HANDBRAKE DESIGN IDEAS

This is the £58 brake calliper

original brake calliper fit

The dreaded handbrake on a Trike is a controversial subject, so just to tackle the subject head on, you must have a handbrake.

If you know of a loophole in the law that gets out of the handbrake requirement, then tell me because I can’t find one, when you read the MSVA Manual it leaves no doubt you must have a handbrake.

How you achieve the requirement is up to you, but the design criteria does not allow the handbrake to be a hydraulic type it must be mechanical, and you cant have a mechanical linkage holding a hydraulic brake on, it has to be all mechanical.

Most Trike's have a differential on the back axle but as the Lifan Trike does not have a differential.

The back axle is a strange layout, the left hand wheel is fixed to the axle by a big keyway, the right hand rear wheel is on its own bearing, so when you accelerate you will only get drive to the left wheel, however when you brake both wheels will be braked, as I said, strange layout.

One point you must consider is that a handbrake must be effective i.e. can’t drive away with it on.

I originally though the ideas for a handbrake fall into 3 basic ideas:

Two good ideas, one not a good idea.

1) Replace the existing hydraulic callipers with Hydraulic/Mechanical callipers there are a few about, one example is sold by "Rallydesign" but they are £58 each, I don’t know if it will fit the thin disc on the LIFAN Trike.

2) A second option is to fit additional mechanical callipers to each wheel, I am currently trying this, with ones I purchased from a shop called "Red" on E bay I think they came off a Mountain Bike and they do fit the thin disc, whether they are man enough for the job only time will tell.

3) The option of fitting one brake to the back axle itself will not be possible because the axle is not mechanically connected to the right hand wheel as I mentioned above.

Before you make your mind upon your back brake handbrake design I suggest you consider the existing rear brake design first, see the web page on back brakes on this website. (click here for the link)

So, how do you fix the handbrake problem ?????????????

Noting the comment above on the strange design of the back axle it seemed that no matter what handbrake design you fitted to each wheel, you would still get an element of differential braking because one wheel is connected through the axle and chain to the engine and the other wheel is free to do its own thing, not a very helpfull design really.

The MSVA braking test could fail your bike only because of the back axle design, so it was back to the MSVA manual for some inspiration, hey presto, the answer was there all the time, I just didn't read the words with an open mind, FIT THE HANDBRAKE TO THE FRONT WHEEL.