier ride. Besides having a full set of fenders and a fairing I felt there was room for improvement. Here is a "Puddle Pan" I made for my GTO. It is fastened by two zip ties and the seat. It keeps my butt dry when the roads are wet.
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	On November 2nd 2002 I broke my leg. Even though I don't do a lot of miles, I do need to ride on a regular basis or I go nuts and drive my wife crazy. So here is how I fixed my trike so that I could pedal with my good leg. First I made a sling for my left leg out of PVC pipe that I heated in the oven and hand molded to fit my leg. A couple of my friends helped by making a metal structure to hold the plastic sling and with molding and installing the sling. I rode 22 miles that way and found that the hardest part of pedaling is getting my foot up on the back side of the stroke.
	So I hooked up a bungee cord over the fairing mount and found that it was easier to pedal. However I quickly wore a bungee to the point that it was fraying at the point where it was sliding over the fairing mount. My brother Carl and I then installed a pulley to handle the bungee. And here are some pictures of it. The bungee pulls up and back so that it is wound up on the power side of the stroke and draws my foot back and up on the return stroke. The pulley is fixed and angled so that the bungee does not derail pedaling in either direction.
	The pulley wheel is a Skyway wheel chair front wheel, 6 inches in diameter. It's support is brazed to the top of the leg holder sub-frame The bungee is attached to the laces near the toe of my SPD shoe. This seemed to be the safest place to assure that the bungee didn't get sprung off during the stroke. The bungee is strung diagonally across the trike to the left king pin mirror mount so that if it does snap. It is not in line with my face and other sensitive parts of my body. My initial experience of riding one legged on a recumbent is that hills and acceleration are slower. These two factors are affected most because maximum push is over time is reduced when you have one operative leg (no duh). Cruising speed is lower but not as much as I expected. I think this is because at cruising speed one is limited more by aerobic capability not max leg strength. So one leg can tax the cardiovascular system about as well as two. Part of my slowness can be attributed to the fact that I hadn't ridden for 5 weeks before this.