Best, Easiest, and Cheapest No Weld Drift Trike

If you haven't heard of a Drift Trike before Drift Trikes are tricycles that have slick rear wheels, normally made from a hard plastic called pvc. They are usually ridden on paved roads with a steep downhill gradient and some corners. Me and some friends stumbled across a video on youtube of people riding and wanted to try it out.

Unfortunately we had some limitations. We did not want to go out and buy a huffy slider because it was too much money and the fun is always in the build. As we began to look around for instructions all of the trikes we saw needed to use a welder which we do not have access to. So I set out to design the cheapest trike I could while using no welding and still making it function perfectly and look good.

Step 1: Find a Bike and Chop It

This actually was one of the harder parts just finding the right bike to use. I happened to find mine at a garage sale for $3. when selecting a bike the biggest thing is to find one long enough to fit you. After you get your bike the next step is to cut the top tube and the seat tube. Then take the rear axle bolt out of your rear wheel and put some pipe over it. This is where your rear axle will bolt to. I used 1" thick walled aluminum tube that i had laying around.

Step 2: Grinding and Cleaning Up the Cuts

This is just a cosmetic step. I grinded down all the cuts and applied bondo to make it look like no cuts had been made.

Step 3: Rear Axle Assembly

For my rear axle i used 3/4" square aluminum bar to keep weight down. i used a section 32" long. I then drilled and tapped a hole for my 3/8" rear wheels.

UPDATE: The 3/4" aluminum bar worked fine for me at 170 pounds but anything over that i would recommend using 1".

Step 4: Rear Wheels

For my rear wheels i did not want to go out and buy green machine wheels and we had 6" PVC sewer pipe we used for snowboarding laying around. So i decided to go with a six inch rear wheel. For some reason its hard to find six inch wheels but i ended finding some on surpluscenter.com. the only problem was the PVC was 6" outer diameter not inside. so to compensate i trimed off part of the wheel using a little jig i made for the table saw. after they were trimmed i just hammered them into place.

Step 5: Attaching the Rear Axle

For attaching my rear axle i replaced where the rear wheel bolted on with a piece of aluminum pipe. the pipe was bolted in using the existing rear wheel holes. the axle was then bolted to that pipe using U bolts.

Step 6: Paint and Your Done

Now after a few coats of primer and some paint your ready to rock.

You may have noticed i did not mention the seat. The seat seems to be the hardest thing to find. I used a seat from an old pedal go kart, but I've heard of people using anything from tractor seats to office chairs to stadium seats.

SEAT UPDATE: I have found that seats from school chairs work very well. i sourced my new seat from an old life guard tower that was being thrown out.