Rake & Trail

[drumdoctor]

Can anyone direct me to a good link that describes rake & trail and has diagrams?

I want to show my welder / fabricator so they know EXACTLY what I am talking about.

Thanks in advance and Happy Holidays to all the great members on here.

[Easyrider54]

Can anyone direct me to a good link that describes rake & trail and has diagrams?

I want to show my welder / fabricator so they know EXACTLY what I am talking about.

Thanks in advance and Happy Holidays to all the great members on here.

http://www.chopperhandbook.com/rockers.htm
This is a very good website. The guy is an old school chopper builder, who has a long history of building his own stuff, dating back to the 60's. The link above is specific to rockers and rake/trail, as it relates to springer forks, but if you go to his main page, it has all kinds of really interesting stuff about building springer forks, and all sorts of other stuff.
Glen

[RTwing]

This is a good article and does a nice job of describing the effects of actual rake and most importantly trail. However it is all about a standard leaning motorcycle and not a trike setup, the same dynamics applied to a trike would result in an undrivable vehicle. Also keep in mind rake and caster are the same thing and rake can only be changed by cutting the frame and changing the angle of the steering head. Many trike company's have what they call a rake kit but it's not a rake kit at all it's offset triple tree which change the trail but cannot alter the actual rake as that requires a cutting torch. The flop is caused by excessive camber and variable trail as the handlebars are turned. Steering dynamics on a 1-2 trike are difficult as there is little adjustablity on a large caster angle. The ideal layout would be 6 degree rake but then it would not have the same long lean look. The other option is to put the two wheels up front. That actually solves all the problems as now you are in the steerability and adjustability in parallel with the automotive field.
Trail on most motorcycles is 5-6.5 inches desirable on trikes is 1" or less this is very difficult to achieve on a standard trike but easy on a reverse trike.

http://ido-endeavor.com/why-reverse/