Got me one of these:
It's a Worksman Front Loader Tricycle, actually. Think I'll just call it The Thing.
Bought it off Ebay. Maybe payed a bit too much, but they're sort of scarce, and generally local-pickup only, so you can be waiting a long time for one to pop up in your neighborhood.
This one has been rode hard and put up wet, so to speak. I don't know how old it is. It's missing the rear fender. The rear wheel is not the original Worksman wheel, although it seems fairly heavy. The coaster brake has a lot of slack, so you can actually run the pedals a full revolution before hitting the brake. The front platform is a metal angle frame with a plywood bottom. That plywood is in pretty crummy condition, and I'll try to replace it tomorrow. There has been some welding done on the frame, so I'm not sure what was done or why.
The platform measures 30"x34", I think. The frame actually has handle holes on two sides, so you can rotate it to be 30" wide or 34" wide. The 34" wide would give you a bit more knee room, the 30" is more likely to fit through doors. The plywood bottom of that platform just bolts to the springs, and it would be pretty simple to make any kind of homemade box or container or platform and bolt it up there.
These things can handle quite a bit of weight on the platform. However, that weight ideally needs to be pretty well centered over the front axle, as those springs are also the only thing that keep it from tilting front-to-back. It doesn't look to me like a good pedicab base.
The Thing is heavy. It's not that noticeable at first, because most of the weight is in the front. But, upon loading it in the Vue, I noticed the weight there.
Riding it is a very strange experience that takes some getting used to, but it sort of grows on you, too. On the one hand, you don't need to balance it like a bike, but on the other hand, you can't, and that gets irritating. So if you're on sloped ground, The Thing is going to lean, and you just have to deal with it. Riding it on a sloped shoulder of a road would get irritating, I can tell. I guess I was riding at maybe 8-10 mph maximum, maybe not that fast. But you have to slow down considerably for curves, and for a sharp corner, you almost have to stop. The steering is not stable like most bikes, and some minor bobbles (trying to ride with one hand, for example) can get you some fast back-and-forth oscillations. It is geared low (although I'm not sure if either front or back sprocket is original!), but I still had to hop off to push it up a sort 20% incline on the bike path. But on the longer less-steep inclines, no problem. The seat is down fairly low, not good for riding efficiency, but raising it would make the balance issue worse, so I'll likely leave it as is.
I rode this around the local bike path, about 3 miles. Got some odd stares, not odd like "Look, a unicycle!" stares, but odd like "What is that and why is that man riding it" stares. I shall have to make a trip or two to Wallyworld with it, which is fortunately within easy Thing range. I'm contemplating taking it on one of these group rides, and the more I think of that, the better I like the idea.
