The Wide Glide Frankenstein Trike Conversion Has Begun...

TinCupChalice · Jul 1, 2018

A wash, detail wax, and then a ride about town in 91° temperatures. Got busted by the Lady as I was heading out of the driveway :laugh:

Thank you, Lee H. Mann! I will be looking in to this!

ol' school · Jul 1, 2018

Looks good Darryl! Have fun riding it!

FuzzyWuzHe · Jul 1, 2018

I'm liking the forward controls ... don't forget ... you don't need to put yer feets down anymore ... don't ask how I know ... LOL.

TSport · Jul 24, 2018

Extended Front End

We just ordered a Frankenstein kit for our 07 Street Bob, and plan to install it in October. The plan includes extending the front end 6 inches and using raked triple trees. It looks like your front end is extended. How do you find the handling?

TinCupChalice · Jul 28, 2018

TSport said:
We just ordered a Frankenstein kit for our 07 Street Bob, and plan to install it in October. The plan includes extending the front end 6 inches and using raked triple trees. It looks like your front end is extended. How do you find the handling?

You will really love the Frankenstein conversion; it is beautifully made!

My fork tubes are a +3" over '10 - up Wide Glide, so they're 30". I'm using the stock Wide Glide trees and I don't find I'm having any problems with the handling. But, I have an example of one; this is my first trike. Maybe it does steer 'heavy' and I just don't know it :laugh: One thing I did do was to tighten up the fallaway somewhat and that made a difference in the stability during cornering and slow speed handling.

On my wish list is to look in to using trees to get more rake; but then I'll want longer fork tubes again. It's a vicious cycle, but for now I'm riding it as is and really enjoying it; I do wish I'd have done this conversion much sooner...

TSport · Aug 1, 2018

TinCupChalice said:
You will really love the Frankenstein conversion; it is beautifully made!

My fork tubes are a +3" over '10 - up Wide Glide, so they're 30". I'm using the stock Wide Glide trees and I don't find I'm having any problems with the handling. But, I have an example of one; this is my first trike. Maybe it does steer 'heavy' and I just don't know it :laugh: One thing I did do was to tighten up the fallaway somewhat and that made a difference in the stability during cornering and slow speed handling.

On my wish list is to look in to using trees to get more rake; but then I'll want longer fork tubes again. It's a vicious cycle, but for now I'm riding it as is and really enjoying it; I do wish I'd have done this conversion much sooner...

Thanks for the feedback. (I chose your conversion to make my first post on this forum because I love the look of your trike.) About 7 or 8 years ago, my local HD dealer loaned me a demo trike for a day (don't think they would do that today). I actually only kept it for an hour, but discovered that I really hated it for the first 30 minutes. After the initial shock, I started to adapt and came to the conclusion that with maybe a week or two of riding time, I could probably be quite happy with it.

I ride an 01 FXDXT 103 and my wife has the Street Bob which is mostly stock. Because of physical issues, riding more than an hour has become a concern. I finally convinced her that a trike is the solution, especially as she is no longer keen on just being on the back of mine. However, I do see us eventually getting back to being a one bike couple (where I may have to take the back seat from time to time). So, this also will be a "bucket list" type of bike for me, that is a custom bike. The last time I had a bike with an extended front end was back in the seventies, and it was a 6" extension on a '71 xs650 with no change in rake. Can't remember ever having a problem with that setup.

Back to our conversion. I'm letting a local independent shop (B.A.Machine performance cycles) do all the work, as well as work out the geometry, as they have decades of relevant experience and have made several Frankenstein conversions in the past couple of years. I'm hoping the raked and extended front end will help keep the trike tracking straight, but that turning will not become even harder. Another thought I'm having is to drop a tooth off the transmission pulley as we don't ride much over the speed limits (and mostly on the back roads at that) and sixth gear isn't used often. In a couple of years we will be doing a performance upgrade to the engine as well.

I hope you will post again after getting more miles on your trike and let us know what changes, if any, you think could improve the experience.