Greenspeed

They are the Godfather of trikes. I ordered these recumbent bicycle plans 6 months ago. They come with 15 CAD drawings, complete with measurements and instructions for building every aspect of the trike, a wheel building chart to calculate spoke length, and a parts list. You won't have to guess at anything.

If you do have questions you can email Paul Simms who runs the factory. They always answer emails within a few hours even though they're on the other side of the world! They make you feel honored.

It's amazing that the world's #1 recumbent trike manufacturer will just sell their blue prints to anyone who'll buy them. It's a great value. It's an OPEN SOURCE bent!

Thunderbolt Trike

Detail, detail, detail. Ricky Horwitz has done a great job with the Thunderbolt Trike concept. These plans are available for FREE through the International Human Powered Vehicle Association. It's more than a set of plans. It's an all out treatise on building trikes. Somewhere on the site Mr. Horwitz says he wants to known as the man who wrote THE BOOK on trikes.

Horwitz has been building trikes for about 12 years, which is almost as long as Greenspeed has been around.

Topics include:

• Steering System Theory
• Brake Systems
• Welding Options
• Parts and tools needed
• Chain Management
• Seat Building

Overall, this is a great way to get started in building a trike without spending any money on recumbent bicycle plans.

Long Wheelbase Plans:

The Gold Rush design is the bent that broke the 50mph speed barrier. The Tour Easy, the consumer version, is a strong design. Bents built from these plans have been known to hole 260+lbs riders plus a trailer and gear. It's a great way to get into recumbent cycling at little cost.

If you have a old mountain bike or even and old 10 speed laying around you can reforge it and give it new life. No sense in throwing away your old bike(s).

Backyard Bents's plans are the similar to the recycled recumbent design above. These plans have been in existence for at least 20 years. The footnotes in the text site books are from the mid 70s. No one knows where the plans came from or who made them, but they are widely available on the net and it's a proven design. Plus, it's FREE!!! I think of them as (OBS) Open Source Recumbent Bicycle Plans!

La bent by Ladue Recumbent Bicycle Plans

I bought a set of these plans a couple years ago when I first got into recumbent bikes. I bought both the LWB and delta trike versions. The plans are well laid out and give a list of items to buy. Ladue has included many CAD drawings to help understand the process.

I think this is an awesome bike build. LaDue calls for square mild steel tubing to keep cost down, but 4130 chromoly steel is a much better choice.

• Chromoly is 3x as strong as mild steel given the same thickness.
• 4130 chromoly steel is relatively cheap. It's been around for decades.
• Plus, it's airplane tubing. This means you'll have a bike which is 3x stronger and much, much lighter simply by changing the metal. Plus, cost would not increase very much. $60 - $70 is about all it would cost for tubing in chromoly for this bike.