On the trike's drive train, I have upgraded the gears by adding a Schlumpf mountain drive (a huge success - very happy), short cranks (very successful), Terracycle chain idlers (a complete disaster), a better quality chain (big positive difference), and upgraded the rear gears and gear shifters (very positive change). Read on...

Schlumpf Mountain Drive for climbing steep hils

After some initial problems, I now really like my Schlumpf mountain drive. Read on...

When I got my trike I immediately found that the 30-42-52 Campagnolo triple in the front, and the nine speed 11-32 cassette in the rear did not give a sufficiently low gear for riding here in the mountains.

So the first thing I did was to change the 30T (30 teeth) on the front to a 24T. None of the bike stores I called carried the required 24T 74BCD (BCD=bold circle diameter, or the size needed to fit). But I found a nice  Blackspire 24 T online for a good price, and ordered that. It is ramped (makes gear changes smoother) and nice and light. It worked out very well, giving me a gear inch range (see below for a definition) of 14.12-94.5.

However as the illness I have progressed and I became weaker, I found that I wanted something even easier. After looking into various options, I decided to purchase a Schlumpf Mountain Drive from Switzerland. Various online retailers carry them. Order the Mountain Drive, the Installation Kit, an extra lubrictation kit, and a spare set of gear change buttons. I made the mistake of going through a dealer (silly me!). After three months of waiting, the wrong items arrived at a cost far in excess of what the dealer had quoted, or what I would have paid if I ordered online instead. Ouch!  Installation is very simple. Just follow the instructions that come with the Schlumpf Mountain Drive. Here are the basic steps:

1. Remove the current chainrings, pedals, and bottom bracket. On my QNT this meant purchasing a $20 Park tool specifically designed to remove a Campagnolo bottom bracket. With this tool, removal is easy. Use a crank puller (I found a $10 one online), then remove the cranks, chainrings, and the bottom bracket. Pack it all up and save it for that second trike when you win the lottery.
2. Camphor the edges of the bottom bracket shell. The Mountain Drive is held in place by pressure. So the bottom bracket shell is camphored to exactly match the mounting rings of the Schlumpf drive. To do this, I rented a camphoring tool from a Schlumpf dealer - he mailed me the tool, and I sent it back when done. Using the tool is easy. There are only two small tricks involved - (1) turn the tool in the cutting direction only, never backwards or you will get burs in the metal and (2) measure very carefully with good calipers, as in the first picture below. The camphoring must machine the bottom bracket shell so that the outer diameter of the camphor is 39 to 39.5 mm. This exact dimension is important, so work slowly. It is actually very simple, just take your time and measure frequently. Do both sides of the bottom bracket shell. Then on the right hand side, use a small file to slightly roughen the section you just camphored. The slight roughening will help hold the Mountain Drive in place.
3. Install the Mountain Drive. Place it into the bottom bracket shell which you have camphored to the right size. Use the tool in the middle picture below, which came with the Mountain Drive. Tighten everything to the pressure indicated in the instructions supplied with the Mountain Drive. If you do not have a torque wrench with which to do this, just tighten it really tight. Then the first few times you ride, take the tool with you so that on the off chance there is any slippage, you can snug it up again. The third picture below is the Mountain Drive installed on my trike. The big round thing is a "trouser guard" or bashee. Not necessary but a nice thing to have to protect the drive and your pant leg.
4. Adjust front Derailleur cage to the right hight for the new gears. Since I went from a triple to a double, I also needed to adjust the "stop screw" (the small screw which limits how far the derailleru cage moves when you change gears) so that it did not go too far too the left when moving from the large chainring to the smaller one.

Finally, when you order from Schlumpf you can specify crank length. I chose a 127mm crank length (the usual length is 170mm). Sort cranks work very well for me. They save the knees and automatically increase your cadence (a good thing). See here for more information and some science regarding the the pedals and cranks I use. I personally would never go back to long cranks, although YMMV. See above under "Pedals" for some science regarding short cranks.

Schlumpf Mountain Drive Pros and Cons:

• Pros:
  • Wide gear range perfect for very steep hills
  • Can instantly change from high to low or low to high gear range while stopped at a traffic light
  • Solidly built
• Cons:
  • Very expensive
  • Heavier than some alternatives
  • Requires several rotations of the cranks to change gears when in low mode - fast gear changes are problematic
  • Need to permanently modify the boom by camphoring (grinding) the bottom braket shell by renting special tool
  • Noisy even after the break in period of a few hundred Km
  • Noticable drag in low gear even after the break in period
  • Need to add special oil every couple of thousand Km (the O-ring leaks, albeit slowly)
  • Cannot use elliptical with the Mountain Drive
  • Cannot install or swap ordinary chainrings without removing entire mechanism from bottom bracket (a real pain)
  • Must spin the pedals much faster than normal when in the low gear range. If you have health problems making this difficult or impossible, it means that whilst you can indeed climb steep hills, you will be much - even very much - slower than with alternate systems such as an SRAM rear internal hub.

I now have a range of 8.8 to 90 gear-inches, which is fine for most of the riding around here on steep logging roads.
Incidentally, the correct formula for gear inches is: (number of teeth on the front cog / number of teeth on the rear cog) * actual-tire-diameter.

Update1: Well this is interesting... after struggling along for a maybe 400-500 Km with the situation described above, the Schulumpf Mountain Drive has suddenly started to work much better. It is quieter, smoother, easier to change gears from high to low range, and had less drag. I wonder if there was a manufacturing flaw in mine, because the change was very sudden - over the space of about 5 Km everything suddenly and drastically improved. Now the drive is noticeably better, and I actually have started to like it (whereas before I had been cursing having wasted my meagre finances on the thing). Hmm - yes I feel there must have been a manufacturing flaw which self-rectified somehow.

Update2: Okay, an additional 10 thousand Km have gone by. The Schlumpf has been flawless since the change described above. I actually like it a lot now, and would highly recommend the Mountain Drive for anyone needing a really low gear range on a trike, with the sole caveat that you cannot use elliptical chain rings. Would I choose it over an internal rear hub such as the SRAM or Shimano NEXUS? Yes. It is easier to use (at least for me), and less complicated during riding. Using the Schlumpf allows me to use any rear cassette I wish, yet still achieve the nice low gears I need for mountain riding. For me, it now works extremely well and I am very happy with it. Also Schlumpf's customer service is excellent.
 

Terracycle Chain idlers:

Well, unlike the happy story of the Schlumpf mountain drive, adding these chain idlers have not worked for me.

My birthday was coming up and I had heard great things about Terracycle's chain idlers. I did a little research, checked with some other trikers, and heard only positive things. And one of those things was that with the Terracycle idlers it would be possible to get rid of the chain tubes. Now do not get me wrong, the chaintubes on my ICE QNT and the chain idler work extremely well together. Never any problems at all. But... and this is just me, the noise of the chain going through chain tubes on my quiet rides high in the mountains had always bothered me. The other thing people kept telling me was that the power transfer of Terracycle's power-side idler was very good.

So, I ordered two chain idlers (power and return idlers). My first hint of possible problems was that within days of my order Terracycle began to offer much less expensive idlers - something they had neglected to mention when I ordered. Oh well... so I installed the rather expensive idlers. They did not work. They were very noisy, and very stiff. After much back and forth emailing to Terracyle, I returned them. The company tested them, found that they were indeed faulty, and sent me new ones. I only had to pay shipping and customs duties - twice. 

I tried the repaired idlers, and this time they did indeed work. Great. I liked them and rode for a few thousand Km. Then, one day whilst ascending a hill, the Terracycle-supplied bolt holding the idlers to the frame snapped in two. It broke is such a way as to leave part of the bolt firmly embedded in the frame. And part somewhere on the street. Luckily I was able to retrieve the idlers but it was a very long way home in the rain. Since health problems make walking difficult, it was difficult to get back home.

After a rest I found that the Terracycle bolt was so deeply embedded in the frame that it could not be extracted. No amount of drilling with cobalt drills, seeking help online, seeking help from Terracycle... nothing could extract the broken bolt. In fact the effort of so doing had destroyed the threads in the frame which had held the original ICE setup. Sigh. After some emailing to the company, they suggested I purchace a clamp from them to hold the idlers -  another $75 after shipping, duty, etc. Well made, but unfortunately it did not work for me.

Now - a word about bolts on trikes: On airplanes there have been problems with broken rivets, bolts, etc. breaking. Investigations by airlines and various governments has turned up literally millions of poorly made counterfeit bolts and rivets originating in China, stamped and packaged to look exactly the same as properly forged steel. Including the 'made in Britain' or 'made in the USA' counterfeit. Impossible to differentiate without electron microscopy. I wonder if that is why my apparently strong solid steel bolt broke to strew my shiny new idlers all over the road?

Conclusion - I purchased some parts from ICE, including their excellent new line of idlers (much better than the ones which had come with my trike originally). After over a month with an unusable trike, I am now riding again thanks to ICE. Good.

Update: Someone wrote to me telling me about his experience in making his own idlers. I have since tried this and it is actually quite straightforeward to make nice idlers for your trike. There are several ways of doing this - use your favorite search engine to find a method you like an make your own in an afternoon. Fun!.

Chain:

The inexpensive KMC z-series chain supplied with my trike began to wear out after only 800 Km. You can tell if the chain is wearing when, even though you keep the chain nice and clean and well oiled and the dérailleur is in good shape, gear changes become sluggish, jumpy, or noisy. So I replaced it with SRAM chains. Remember it takes three chains linked together to make up the length needed for a trike. Much better! The SRAM chains last me around 30,000 Km before needing replacement. Just keep them clean and well greased with any good chain lube (I use ProLube and Phil Woods oil). The chains come with gold colored quick connectors which make it easy to open the chain up for maintenance if you should need to do so. If like me health issues make it too difficult to use a chain tool, these gold links are the only way to go. Practice a bit at home first. I find that I can open the chain up without needing hand stregth - it is just a matter of the right technique. Practice and you will be fine.

Update: ICE now provides SRAM chains as standard. Greenspeed will also add this if you wish, which I really suggest you do.

Rear Cassette:

I next removed the old Shimano 11T-32T rear cassette and installed an SRAM 11T-34T casette instead. This worked perfectly with my new chain, and also provided a lower (easier) gear for the hills. And it was a nice bright red color matching my trike - vitally important .
 

Shifters:

Some folks like thumb shifters for changing gears on their trikes. I had these on my first trike. But I noticed fatigue after long rides from having to constantly move my hands up and down the steering column to shift, and from having no place to rest. But in the past I had tried the alternative - twist shifters - and did not like them. However, when I got my ICE QNT trike, it came with twisters as standard, so I thought I would give them a try, figuring I could always change to thumb shifters if I wished, as I had saved these from my old trike.

After a few only a few thousand Km I found that my wrists were hurting from the force required to change gears using the supplied no-name grip shift twisters. It turned out that there had been friction inside these no-name shifters which had gradually worn away small bits of the wire cable leading to the derailleurs. The wire then wrapped around the internal mechanism of the shifters making it progressively more difficult to shift gears. Not good. This occurred on both left and right hand shifters. But I found a pair of SRAM X9 shifters on sale at a country store of all places, and installed those instead. Much better. Unfortunately SRAM uses a 1:1 actuation ratio versus the 2:1 needed for my rear derailleur. Uh oh. With a quick look online though, I found a good price for an SRAM X9 rear deraileur, removed the old Shimano Deore dérailleur that had come with my trike, and installed the SRAM X9.

Wow - what a difference! Gear changes have ever since been very crisp and easy. With the complete drive train now running SRAM X9 components the chain is quiet, shifting gears is precise, and all is right with the world! If you decide to go this way too, I feel that it is worthwhile to get a good caliper (I found a digital caliper on sale for $20). This will allow you to quickly set the rear dérailleur to a 5mm distance from the cogs on the rear cassette. I found that more than 5mm or less than 5mm adversly effected gear changing.

Update: ICE now provides the same SRAM groupo as standard. Good!