I’ve finally finished the Vortex-Leader custom trike today. Well, not finished-finished, but its ride-able again.
It took me a while to get motivated to remove the green powder coating from the Trice Leader rear frame and have it glass-pearl blasted and nickel-plated like the Vortex+ cruciform. It was well worth the 6 hour effort, though.

To adapt the 38mm diameter Trice rear frame tube into the 42.6mm Vortex cruciform, I’ve used a 250mm long V4A stainless steel tube with 42.4mm diameter and 2mm wall thickness, cut a few millimeter wide slot along its length and inserted it 150mm deep into the cruciform. Since the rear frame tube is only 0.2mm smaller in diameter, it just slides in without noticeable play, now.

The adapter tube its fastened with a high strength stainless steel tube clamp to the rear frame tube. A second tube clamp is used to mount the rear idler.

The waterproof Rockbros frame bags hide the adapter tube and rear idler and offer plenty of space for spare tubes, tools, Fumpa pump, battery and even the Abus Bordo X. That silver tube, zip-tied to the head rest, is a Rohloff Lubmatic automatic chain oilier, btw.

The 2004 Trice Leader rear frame didn’t have a disk brake mount, hence I had to get creative. Luckily, the old Avid BB7 has about the same color and finish as the nickel-plated frame.

Since the Novosport trike seat didn’t offer enough lateral support and wasn’t very comfortable to begin with, the 2012 ICE Trike hard shell seat is a tremendous update to the trike and looks much better.

For now, I’ve mounted the old Ginkgo idler that I ripped out of the Milan velomobile. The ball bearings are in less than satisfying condition, though. Not sure if I’ll put in a new Ginkgo idler or a TerraCycle idler. Also, the handlebar stem needs a new polishing.

