the purpose of this section was to build a versatile and cheap full scale demonstrator to validate our rear steering concept before going further in the development

construction started in december 2008 and a first tricycle was ready to be ridden in May 2009.

the materials (including the wood) have been recycled from scraped machines and furnitures, the PU adhesive was out-of-date, only some bicycle components and hardware have been purchased for this development.

from may to august 2009 :

our demonstrator has undergone a few road tests, each time to try another variant of the previous design.
After a few iterations we have ended up with a roadworthy vehicle.

we have documented this work in the french spoken forum velorizontal.

The dedicated thread can be read here
the mosquito cannot really be classified as a proper tilting trike. The tilt is dependant from the steering, hence dependant from the curve's radius, whatever the speed of the trike.

Full advantage of the tilting capacity is achieved when cornering on a tight curve (4m radius) at a high speed. The mosquito can sustain a lateral acceleration of 0.7g without any loss of control. This feature out performs most of the non-tilting tadpole trikes -although the tilt angle as been kept as small as possible-

. indeed, a too high tilt value (above 20°) becomes uncomfortable when cornering at a very low speed. There is not enough lateral acceleration to prevent the pilot's back from sliding outside its seat.

on a large turn the trike leans a few degres only, the trike behaves like a non tilting trike.
A low speed is not an issue.
At high speed, in order to handle corners without the risk of rolling over, the rider Center of Gravity (CoG) must be low, and the track (the distance between the contact patches of the two outer wheels) must be wide
this condition dictates the track and wheelbase values.

unlike a tadpole trike, the mosquito over steers when turning. it's a built-in feature common to the delta tricycles family. To eliminate the risk of roll over, we have decided to go for a large track and a very low CoG. Moreover, the CoG is very closed to the steering axis.


and last the bump steer and all related issues are not a problem by adopting a well designed 4 bars linkage unlike other "one pivot steering" .