Originally Posted by
Shaman
I thought the cheetahs were made with carbon fiber? no? Anyway, there are a lot of trikes. Personally I would lean toward the ICE Q for it's novel design and the suspension. Otherwise I love my Actionbent tadpole trike and it is plenty fast. When I heard of a windcheetah breaking in half at speed, it kinda stopped all the drooling. The only true unique feature of the cheetah is that it has the over seat steering. It also uses a mono bearing trailing arm, but I don't see how that makes it any better than more traditional chainstays.
The Windcheetah uses aluminum tubes that are bonded into the lugs, of which there are 5 (I think) : front wheel knuckles, main cross, dropout, and bottom bracket. You can replace tubes yourself by heating up the joints to unglue them. The steering is via a joystick, which utilizes a universal joint. You lay the stick in your lap as you ride, and when you get off the trike, the joystick lays in the seat. As a result of the way the frame is made, the rear wheel is not centered in the track - that is, it is closer to the left wheel track than to the right wheel track.
If speed isn't an issue, the Catrikes are a lot cheaper.